We are getting close to finishing a major remodel of our 1960's ranch home and want to install the hardwoods soon.

The subfloor for 95% of the hardwoods area is 1x material (some areas its 1x4, some 1x6 and some 1x8 - never seen it mixed up like this!) that are run diagonally to the joists.

The house is in the Atlanta, GA area and has no heat right now. I was really hopping not to turn on the new furnace until the very end of the construction cycle so it doesnt suck in all the dirt and dust thats being created between trim, sheetrock mud, tiles being cut, etc info the new ducts and furnace. being that its winter, the Rh has been pretty low lately. Inside our current home a few streets away its been in the 30-45% range for the last few weeks, although its starting to slowly go up since we have been getting some rain.

Few Questions:
1) at what point in the construction timeline is it best to install the hardwoods? contractor wants to install it now, before the doors and baseboards are in. says its easier to install the doors (prehung) & baseboards on top of the hardwoods. Also getting close to cabinet install and they definitely want them installed by then so that they go under the cabs.

2) is it necessary to get the house heated before installing the new hardwoods? what about the humidity?

3) the joists are running in 2 different directions in the areas where we are installing the hardwoods. I know that they should be installed perpendicular to the joists, but we cant do that for the entire house or we would be changing directions in VERY awkward places and it would look terrible. Is this going to be a big issue? any way to improve this situation?

thanks in advance!

I think that the best time to install the flooring is after the tile and a couple of days after the walls and ceiling have been painted.
The door jambs with doors and stops should be installed, but the flooring should wait until the cabinets are installed.The casing for doors installed when the cabinets are being installed. The best would be to install the cabinet bases and then flooring, with the cabinet carcasses installed after the floors have been laid, but floors not finished. I like to have the flooring laid and then the edges sanded to 60 grit before the door casings are nailed to the jambs and cabinet carcasses are put onto the bases.
There are lots of ways to get the work done, but best to have your heating system working at least a couple of hours a day, or during the night and off during the day. Guys will be going in and out all day so it will be hard to keep the doors shut and feet wiped. Put some old carpet at the doorways to have people walk on as they enter, they will not stop to wipe their feet.

Don't listen to the builder, the hvac needs to be up and running (all day 24/7) for at least two weeks for the house to acclimatize per NWFA install guidelines. Just asking for trouble if you don't. Can't tell you how many times people have been here wondering why their floor is jacked up when it was installed with no heat and didn't check the MC of the subfloor and compare to the hardwood.

About the different joist runs, install 3/4 plywood then you can run the wood any way you want.

even if we get the heat running, the humidity wont be anywhere close to the humidity levels we get here in the summer. wont that cause a problem?

or is it that as long as the subfloor and the new wood are at similar moisture levels they will expand/contract at the same rate and that is ok?

for the joists issue, i read that another fix is to install blocking on the parallel joists every 24". is that an acceptable fix? a new layer of 3/4" subfloor will cause all kinds of other issues by making this part of the home higher than other adjacent parts (which in some cases are already 1.5"+ lower than this area)

The wood should be installed at the median Rh levels and moisture content over the course of the year, not the highest or lowest.

ok, got the heat going today so that should be good. want to get the wood ordered so that we can have it in the house and let it acclimate.

we are going with Red oak #1 and are debating on what width we should do?

1) is installing blocking on the parallel joists every x" an acceptable alternative to another layer of 2/4" subfloor?

2) Will a wider width like 4" or 5" planks be a better choice over 3.25" given that some will be installed parallel to the joists?

Blocking every 2 feet across the joists will be a great sub-floor system.
I would go with the 3,25 width because there will be more rows, so more nails to hold the wood down.
You can use a method to predict the width of the boards on average after they have acclimated with http://owic.oregonstate.edu/wood-shrinkswell-estimator
and then leave gaps every so often so the flooring may not cup from swelling under summer swelling when the humidity is high.

we are going with 2x6 blocking where the rood will be parallel for the joists, should we do the blocking on 24's or on 16's?

is there a way to just install it kind of "loose" meaning the boards arent pushed together very tight right now to leave room for swelling when it starts to get humid

Heat has been on in the house for the last 10 days or so but we are experiencing really cold temps and witht he contractors going in and out the house stayes in the mid 50's

wood was delivered 2 days ago. how spread out does it need to be to acclimate?

To install it loosely, you will need to leave a little gap between the new piece of flooring and the rows that are fastened down. The nailer will tend to slam the loose board toward the fastened rows, so you will have to use judgement for how far away the loose board is when you nail the first nail into the loose piece. Once you get the first nail into the piece to can still tap the board closer to the fastened rows if it is too much gap, before you do the final nails. It takes practice and you will need to check to see if the width of 10 rows will be close to the anticipated acclimated width. Remember that the projected width will be an average and with quatersawn stock the width will not change as much as plain sawn.
Wood will acclimate more slowly as temperatures are lower. Cold air will not hold as much moisture as hot air so it will take a lot longer for acclimation. Wood will need to absorb moisture from the air to acclimate, naturally.
Blocking every 24 inches will be fine for ¾ inch sub-floor.

i took a moisture meter out there yesterday and the wood and subfloor were all reading in the 5-7% range.

any idea what i should be shooting for?
will putting a humidifier in the house over the weekend help?

the wood is 3.25" red oak. seemed to be mixed sawn.
thanks for all the help

Moisture Content of your Red Oak should be at 10 1/2% moisture content which is the midpoint of the annual range for your location (Atlanta, GA).

According to the wood swell/shrink estimator <http://owic.oregonstate.edu/wood-shrinkswell-estimator?f=1>
you will need to make ten rows almost 3/8ths of an inch wider than 32.5 inches.
Based on Jimmie's 10-½ percent annual range for Atlanta.

would you recommend using washer rows?
3/8" is 5-6 washer rows (1/16" each) every 10 rows. i feel like the installer is going to kill me if i ask for that

highlighted sections of below file are where we are installing hardwoods. its about 1150sf. going to be parallel to the front/back of the house.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/8wa74c9nuoggjky/2-14-16-HW.jpg?dl=0
where do you propose starting from?
should i push them to start from a particular point and split the direction?
which wall should they base their line from?

thanks again

If the floor layer can meet the goal of spreading the flooring without washers then you won't need them.
Let the floor layer suggest where to start the job. I usually start on the longest straight wall.