Heartwood
The price of New Heart Pine floors should depend on the amount of heart content on each board. Why? Heartwood is harder than the rest of the pine, we measure hardness using the Janka scale.
Heartwood and the Janka hardness scale
The Janka rating of New Heart Pine, is 1,240 lbs. (564 kg.), by comparison Northern Red Oak’s value is 1,290 lbs. (585 kg.). Full disclosure a Janka rating is hard to measure when the percentage is not 85% or more, as with our Caribbean Heart Pine. However, we see the color represents two desirable qualities in a pine floor, age and hardness.
Heartwood, commonly known as heart content consist of heart and sapwood. A good example is our character grade Heart Pine which has more knots and therefore more sapwood than a clear grade. Heart pine without sapwood will usually have more vertical grain, with tones that are more brown than the red found in sapwood. It should be noted that sapwood becomes as hard as heart pine as it is exposed to oxygen (dies), so the stability and hardness are equal no matter the percentage of heart to sap. Heartwood is where you find the character and color variation that makes pine floors desirable. The variations in sapwood and heartwood provide color changes that scream character.
What is Southern Pine – the tree which gives us heart pine
Southern Pine is not a species but rather a geographic marker from Texas to Virginia. The word yellow indicates the ‘hard’ pine species of Southern Pine, so yellow means hard and white soft. Loblolly the fast-growing species is what you farmed from Texas to the east coast. Alabama pine serves as the raw materials for our mature new Heart Pine floors. Alabama Heart Pine, while new is 4 -5 times older (more mature) than anything you are getting locally, no kidding. Farm raised Loblolly pine, fast growing pine, represents 95% of all pine harvested. For more information on the industry, i.e., what happens from tree to your job site, call SYP Direct today.
Heart content and Heartwood
Heartpine is a grade given to flooring with more than 50% visible heart content on the face over every board. Sapwood is alive and Heartwood is dead, what does that mean? Heartwood has less moisture than sapwood, until the Kiln. However, over time the tree “promotes” layers of sapwood to heartwood status. As the sapwood stops flowing through selected layers of the tree (dying) it becomes as hard as heart pine. The tree pores fill up with organic matter and the cell walls change color, ultimately becoming dryer and stronger to form Heartwood layers. In terms we can understand; sapwood becomes heartwood with time and a good Kiln.
What is Heartwood?
#2 Knotty up to 40% Heartwood
Be honest, did you realize these pictures were #2 Knotty Pine? Does it look anything like your local pine or box store stuff? No, and the reason is simply the percentage of heart pine in our #2 grade. Think about this, you can create a heart pine floor from our #2 grade, with just a little bit of planning. You simply sort for high heart content and strategically place those boards in high traffic areas of your house. Imagine creating a “Heart Pine” living room, with Knotty Pine in the bedrooms, which is one way to go.
More about US
With an A+ rating from the BBB, it is no surprise that we never misrepresent our floors in any way shape or form. #2 Knotty Pine, the perfect example of telling the 100% truth about the grade. We have no surprise cost, nor do we ever want a customer disappointed in quality. It is today, and our business will continue to be dependent on word of mouth and repeat business. Without quality, we have nothing. Email the real owner
Or visit Houzz to more more heartwood.
