Research and compare engineered to real wood flooring- Today, regrettably the process contains misinformation directing homeowners away from real wood. Not at SYP Direct, we want you to research and compare using information not marketing materials. Real is better than fake!

Solid versus engineered

Research and compare solid versus engineered floors- throw in LVT and laminate floor covers for kicks. As a buyer, online marketing and most local stores will have you buying covers not floors. What do we mean? Real wood is floor you buy whereas engineered and the rest, a floor cover. Comparing engineered versus real wood floors and you are comparing an investment to a product designed to fail. Yes, some are better than others but all floor covers have planned obsolesce in the blueprints. Want to read more- Investment Flooring. No matter how you keep score, engineered versus real wood is an unfair comparison. Hailed as a great innovation for homeowners, engineered floors are more popular than ever. Flooring companies love them because of the repeat business, huge margins and time savings compared to real wood.

We are unique

What about SYP Direct makes us so unique? Southern Yellow Pine Direct aka SYP Direct is the only true online pine flooring mill. Furthermore, Our mill partnership (s) allows us to manufacture using custom specifications aka milled to specs or milled to order.

1x4 Southern Yellow Clear Pine few knots

28 Sep

1×4 Clear Southern Pine

Our favorite Finishes, Wood Floor Shopping

Clear aka C and Better Southern Pine

Clear pine is tricky, how so? Well true C grade looks like our main picture, without any vertical grain or heartwood. However, you have Clear Heart Pine is not not C grade, but may or may not be vertical grain. Furthermore, Souther Pine may be quartersawn, producing vertical grain without heartwood.

SYP Direct is proud to offer our 1×4 Clear Southern Pine for $3.45 per square foot. Now that the price thing is out of the way, let me tell you more about the grade. If you are curious why Southern Pine is desribed as a 1×4 when it is actually neither one of those numbers, blame dimensional lumber. The terminology is what it is, but remember not all Southern Pine is created equally.

More about our Clear Southern Pine

Clear Southern Pine has a formal name, C & Better and it has “altered” names such as Select or Prime. Our C & Better is available in vertical grain (live sawn) Heart Pine, which is actually hand selected or just normal knot free Southern Pine. Vertical grain only available in 1×4, C & Better Southern Pine in 1 x 6 and 1 x 8, which are 5 1/8 and 6 7/8 respectively, both are cheaper than the 1×4 FYI.

Unfinished 5" C & Better

Finished for customer

Finished to order 1x4 Clear Southern Pine flooring

What is vertical grain?

Vertical grain is not quartersawn, but all quartersawn has vertical grain among other variations. Ok, forget that stuff, vertical grain heart pine is the middle of the tree- our 1 x 4 is no exception. Can vertical grain heart pine have knots? Yes, but they will be very tiny, pin knots if any.

Vertical grain clear heart pine

Vertical Grain New Heart Pine flooring from syp direct

Painting Clear Southern Pine

Clear grade is normally what people use when painting, white wash is great example. We see painting used for walls- we offer our customers:

Unfinished Rustic Southern Pine T/G, V Groove, Gap Siding, Shiplap

Unfinished Clear Southern Pine T/G, V Groove, Gap Siding, Shiplap

For more information and or samples contact us now.

Walls and Ceilings

Rustic does not always have knots and vice versa

19 Jul

Laminate is not wood

Misconceptions, Misdirections and Misinformation

Laminate is not wood, nor is it a floor, it is a floor cover made of chemicals and composites. Imagine a photocopy of real wood chemically bound to particle board or cheap composites. Made with synthetic materials or very thinly sliced pieces of wood, laminate equals replica. Made to look like wood grain by using a method similar to printing a photo, i.e., designed to fool those not paying attention.

Laminate is not wood- what is it?

So, in simplest terms, you print a layer of wood-colored plastic and then adhere it to a composite wood substrate like particle board.

Landfills are full of laminate and engineered floors

Laminate = Landfills

As we will discuss later in our post, the variety of substrates used differ widely in quality and components. Chinese laminate manufacturers use a wide range of materials including dangerous chemicals. First, China leads the world in carbon pollution by a large and growing margin. Second, it has virtually no regulations regarding products imported and shipped back the United States.

What is in it?

The chemicals used in manufacturing laminate are dangerous and they are the fastest growing component of our landfills. ’s difficult to quantify what chemicals, will leach from laminates once they hit the landfill. Not to mention the emissions from incineration. To put it simply, this stuff doesn’t decompose, because of all the chemicals and glues, the material never breaks down organically.

Laminate is not wood imported it is re-imported

Laminated wood is a rimport, a re-imported bi product of our timber. We ship our trees to China only to bring it back home full of toxic chemicals. We send them solid wood, which requires no toxic chemicals to produce, and in return we get plastic ‘wood like’ composite garbage. Today upwards of 10% of Americans have laminate flooring or some type of vinyl. Every bit of it will end up in landfills poisoning the groundwater and damaging the air quality.

Laminate is not wood nor is it a floor- it is a floor cover

Laminate and Engineered floor covers are filling our landfills. Over the next 4-5 years, deposits into landfills will double from current levels of 300,000,000 lb. per year. Laminate & Engineered, add in LVT too, are a leased floor covers which rot forever on public lands? LVT, laminate and engineered floors are not green, they are not even biodegradable. Environmentalist scream about deforestation, but what is “greener” than One House, One Floor.

Have your floors reclaimed instead of landfilled

If we put the entire carbon footprint of Southern Pine flooring into the carbon footprint single use floor covers, and their chemicals products it would be like putting a BB into a boxcar.

Salvaged pine decking using skins 1/2 thick

25 Mar

Harmful chemicals or VOC’s

Finish and Install

17 Dec

Real wood flooring

Wood Floor Shopping

Real wood floors are the only constant you find in million-dollar homes. Do not take my word for it, ask your friend the realtor, most of us have one or more. So, if engineered wood and laminate are so great, why are they not in these homes? Are real wood floors more expensive than engineered? They are if you believe what you find on the Internet, seriously the entire internet. More propaganda exist around the subject of your floors than any other product for your home. In fact, finding someone to tell you 100% of the truth is difficult, as some of you may understand after your own search

Say no to bundles

Installation included always means one thing, it will be fast. Everyone wants to offer bundled services that rarely include real wood for two basic reasons, time, and money. How many trips does a real wood floor take versus engineered or laminate? To clarify, we are referring to a site finished real wood floor, not premanufactured aka prefinished. Well of that depends upon the type of finish, for example Monocoat requires less trips than Tung Oil. Even that distinction depends upon the number of Tung Oil coats, not Monocoat though right? Just seeing if you are paying attention because this next part is important.

So, if Jane the contractor can come to your home twice versus four or ten times, make more money and give you a worthless warranty which will she choose? Survey says, 80% do not offer site finishing at all and about 5% specialize in real wood. How did this happen? When did we start believing fake is better than real? Do you think fake floors are green because we are not cutting down trees? That is 100% the opposite of the truth- seriously. To find out more follow us to Real wood is Green give us a call for more discussion.

Researching Harwood Floors Online

If you are researching hardwood floors online you may notice that the term does not mean solid real wood floors, not at all. You may find laminate hardwoods, two words that define oxymoron. Researching floors is wading through a sea of bad choices if adding value to your home is the goal. Only solid real wood floors are an investment, the rest are simply a future liability, yours or the next homeowners. Here is one example of the worst offenders, Angies List. Not because the people are bad but because the run their business as if they are helping homeowners, not entirely true. Their customers are not homeowners but the professionals who list their services, you know the 95% who want you to buy LVT?

Comparing engineered versus real wood floors as investment flooring versus a single use durable good

Yes, we have prefinished floors without any production lead time including Bayou Rustic and two trusted sources. Bayou Rustic manufacturers finished to order heart pine using SYP Direct floors, exclusively, lead times are based on type of finish. However, years in this business allowed SYP Direct to create a powerful pair of sources for manufacturer direct pine floors. These products include but are not limited to, prefinished #2 Caribbean Pine which can be found with three options, Fawn, Vintage and Natural.

27 Apr

Oak grades

Wood Floor Shopping

To find the cheapest oak floor you need to understand Oak grades. Red and White Oak grades are based on the face surface, specifically its appearance. The most common grades of domestic hardwood wood flooring are; clear (c & btr), select (s & btr), # 1 common, # 2 common and a variety of proprietary grades. Yes, proprietary, as in they make it up. Now, this is not always a bad thing, not at all. However, many times these creations are about raising the price, i.e. natural rustic = #2 common everywhere else.

The premium Oak Grades

Clear Grade Oak is cut and harvested from the innermost heartwood of the tree. Color discrepancies of dark to light and variations such as knots and worm holes will be at the absolute minimum if not non-existent in this grade of oak. The grain, however, will still be prominent while having a clean overall look. Due to clear being the highest grade, mills pick carefully through each and every piece to ensure that the milling of the seams, butt joints, and tongue and groove are milled precisely.

Select and Better. Select and Better will typically have clear pieces mixed into the bundles. You’ll have minimal variation from the sapwood. There will be virtually no knots or worm holes on these boards though some will be present. The appearance of the grain is strong with very slight color variations of heartwood and sapwood.

The Common Oaks

No. 1 Common. No. 1 Common grade is where much more variation and discrepancies will show through. You will have some knots and wormholes. You will have color variations of the sapwood to heartwood. The color is not as uniform as Clear or Select. There will be some lighter and some darker pieces and depending on the width of the board, you may have that occurring on the same board.

No. 2 Common. No. 2 Common will have a lot of color variations of dark and light pieces from the heartwood and sapwood. There will be an abundance of knots and wormholes. This floor will have a much more rustic appearance than clear or select. The milling and natural faults of this grade will not be as clean and precise as the above grades.

Defects, i.e. Tavern, Cabin grades

No. 3 Common. Not many professionals recommend No 3 Common for White oak- especially not for flooring. The pieces are too inconsistent in terms of milling and natural characteristics. More often than not, you will have a large waste pile after having to sort through all the pieces to find the ones good enough to install. With that being said, due to the high waste volume, you’ll have to account for that during ordering. While it is industry standard to order 10% more of the overall square footage, you’ll have to order over 20% more to make up the waste difference. Instead of choosing No. 3, it’s better to order No. 2 Common. You will still have all those natural characteristics but with an overall better product.

Cabin & Tavern Grades answer the question do you have “cheap oak floors”?

Cheap Oak Floors – Shorts aka micro shorts- While not technically a grade of flooring but worth noting. Shorts are exactly what that sounds like. Short pieces of flooring typically range from 6 inches to about 2-3 feet. While you will have some shorts in regular bundles (we call them spacers as they help in staggering the hardwood), when you order all shorts the bundles will not contain any long pieces. Regardless of the grade of shorts, there will be A LOT of seams. As a general rule, we like to keep our stagger to every 6 inches at lease. Meaning that the butt joints from row to row will not be closer than 6 inches.

Builders Welcome

Builders and installation professionals who understand that real wood takes time, welcome to SYP Direct. We do not take shortcuts and we do not sell to those of you that do, end of story. However, if you are a real wood pro, with or without pine experience, welcome to the best source you will ever find. Select Hardwoods from the best mills, amazing direct prices; White Oak, Red Oak, Hickory, Walnut and more.

25 Jul

Versus Clover Lea Pine

Misconceptions, Misdirections and Misinformation, Wood Floor Shopping

1x10x12 wide plank new heart pine flooring

05 Jun

Prefinished Heart Pine

Heart Pine, Our favorite Finishes

SYP Direct floors offers #2 Southern pine aka #2 Knotty Pine, solid wood flooring in rustic setting and Rocky Branch Finish

30 May

Best finish for pine floors

Finish and Install

The best pine finishes are the ones that create gorgeous floors. Over the years we have come to trust all of the following; Monocoat, Milk Paint, Bona , WOCA and Tung Oils. Milk Paint tung oil blends, Monocoat by Rubio, Bona High Traffic, WOCA oils are all 100% approved to finish our Southern Pine, Heart Pine and we have the pictures to prove it!

Get a sample of Caribbean Heart Pine with Monocoat Ebony, Mahogony and Cherry. In March of this year, we had a project that required us to compare each of these, and blend them to match an historical restoration.

Click here for Monocoat FAQ

Monocoat 3 colors

Tank the inspiration dog for a Monocoat by Rubio finish on wide plank pine in Monroe La

Rubio Monocoat Natural Oil Finish

Monocoat is a plant-based, environmentally responsible, non polluting, single-coat, durable wood finish. Rubio Monocoat contains 0% VOC and has no effect on indoor air quality. Using a proprietary bonding technology, Monocoat essentially becomes part of the woods molecular structure. Easy to use and maintain, Monocoat also makes fixing scratches a breeze.

Bona High Traffic

#2 Knotty Pine Prices depend upon heart content Heart Pine shown here.

“The Best” of anything is contingent upon its purpose

The best finish for pine floors is contingent upon what the homeowner values, i.e. protection versus those who want no carbon footprint. And, the best finish for pine floors depends upon the look you are attempting to achieve. One the best examples, the french bleed! If you are not familar it is an undercoating (dark) around edges which have been sanded creating the illusion of seperation and age.

New construction is easy but what if your home is a jobsite?

Are you finishing the floor while living in the house? Do you have kids or pets? We can ask all of these questions, but what we really need to decide is surface or penetrating finish, i.e. poly versus oil. Want to see an amazing Tung Oil Blend, check it out.

Picture to right- Milk Paint 50 / 50 blend with citrus solvent

What is the best finish for pine floors? Hard to argue Clear Poly.

Surface finishes sit on top of the floor as opposed to penetrating the wood like oils. Lacquer, shellac, varnish and wax are some common types of surface finishes. But without question the undisputed king is polyurethane, and price is only one reason. One of the most durable finishes, ‘Poly’ is also inexpensive and easy to apply.

Bona Natural Oils

All the benefits of a natural oil finish plus the performance you expect from Bona. The elongated open time of Bona Craft Oil 2K, along with its rapid initial cure, make it easier to work with and allow for light use in just 8 hours. Bona and Monocoat are what we recommend to DIY homeonwers.

Prefinished 7″ Rustic Heart Pine in all 8′ and 10′ foot boards

Natural Finish

WOCA, Minwax and natural oils

Our customers have relayed their experiences with BONA and WOCA oils. Both are easy to apply, zero voc and east to maintain. Not to mention the gorgeous floor underneath those natural oils. For more information on a specific product, get samples and try them out with our pine.

single use floor covers such as laminate and LVT

01 May

Laminate and Engineered

Misconceptions, Misdirections and Misinformation

What is a VOC?

Volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, are gases that are emitted into the air from products or processes. Some are harmful by themselves, including some that cause cancer. In addition, they can react with other gases and form other air pollutants after they are in the air. Furthermore, because it contains toxic VOCs like formaldehyde and takes decades to disperse, laminate is a health risk long after replaced.

Laminate and single use floors

These compounds continue to produce VOCs after they are in your home. Formaldehyde was found in a major retailer laminate a few years ago. Sixty Minutes did a shocking story, they promised to do better. However, the main manufacturers of this material are in China and Vietnam. Standards, for end products shipped back to the U.S. are nonexistent. For more about this issue contact us today. The carbon footprint of these products dwarfs that of sustainable forest producing the only true eco-friendly floor besides dirt.

Engineered for profit not health

When it comes to sustainability, one of the first issues with wood laminate is the large carbon footprint. It requires a lot of fossil fuel energy to power the required pressure and heat used in the manufacturing process. And more often than not, production occurs in China, that is problematic on a few levels, including VOC regulations.

Wear layers are shrinking

Engineered flooring was an innovation, that actually increased the yield of domestic mills. Early engineered floors had wear layers of ½ or 9 ⅙ of solid wood with small layers of other materials designed to replace sub-floor. In those days we did not have the adhesive we have today, so this was a great innovation; however, the intent was for a few situations, never for the mass market. The problem is that manufacturers came up with some innovative marketing while taking the wear layers down to 2mm, from 1/2 inch.

SYP Direct the Homeowners Advocate

If you are confused or just sick of all the nonsense you hear about laminate and engineered floors, please give us a call. SYP Direct believes in ‘One House, One Floor’, no repeat customers unless they move or add on. We sell the type of floors someone reclaim one day, not the type that sits in landfills. We are the homeowners advocate and their resource for the truth about wood flooring, fake and real.

Laminate and Engineered floors are just a lease

Laminate and engineered floors are a single use cover, which is exactly like a lease you’re going to pay a certain amount for it, and then it’s going to end up in a landfill. Real wood is the only green choice. A real Wood floor remains functional for 140 years. How many single use covers revolved during that time period? How much homeowner equity turned into profits for shareholders by tricking us into thinking compressed garbage and plastic is better than real wood.

The industry

Lifetime transferable waterproof, not resistant but proof, come on! We have some “luxury vinyl” cost more than our prefinished 7” solid wide plank Heart Pine. No kidding- how upside down is that? But wait, they have a magic warranty. One which can be transferred as if it had any value whatsoever. They claim pine is not durable. Independence Hall still looks good, as do the 3500 Duck camps with pine floors across the marsh (guesstimate). They tell you it cannot be glued or is too expensive, the list is based on their lack of source and motivation to sell unfinished (low margin) flooring.

Arbitrage is the simultaneous purchase and sale of an asset to profit from an imbalance in the price. It is a trade that profits by exploiting the price differences of identical or similar financial instruments (raw materials) on different markets or in different forms. Timber ships to Vietnam, back as a photocopy of wood floor plus some slivers. Presto, the trees “retail” value goes up 100 times, 1000 times? Nobody really knows, like that owl licking the tootsie roll pop.

Load More Posts

Research and Compare

Solid versus engineered

We are unique

Clear aka C and Better Southern Pine

Unfinished 5" C & Better

Finished for customer

Vertical grain clear heart pine

Painting Clear Southern Pine

Laminate is not wood- what is it?

Laminate is not wood imported it is re-imported

Have your floors reclaimed instead of landfilled

Why Are VOCs Still Used?

What are volatile organic chemicals?

Environmental Impact LVT and Laminate

Real wood is Green

Monocoat by Rubio

Say no to bundles

Researching Harwood Floors Online

The premium Oak Grades

The Common Oaks

Defects, i.e. Tavern, Cabin grades

Cabin & Tavern Grades answer the question do you have “cheap oak floors”?

Builders Welcome

Clover Lea Prices

The difference in Clover Lea and SYP Direct

Alabama Pine

Advertising by box stores

What is the best pine finish?

Minwax

5" Caribbean Heart Pine

1x8 New Heart Pine

Bona High Traffic Natural