How long does it take to acclimate pine, how long does acclimation take depends upon moisture content.

04 Dec

Acclimation in six steps

Hand finished inspiration for finish to order "tank"

04 Oct

#1 Customer Service - SYP Direct

Customer Service and SYP Direct- The best in customer service produced our A+BBB rating. From your first source of information, navigating you to the right person acting as shipping concierge for your delivery. It is the last one that might go un-noticed but when dealing with common carriers the pitfalls can cost money.

Shipping company customer service is oxy-moron

SYP Direct does not own trucks, we utilize LTL routes with trusted common carriers. Even so, it seems some issue needs attention with 20% of shipments. The amount of money Heather has saved our customers versus shipping themselves would be greater than our income during that same time period.

It takes more than customer service to keep an A+ rating. The product has to meet the quality of experience and our manners. When you ship long heavy pallets to Idaho for example, a bunch of things can go wrong and a beat up floor is not good regardless of price!

Customer Service means becoming your advocate

The main ingredient- Selling to homeowners sometimes requires dealing with installers that prefer to bundle services. We offer SYP Direct customer service for that situation starting with nice, sometimes ending with finding them a new installer. Our role, epitomized by Heather, is to increase homeowner equity with real wood floors and today that means arguing the status quo more times than not.

Did you know that 75% of people shopping for floors think that laminate and hardwood sound ok together. Laminate hardwood flooring is like saying aluminum foil armor.

Customer Service from first contact

“She explained it in way that made perfect sense”, part of recent Idaho customer’s email represent a common theme when describing interactions with us, specifically Heather our co-founder. Transparent customer service for the Do-it-Yourself Homeowner continues to be the foundation of our business.

SYP Direct welcomes homeowners and those searching for solid wood floors. Keep reading or visit our homepage.

Same service no matter what size the order

Telling the truth is serving the customer

“I’ve done multiple orders with SYP Direct and have had fantastic service! Heather does a great job of getting you the exact flooring you need at a great price. If you try to get your flooring from the same place you get your 2x4s you will waste a lot of time and money. You’ll also end up with a subpar product at a high price. If you need pine flooring, call these guys first! I will definitely be using them again for future project. I’ve done multiple orders with SYP Direct and have had fantastic service! Heather does a great job of getting you the exact flooring you need at a great price. If you try to get your flooring from the same place you get your 2x4s you will waste a lot of time and money. You’ll also end up with a subpar product at a high price. If you need pine flooring, call these guys first! I will definitely be using them again for future projects.”(Gregory, G May 2022).

The truth matters

Talking to customers, actually talking not a text- is a lost art with some companies. Unfortunately, words are what got us into this mess. Most have misconceptions going into their search and all the marketing does not help. The industry is driven by repeat business and commissions based on volume, especially when a new line comes into the store. Customer service becomes secondary to paying lease, lights, employees and advertising.

Repurpose real wood

Repurpose real wood – salvaged or reclaimed. We want everyone to repurpose real wood. With that in mind, please enjoy this video which cost us $75.00 six years ago, We are “thrifty” like most of our customers, but the content is good. Salvaged is ‘saved’, reclaimed is repurposed; and not the kind of repurposing we are talking about with our folk art. The video should clear it up and if you are shopping for reclaimed […]

Knotty Southern Yellow Pine floors MI lake

Glue down Southern Pine

In reality, you can glue down Southern Pine in standard 3/4 thickness. No problem, you want to glue down Southern Pine you use Bostiks Best. It has a built in moisture barrier and is urethane based so that is allows movement like a nail. But today, in this blog glue down Southern Pine is 1/2 inch, with the long lengths up to 14′ an option. SYP Direct does not sell anything but real wood and […]

How to identify Heart Pine

Welcome to our blog post on how to identify heart pine. To be clear, we are talking about how to identify New Heart Pine. In this informative guide, we will provide you with valuable insights on recognizing heartwood, and in a broader context, ‘heart content’. Both of these are essential for those homeowners (installation professionals) looking for quality New Heart Pine. Quality is easy to define, with the end result being an installation and a […]

11 Apr

The eco-friendly floor

Misconceptions, Misdirections and Misinformation

10 Apr

Best Pine Floors

Our favorite Finishes

The best Southern Pine floor depends on the buyer. For example, there are some people who want knots, but just not “too many of them”. Rustic does not equate to defects or that many knots. In our #2 grade, for example, would be called heart pine when purchased in a package or from a box store. If a customer wants zero knots, we have that grade with our (c and better) clear grade southern pine.

7″ wide plank Mill Run Heart Pine finished in 7-10′ lengths.

Get a sample

Southern Yellow Pine Direct is your local source for the best pine floors along with the best pine flooring prices. However, we are so much more than just flooring. Custom stairs, lap siding, gap siding, post, and beams, shipped directly to your job site. SYP Direct works with your contractor if you purchase your own materials. The best pine floors rarely found within bundled services, why? Simple, the “best for you” are solid real wood which most take too much time. However, the length of floor provides clues to the origins, i.e. the mill. Say no to bundled services, contract your own floors. SYP Direct provides all the support you need to convince or find a new installer.

Why does SYP Direct have the best pine floors?

The best pine floors, the best pine flooring prices and customer service beyond compare. An A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau, in our business, tells you all you need to know about the best pine floors. The best considers, price, % floors returned, quality (i.e. waste factor) and other variables based on where you live. Never do we misrepresent our flooring, in fact educating our buyers is part of our day to day business. We are polite and operate with a transparency that shocks most first-time callers, “we seem too good to be true” has been said on many occasions.

Best pine floors

A + BBB

SYP Direct Pine Flooring Reviews

At SYP Direct we are proud of our pine flooring reviews, we earned our A+ Better Business Bureau rating. So when we see large companies not playing by the rules we get upset, but we have discovered a new low. Purchasing pine flooring reviews and likes while completely suppressing actual customer reviews. Big deal? Search engines use reviews to rank, Google certainly places importance on them when they are Google reviews!

How do the purchase reviews? Not in name, but through a third party ‘management’ company who orchestrates the entire social media search charade. Ask them for a local review, a happy client who might share a photo perhaps? Clover Lea pine floors from Lumber Liquidators has a 4.5 star review, nonsense. Do your research but ask questions locally, do not rely on the public relations firm of a billion dollar company repairing a terrible reputation for dishonest practices.

Built by Customer Service

Read the reviews, the thread is customer service along with the best pine floors. SYP Direct is not magic, things do go wrong, but we fix them. Customer service is the same with 200 to 2000 square feet, furthermore, we are willing educate our clients. In fact, we validate what they know to be true, that real wood is better than fake. Going to bat for the homeowner is not over and above, it is what we do every day. Furthermore, we do increase the ‘best pine flooring prices’ on smaller orders.

Wide Plank 1 x 10 New Heart Pine

02 Apr

Southern Pine Durability

Misconceptions, Misdirections and Misinformation, Wood Floor Shopping

12 Feb

Sustainable Timber

Misconceptions, Misdirections and Misinformation

Sustainable timber, i.e., timber that has been harvested and replenished which may occur naturally or farmed. ‘Sustainable Forestry’, however, involves more than just planting a tree when you cut one down. Sustainable timber management or forestry means doing no ecological damage to the surrounding environment.

Plant a tree

To those who want to help stop Global Warming- buy a real wood floor and plant a tree.

Healthy, sustainably harvested timber creates forest that become more resistant to wildfire, insects, disease, and the impacts of climate change. Like so many things, the message that the timber industry and sustainable forestry are contributing to climate change has gotten distorted. When you consider the replacement products we use instead of wood, i.e., petroleum-based vinyl, composites, and plastic the eco-friendly product is obviously real wood. What about concrete and steel? “As conservationists, we make building materials that store carbon and require far fewer fossil fuels to produce compared to steel and concrete.” (Forest2Market.com September 2022).

Sustainable timber means green

As trees grow, they absorb carbon dioxide CO2 from the atmosphere and release oxygen. We learned this in junior high. Not only do trees sequester or hold carbon, but they also put it to use. Great but what happens when you turn this tree into a floor? Wood flooring is about 50 percent carbon by dry weight. Wood products continue to store much of this carbon indefinitely. In the case of buildings, the carbon is kept out of the atmosphere for the lifetime of the structure—or longer if the wood is reclaimed and used to manufacture other products.

Plant more trees

In national parks and designated wilderness areas, the federal government is prohibited by law from sustainably harvesting and replanting trees. According to U.S. Forest Service-Forest Inventory and Analysis data, lands set aside from active forest management – such as parks and wilderness – serve as a carbon source because trees are dying at faster rates than they are growing.

Sustainable timber create floors that last forever

No matter what else you hear while shopping, solid 3/4 floors should outlive the house, i.e., be salvaged one day. On the other hand, all ‘floor covers’ with very few exceptions, everything else ends up in a landfill. Seriously, the bathroom counter-top you see here was produced by a novice salvaged decking.

No clear cutting

To be clear, we are not talking about clear cutting or harvesting non sustainable forest. Anti-forestry activists cling to the flawed assumption that old trees will sequester and store carbon. As if old trees are immortal and should be forever untouched. Not so fast! The science is that younger trees sequester carbon at higher rates than older trees, yes. Even worse, when older trees die, they emit carbon and methane.

Failing to clear dead trees causes wildfires

Conservationists are not to be confused with anti-forestry activists, even though the media often gives them that label. Anti-forestry activists reject Indigenous knowledge and experience that comes from thousands of years of managing forests, while raising millions of dollars to perpetuate the idea that the United States risk deforestation. Far from scarce, many western landscapes, “have overstocked stands with more trees than the forests can support”.

Glue down wood floors with Bostik's Best

31 Aug

1×6 #2 Southern New Heart Pine

Knotty Pine

1×6 #2 Southern New Heart Pine

First of all, a 1 x 6 #2 Southern New Heart Pine grade is very deceptive desription. It is neither 3/4 nor 6″; as for the #2 Southern New Heart Pine that might be the most deceptive of all because it is not a defected grade like lumber yard #2 Knotty. To find out more read Southern Yellow Pine is not a species and or What is Heartwood?

Pictures of #2 Grade Southern aka Knotty Pine

Each photo you see on this page is our #2 Knotty Southern Yellow Pine. And without a doubt, the 1×6 is the most popular width, hands down. The value of these floors is found in the character, as evidenced by color. The colors, a result of heart and sapwood are the character and variation we want from the species. Of course, we offer select, prime and clear floors- we just like the knots a little better.

#2 based on lack of heartwood

A board with less than 50% heart content on the face, it becomes a #2 grade, not because of defects but lack of proximity to the center of tree. Our Heart Pine floors range 50-80% heart content with more narrow grades having a higher percentage of heart to sap.

Rustic Style Post