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Misconceptions, Misdirections and Misinformation

Home - Post - Misconceptions, Misdirections and Misinformation - Page 2

Monocoat Rubio Finished Flooring
17 Feb

Why use VOCs?

Misconceptions, Misdirections and Misinformation

Why Are VOCs Still Used?

What a great question? The answer is that very few of us know they exist in almost everything manufactured for mass merchandising. Volatile Organic Chemicals (VOCs) can be used to produce products and created as biproducts. VOC’s can be harmless; they can be dangerous but the majority of just the “unknown” as is not enough information to make a determination. Paint, wood-finishing products, lacquers, hydraulic fluids, petroleum fuels, adhesives, pesticides, cleaning supplies, building materials, furniture, and electronic equipment such as printers all contain VOC’s.

The footprint of fake wood

If  you listen to most “enviromental” warriors, logging and timber is the equivilent of fossil fuels when accessing a carbon footprint. This is ridiculous. Managed timber doesn’t lend itself to wildfires and real wood doesn’t end up in the landfill. If every house only had one floor over its lifetime, how many tear out and installations would that save, the house? Real wood floors will outlive your house. In fact, one day they will be reclaimed or salvaged as they are reinvented a century later. Try that with laminate.

Real is good

Wide plank solid real wood floor finished tinted oils

'Pure' on CHP

Caribbean heart pine with monocoat pure finish
Moncoat "Pure"

Do not blame others

The manufacturing process no longer occurs in the United States and there is no possible way to regulate the number of vendors sending VOCs into the U.S. However, do not blame the countries doing the manufacturing because they are not the sellers! Consumers depend on the manufacturers to protect their health, first and foremost. Unfortunately, a large majority of retailers continue to use VOCs despite their harmful effects. Why do they continue to use VOCs? Demand for cheap goods always gets the blame, and while it plays a part; that demand was created by the cheap manufacturing processes not vice versa.

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Real wood flooring last forever
05 Dec

Real Wood Floors

Customer Bill of Rights, Misconceptions, Misdirections and Misinformation, Wood Floor Shopping

Understanding Solid Wood Floors

Before you shop and buy real wood floors, you should understand them. Before you install them, understanding solid wood floors is key. Please do not take offense to the insinuation you should understand solid wood floors. In fact, we you are referring to our specialty, pine the lack of knowledge among installers is shocking. Solid wood flooring site finish and installation is an art, a lost one for that matter. Not long-ago artisans and craftsmen took pride in sanding, finishing and repeating! Today time is money and real wood takes time.

Buying solid wood usually means a site finish

Site finished pine flooring needs preparation. Preparing for the wood is an important step often overlooked, the preconditioning portion of the finish. When you have unfinished solid wood floors with character, i.e. knots, different grain patterns and variance in density you need a product that prevents splotchy finishes. It is not expensive, but vital. Min-wax, for example has an excellent product.

Sanding unfinished solid wood floors

“Do you have to sand prior to finish?” The short answer is no, but we always add, only if you want your floors to look their best. Sanding your unfinished floor prior to preconditioning allows for deeper penetration and better protection not to mention it raises the grain allowing the colors to pop free. Commonly known as popping the grain and accomplished by simply running a wet rag down the board as you pull them out of the pallet crate.

Mill to order makes install easy

Milled to order is not a marketing term for us, we do not mill inventory to sit on shelves and one day match with another inventory. By milling your floors all together, on the same day from the same “trees” provides a consistent floor which goes together as it should. SYP Direct mills Alabama Longleaf Pine lumber into unfinished Knotty and Heart Pine flooring. We mill to order, for homeowners and builders, furthermore with no minimum order. We can customize your order in ways that save you time and money. Grades, widths, length (s) are just three of the ways our mill to order model benefits our customers. There is no other SYP Direct, we say yes to solid wood, every single time.

Stop leasing temporary floor covers

NullLeased flooring all has the same residual value, it cost you and the environment money, every single time. Our philosophy, One House, One Floor has at its core one absolute; there is never a reason to buy engineered floors unless you are a prison, state university or hospital. Real is better than fake, real wood is green and yes, the answer is yes you can glue down solid wood.  Southern Yellow Pine Direct welcomes all of you homeowners told solid wood is too expensive or cannot be glued down. Welcome to a place where logic still exist, we tell the truth. For example, LVT is not waterproof, warranties are worthless, you can glue down solid wood and real wood is certainly more durable than single use leased covers.

Advertising by box stores

Today a Google search for the best solid wood pine floors sends you Clover Lea pine wood floors, LL Flooring formerly lumber liquidators.  These are the exact opposite of quality for a number of reasons.  Buyers many times have no clue the difference in quality, it is substantial to say the least.

Angie’s List wrong on flooring

Real wood floors

Buying real wood flooring online can lead you to Angie’s list for an installation professional. Remember, Angie get her money, i.e. the customers are contractors or brands who advertise. Who will tell you the truth about pine and real wood floors in general? SYP Direct presents the A List; a resource without agenda. The amount of misinformation passed off as a “resource” designed to help you find your floor, by our totals, about 95% of it.

Free Markets are good when fair

We are not anti-free markets, not at all. However, under a cloud of propaganda we believe, with zero doubt that homeowners are getting ripped off. A Google search, finding real wood floors, provides Angie’s List as a top result. Not to strange, since they do have hardwood flooring companies on their site (s). However,  further inspection, Angie’s seems to be repeating the same nonsense as the box stores and your local installer trying to sell you “their” floors.  

Buying Real Wood Flooring

Buying real wood flooring online can be aggravating, almost as bad as going into a box store. So how do you find and buy real pine floors online? The age and species are a perfect place to start. Determining the age of pine should determine the price of flooring, not lumber but the ‘stuff we walk on’. Age creates stability, stability and character not to mentions the colors we all love. Patina is a word directly associated with age and light exposure, with older wood the patina is deep and rich; i.e more expensive.

Investment Approach to Flooring

Antqiue reclaimed heart pine wall wood siding only comes from using real woodSo you want to buy real wood floors, solid not LVT or laminate, a floor not a floor cover.   Very few sources of information will provide the truth from the homeowner perspective. Compare heart pine wood floors to a single use floor such as laminate or engineered wood, one last forever the other is just a lease. Single-use floor covers provide returns for the seller, not the homeowner. A single use floor is designed to wear out as it is a product; an investment is a durable good. Does anyone remember the phrase planned obsolescence? To refresh your memory, it is by definition; “a policy of producing consumer goods that rapidly become obsolete.  Frequent changes in design, termination of spare parts, and the use of non-durable materials make it impossible to match a damaged floor.

Invest in Solid Wood Floors

What is investment flooring? Is flooring an investment or a product? A product is designed to be used for a period of time. An investment, while it may fulfill the same purpose as the product such as walking on the floor, it is not designed to fail one day. An investment floor provides a return as well as a function, i.e., increased home value. Real wood floors are an investment, single use floor covers are just a lease. Yes, a lease, you are paying to use a product that will have no residual value. On the other hand, a real wood floor will last forever, saving you money every seven years or a dividend of sorts, like a bond or preferred stock.

IN A HURRY- TEXT much faster 601 826 1296
Text us now 601 826 1296
Southern Yellow Pine Direct offer homeowners the reliability of an A+ rated BBB company; the best quality, pricing and service bar none. We operate under an "old school" philosophy that the customer is always right. We make sure you are just that by educating and dispelling myths about Southern Pine and Heart Pine flooring.
Remember we are a mill to order manufacturer of unfinished and prefinished Southern Pine, including our speciality Heart Pine. Our lead times are normally about two weeks, with Hardwoods and Imports the lead times vary and that is an understatement. 2 days -2 months has bee the answer since COVID. But things are imporving, as White Oak prices continue to fall. (Jason Howard 9/9/2022)
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Natural Finished Caribbean Heart Pine
25 Jul

Versus Clover Lea Pine

Misconceptions, Misdirections and Misinformation, Wood Floor Shopping

The big secret in the flooring industry? 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.

Comparing Lumber Liquidators Clover Lea pine to Southern Yellow Longleaf floors is not apples to apples at any point except price. Clover Lea pine floors are not a grade, they are a brand. The pictures on their website show closeups of vertical grain in varied widths, no knots. Is that what they are selling? Caveat’ Emptor, a very old phrase which indicates buyer beware. Do more research than what that “person” , flooring is an investment for homeowners. Do your due diligence, spend as much time as you would picking a financial advisor or a mutual fund.

R.L. Colston unfinished 3/4 solid southern pine $3.29 per square foot, no grade just an up close shot of vertical grain with no knots. The thought of explaining how grossly misleading and why seems irrelevant, but we press on. $3.29 for what exactly? The information, limited but the obvious, however the reason might surprise you. Lumber Liquidators wants to sell you the floors with warranties which mean commissions, quotas and kickbacks. Confused? Did you ever buy a new car, it is that guy explaining gap insurance or undercoating, everywhere you look. Why buy that unfinished pine when you can buy LVT for $2.99, right?

Update September 14 2020 Lumber Prices 

Clover Lea Prices

The best pine flooring prices guaranteed! SYP Direct will match or beat any (apples to apples) competitors price. How can we be so sure? We are the online pine flooring mill and your local source no matter your zip code. Key in this promise is the apples to apples terminology. To be clear, we are not being slick or trying to mislead you, not at all. Simply put, we have no competition that has our quality and our prices. Lumber liquidators by definition sells over stocks and defects. They are a public company with shareholders and directors all of which demand growth year over year. All of that squeezed from unfinished Southern Pine, versus a mill direct made to offer floor?

 

 

The difference in Clover Lea and SYP Direct

What’s the difference between a shirt at Walmart versus a custom one, made to order. Everything is different, the quality, the density, the character, the hardness (for sure) and of course the lengths. Clover Lea is bi product of multiple (2 x 4’s) lumber mills, the scraps, shorts and defects. SYP Direct does not sell scraps. We mill your floor to order, shipping direct from the mill floor. Comparing our Southern Pine to Lumber Liquidators, like dog food and top shelf filet mignon. 

Alabama Pine

Alabama is like adding Swiss to watch or Louisiana to gumbo. Unfortunately, the term heart pine is far too often to describe flooring that does not meet heart pine standards. Only about 5% of total pine production in the United States is Longleaf pine. Longleaf pine grows much slower and therefore is not conducive the fast-growing pine plantations that produce pine for building materials. For example, Florida and MS Gulf coast pine look similar, but have nowhere near the Janka rating of their northern cousin in Alabama.

Advertising by box stores

How can the layman  compare pine floors? Length, type of knots, weight, age, species etc. would do the trick, but we live in the real world.  Instead, today a Google search for best pine floors sends you Clover Lea or some other box store mass marketed product. Buyers many times have no clue the difference between the quality (see above) differences between “ours and theirs”, it is substantial to say the least.

 

Please send us an email. If you need a call back, ask us and guess what? We actually call you back and handle your questions, one by one.
IN A HURRY- TEXT much faster 601 826 1296
Text us now 601 826 1296
Southern Yellow Pine Direct offer homeowners the reliability of an A+ rated BBB company; the best quality, pricing and service bar none. We operate under an "old school" philosophy that the customer is always right. We make sure you are just that by educating and dispelling myths about Southern Pine and Heart Pine flooring.
Remember we are a mill to order manufacturer of unfinished and prefinished Southern Pine, including our speciality Heart Pine. Our lead times are normally about two weeks, with Hardwoods and Imports the lead times vary and that is an understatement. 2 days -2 months has bee the answer since COVID. But things are imporving, as White Oak prices continue to fall. (Jason Howard 9/9/2022)
Read More
single use floor covers such as laminate and LVT
01 May

Laminate and Engineered

Misconceptions, Misdirections and Misinformation

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.

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.

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