How to choose wide-plank pine
Wide-pine flooring has a big wow factor, but you should take care in choosing and installing it.
There’s a wide range in pricing, grading standards and moisture content. If you fail to pay attention to installation instructions, you may regret your choice.
Wide-plank pine as green, un-planed boards is widely available through many niche sawmills. If you want kiln-dried and planed boards wider than one foot, the two most available sources are Robbins Lumber Co. in Searsmont and The Wood Mill of Maine in Mercer.
Robbins Lumber Company, Searsmont, ME
Robbins manufacturers many eastern white pine products, not just wide pine, including paneling, siding, trim, decking, and flooring. Robbins sells its products wholesale through independent lumber yards around New England and the US, including The Wood Mill of Maine.
- Boards are smoother to the touch since their planers run at much higher speeds. The occasional planer marks on Wood Mill boards are sanded out during the installation process.
- Robbins flooring must be acclimated before installation. Two weeks are recommended.
- Robbins keeps flooring available in inventory, ready to ship, in several Northeast Lumber Manufacturers (NeLMA) grades and widths. Orders can usually be delivered within days or weeks, although unusually strong demand in 2021 may stretch delivery times.
- Robbins’ face size widths follow industry standards.
- Robbins maximizes yield from each log, and follows NeLMA grading rules, which allow for occasional defects.
The Wood Mill of Maine, Mercer, ME
The Wood Mill of Maine specializes in milling premium quality wide pine flooring and also manufactures timbers and log cabin supplies. It operates a retail lumber yard, which includes selling Robbins Lumber products. The Wood Mill also offers custom milling and kiln drying services.
- All boards are straight-line ripped, which eases installation and makes for less labor bending the boards into place
- Boards start thicker, which allows removal of cupping/warping that develops during kiln-drying process. All boards are planed twice to ensure flatness and tighter tolerances on the tongue & grove milling.
- Grading standards are stricter than NeLMA standards. No cracks, holes, loose knots, pith, etc are allowed. The “zero waste” advertisement means entire board is 100% useable for flooring.
- Moisture content is lower, ensuring stability and won’t expand/shrink over time as long as installation guidelines are followed. Floors are guaranteed to remain flat as long as the moisture content in the home is controlled.
- Each floor is custom milled, which means lead times are quite long. As of early April, orders for for 2021 are nearly all committed. Flooring is manufactured only during the winter months. So once orders are filled, no more product is available until the following winter.
