Pyinkado Flooring

Kyle Murphy

Member
Messages
129
Location
Tokyo, Japan
My wife and I recently bought a weekend house up at Mt. Fuji. Before my better half will let me start on my woodshop we need to renovate the kitchen and put down hardwood flooring in the living/dining/kitchen. We like a Southeast Asia wood, pyinkado, http://www.mplustimber.com/pyinkado.html
However, we have been told by a competitor flooring company that pyinkado may not be a good choice because we will not use the house full time and there is a great deal of variablility in temperature. Mt. Fuji is coooold in the winter. Of course they recommend a different SEA wood which is more expensive.

1. Question: Should we choose another hardwood?
2. Question: floating flooring. I have heard about this technique but do not understand it very well. Would this be a good technique for the pyinkado, especially sine there is a lot of temperature variability?

Best wishes,
 
All woods will shrink and expand with seasonal changes in humidity and also in temperature changes. Some movements are more drastic than others. You should not let your house drop below certain temps, I like to say 45-50 F (my opinion) otherwise there is a possibility that you could have troubles with large movements with the wood in your house. Moisture is a greater consideration than temperature though. I would check with the flooring manufactures recommendation, they all have their own specifications.

As far as a floating floor, not all hardwoods can be set up as a floating floor successfully. Again, check with your manufacturer.

The link you have shown, shows the wood available as a parquet flooring. Depending on factors, this wood may be glued down which would greatly diminish the movement problems especially if glued down to a stable plywood substrate with a moisture activated glue.

If it were my house - I would keep the house heated enough to keep all the pipes from freezing and as long as the wood flooring is installed per manufactures recommendations and per the proper moisture levels for your region than, I would install any type of flooring I wanted with no worries.

On a last note, if you have in-floor heating, keep the heat below 80 F or it can cause troubles with excessive wood movement/drying out the wood excessively.


Just my Opinion.

Brian


PS Make sure the wood is properly acclimatized to the house and regional environment or you will have problems with any wood floor!:thumb:
 
Thanks Brian! This is very helpful. The link was to give people an idea about the wood that I was talking about. We have ordered 90 cm lengths. Your point about temprature levels is well taken. I think that will be our biggest problem. Right now there is inadequate insulation under the house. That is one of the projects we plan. Also, I think average temperature will increase in winter once the woodshop is finished (put windows and door into currently openings in the wall, put an insulated floor etc.) At Mt. Fuji, weekend homes have the pipes heated but usually not the house. The house has a wood stove. We may have to add some other heating. Again, thanks.
 
Kyle,

If the wood is acclimated to the environment of the house, then you should be ok. The only thing you may run into with no heat in the house and cold temp in the winter and very warm and humid in the summer is some creaks developing in the floor. Shouldn't be too much of a concern with gapping of the wood etc.

(I'll sneak this in here to see if I can prevent a war on this topic:D, use nails, not staples. The staples will have a tendency to split out the tongue on that hard of a wood, the nails will also allow the wood to move a little more naturally.)

Never been to Japan, heard it is very pretty. I have a friend who is from Kobe, he invited me to go fishing with him from his family's house which is on an island somewhere on the coast. Maybe I'm going to have to take him up on his offer.:)

When you go back up, you'll have to post some pic's of your house with the background. My wife is from Taiwan and I love that part of the world, very unique and very beautiful. We'll be going back to visit her family next year. With the two of us and four kids looking at 10k!:eek: I wonder if I could take my duck hunting boat over from Seattle:huh::huh::rofl::rofl:


Brian


Brian
 
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