Building a stick frame house in the woods in 90 days

[BuilderML]

Just a comment on the hardwood flooring. Its wood, no one has there house at a constant humidity level year round. No matter what one tries to do a hardwood floor installed in the winter (low humidity) may show slight cupping come summer and a floor installed in the summer (higher humidity) will have cracks between to boards come winter. With that being said wood is all over my house and i would have it no other way. I have the winter install. Slight cupping. So as far as not letting a floor acclimate does it hurt maybe/maybe not, your floor is going to move no matter what you do. Your moms almost home PC. :thumbsup:

 

[murphy1244]

Just a comment on the hardwood flooring. Its wood, no one has there house at a constant humidity level year round. No matter what one tries to do a hardwood floor installed in the winter (low humidity) may show slight cupping come summer and a floor installed in the summer (higher humidity) will have cracks between to boards come winter. With that being said wood is all over my house and i would have it no other way. I have the winter install. Slight cupping. So as far as not letting a floor acclimate does it hurt maybe/maybe not, your floor is going to move no matter what you do. Your moms almost home PC. :thumbsup:

I have winter install.

 

[pacerron]

Hmm, went to bellawood.com website and this is what they say:

Installation area and subfloor must be dry, stiff and flat within industry standards. The installer should use a moisture or vapor barrier. The moisture content of both the flooring and the subfloor should be checked with a moisture meter and recorded before any work begins to ensure that the difference in moisture levels between the flooring and the subfloor is no more than 4% for flooring 2 ｼ" or less in width or 2% for flooring wider than 2 ｼ".

The environment must be controlled to NWFA recommended temperature (60*F - 80*F) and relative humidity (30% - 50%) standards for at least five (5) days prior to installation and throughout the life of the floor. This will help to ensure optimum performance of the floor. Uninstalled flooring should be stored in a climate controlled area at all times.

Lumber Liquidators, who are the primary distributors of Bellawood basically absolve themselves of any responsibility once the product is installed.
http://www.lumberliquidators.com/assets/images/installation/bellawood.pdf

 

[pacerron]

Peter,
A little caution on your watering of the grass.
If you keep adding distributors and hoses and time them so you have enough pressure in the multiple sprinkler heads, you will be running your well constantly for many hours.
This is fine if you have enough standing head/feet of water column in your pipe and not too fast of a draw down.
You can calculate the gallons of standing water from the pipe diameter and the drill test records. They sort of estimate the draw down over a few minutes and convert it to hours.
Your sprinkler heads will show a gpm throughput but it is usually based on a constant water pressure of a higher value from a city water system.
The point is, you don't want to pump enough water to get any part of your pump out of water since it is water cooled.
Ron

 

[Beltman60]

I have to disagree with BuilderML
My hardwood was put in mid Feb. with it being delivered 1 week before the install
I was told to keep humidity between 40-45% as much of the time as I can
I can do this year round in sw ohio
It does take humidifiers in the winter and dehumidifier and AC in the summer
but my floor in 3 years has shown no cupping or gapping
the only time it rises toward 50% is in spring and fall when it rains and its nice enough to have the windows open
I will say in the winter with my pellet stove running I have to run 2 humidifiers to keep enough moisture
It a job trying to keep the moisture levels a constant but having 20K in hand scrapped wood flooring is not something I wish to replace anytime soon

 

[BuilderML]

I have to disagree with BuilderML
My hardwood was put in mid Feb. with it being delivered 1 week before the install
I was told to keep humidity between 40-45% as much of the time as I can
I can do this year round in sw ohio
It does take humidifiers in the winter and dehumidifier and AC in the summer
but my floor in 3 years has shown no cupping or gapping
the only time it rises toward 50% is in spring and fall when it rains and its nice enough to have the windows open
I will say in the winter with my pellet stove running I have to run 2 humidifiers to keep enough moisture
It a job trying to keep the moisture levels a constant but having 20K in hand scrapped wood flooring is not something I wish to replace anytime soon

OK maybe i should of said "MOST" people don't keep there house at a constant humidity level. I don't think that you disagree with me its that you don't fall into what i would call common practice. I have over 2800 sg ft of wood flooring and i open the windows as often as i can. Yes your floor would not show much signs of movement
due to what your doing to keep your humidity levels constant. Which is what i was saying. Again i think most people don't do that.

 

[murphy1244]

My floor shows some gaps in the winter and closes up in the spring. I burn wood so I run two humidifiers and two kettles on the fire.

 

[pclausen]

Peter,
A little caution on your watering of the grass.
The point is, you don't want to pump enough water to get any part of your pump out of water since it is water cooled.
Ron

Good point Ron. The well is 215ft deep, the pump sits 18ft above the bottom, and the water column is 195ft high when the pump is not running. Assuming 5" diameter column, that's about 180 gallons of reserve. I suppose I could try to measure how fast, if at all, the water column drops when one of the sprinklers is running, and based on that, how long I can safely run them. With 8 of them now going for 15 minutes each, 3 times a day, that's 6 hours of watering per day right now.

 

[pclausen]

Spoke to the builder about the hardwood floors, and he said that there should not be a problem since the humidity was relatively low Saturday and Monday when it was installed. Since the inside of the house is technically not climate controlled yet, the moisture level of the sub floor and flooring should have been very similar. He said the worst time to install hardwood flooring is when it rains. I'll keep a close eye on it for sure.

 

[pacerron]

Good point Ron. The well is 215ft deep, the pump sits 18ft above the bottom, and the water column is 195ft high when the pump is not running. Assuming 5" diameter column, that's about 180 gallons of reserve. I suppose I could try to measure how fast, if at all, the water column drops when one of the sprinklers is running, and based on that, how long I can safely run them. With 8 of them now going for 15 minutes each, 3 times a day, that's 6 hours of watering per day right now.

As I recall your well was recently finalized. Your county or your state will have a record in their registry that will give you the draw down figure. Most states have this info available on line.
The well guy should have given you a copy. You could call him, as he will have it in his record book. Might be a good idea to call him anyway. He will be able to tell you right off, if he thinks you will be ok to draw as much water as you plan too for constant yard watering and construction purposes.
If you have a good well he might even agree to having you increase the pressure on the regulator at the bladder tank a few pounds. This might be against code in your area, so better check first since your final plumbing inspection hasn't been done yet.
The draw down is the important figure and you want it to be a small number.
As you pump water from the well reservoir pipe new water has to trickle in to replace it from the surrounding rock/sand strata. If it is not being replaced at the rate it is being pumped out your water column head drops. This is expected, but if it takes 2 days to fill back up and you are watering every day for many hours you can see how the curve will go and you might burn up your pump with a big expense to follow.
Ron