Making the Grade With Heart Pine and Heart Cypress

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Legacy Heart Pine Vintage Engineered Wood Flooring

Wood Flooring

One of the Goodwin ‘differences’ is our effort to be transparent and straightforward about our grades and guarantees. For example, when others say, “We don’t give specific heart content percentages. It isn’t all that important,” Goodwin gives an exact percentage. River-Recovered® Heart Pine and Heart Cypress are guaranteed 100% heart. Our Legacy building reclaimed antique heart pine is guaranteed at least 95% in plainsawn and at least 98% in vertical. In fact, Legacy is virtually all heart with very little sapwood if any because of the way George Goodwin saws the antique beams.

When other companies refer to knots as ‘infrequent’ or ‘small’, Goodwin gives you an exact maximum size and is willing to guarantee a maximum number in a bundle. We count them! Goodwin follows the 1904 grading rules of no knots over 1-1/4” in our River-Recovered® grades and the 1924 grading rules, the last published for heart pine, of no knots over 1-1/2” for our Legacy building reclaimed antique heart pine.

Goodwin also guarantees an average growth ring minimum of 8 per inch for River-Recovered® and a 6 per inch for Legacy, again following the 1904 and 1924 standards. Our heart content is higher and we send fewer defects in all except our Character grades. Goodwin provides 2’ – 12’ or longer lengths than others who send 1’+ or 1-1/2’+. Most other competitors suggest a 10% waste allowance. Goodwin recommends only a 5% ‘cutting allowance’ for boards at the end of a row.

When Goodwin says heart pine, we mean longleaf pine that was at least 200 years old when it was cut. The book ‘Longleaf Pine’, 1946, states that even at 200 years old heart pine will still be only 2/3rds heartwood. There are reclaimed wood companies that call 90–120-year-old longleaf ‘heart pine’. Goodwin’s Heart Cypress was at least 500 years old when cut and generally twice that or more. According to the USDA Forest Service that is the true ‘old growth’ age.

We believe this information is worthwhile to our discerning clientele. We guarantee your satisfaction!

 

The Beauty within River-Recovered® Logs