Fir floorboards in 1920s house

[Deleted User]

Hi there

I'm in this old period house with original fir floorboards. The thing is, I cant find fir anywhere else on google (except reclaimed ones for shipping crates etc).

My question is - is it worth stripping the carpets to sand the fir floorboards underneath? As in, are fir floorboards 'valuable' should they be covered with new carpets? Or will that be a bit of a shame?

I really have no idea!

Thanks!

martindow

By fir do you mean pine? This was the usual wood for floorboards. If they are in good condition they can look good sanded down and varnished.

[Deleted User]

It looks like pine but i'm told it's fir by the flooring guy. Had a look on google and I cant really tell.

[Deleted User]

Why are old or reclaimed fir/ pine boards so much more expensive that the ones you can buy new?

teneighty

I was intrigued by this question so did a quick bit of research.

Like martindow I assumed it was just a generic term for pine but I have never heard it called fir before. I think if you went into a timber merchants and asked for a fir plank they would laugh at you.

The only fir I have heard of in terms of timber is Douglas Fir but it turns out that it is mis-named and is not a fir tree at all and should be called Douglas Pine. That is my useful fact for the day.

Reclaimed pine floorboards tend to be more expensive because you are paying for the patina of age and old pine tends to be better quality than modern fast grown kiln dried rubbish which splits, warps and shrinks as soon as you fix it.

But please ask your flooring guy what he means by fir, I would be interested to hear.

[Deleted User]

Thanks, that's very helpful, I will ask him about that and post back here

jennifernil

Firs (Abies) are a genus of 48–55 species of evergreen coniferous trees in the family Pinaceae. They are found through much of North and Central America, Europe, Asia, and North Africa, occurring in mountains over most of the range. Firs are most closely related to the genus Cedrus (cedar). Douglas firs are not true firs, being of the genus Pseudotsuga.

They are large trees, reaching heights of 10–80 m (33–262 ft) tall and trunk diameters of 0.5–4 m (1 ft 8 in–13 ft 1 in) when mature. Firs can be distinguished from other members of the pine family by the unique attachment of their needle-like leaves and by their different cones.
Identification of the different species is based on the size and arrangement of the leaves, the size and shape of the cones, and whether the bract scales of the cones are long and exserted, or short and hidden inside the cone.

from Wikipedia

Errata

Fir is just another word for pine. Some people like to sand and varnish floorboards made from this wood and scatter a few rugs around. Some people discover there a gaps between some of the boards through which a cold draft blows and have to stop the gaps with slivers of pinewood.
They're a soft wood so dent and mark very easily and pine floorboards were laid in older houses because they were cheap and meant to be covered in rugs and mats.

leveller2911

Douglas Fir floorboards can look lovely as they tend to have few knots in and its harder than most pines so its harder to damage. The downside is Douglas Fir is prone to splitting so you can have long cracks in the boards ,sometimes along the entire length of the boards.

Its unusual to see DF flooring so it may well be Redwood pine flooring or pitch pine.

somethingcorporate

Get a new floor guy!

Give someone like this a call and see what they suggest: http://www.justwoodflooring.com/