What were old (1930s) timber floors made out of?

JustAnotherSaver

Don't say wood.

I'm curious what type wood. Short of taking the pieces to someone who knows what they're talking about (& finding someone would be a start) i thought i'd just chance it on here.

I ask because this is the first real time we've been able to get our fire going after having it installed at the back end of last winter. I've burnt plenty of wood so far & so far so good.

We had our living room floor renewed last year - the floorboards & the joists. Rather than skip it i told those doing the work to put it to one side & i cut it up & stored it in a dry shed - where it stayed for the past 12 months.

Started burning this stuff & it doesn't half spit & crackle. Nothing like what i've burned so far.

Only difference i've noted so far is that the grain is quite tight on this old wood whereas it's quite wide apart on the modern stuff i've burnt so far. Can't see that being the cause.

So just wondered what sort of wood it likely is really. Nothing but curiosity

Franz_Ferdinand

Douglas fir or pitch pine.

Hopefully the wood you're burning would get you less if you sold it than the cost of that amount of fire wood.

Horseygirl123

What a shame to burn 1930s floorboards. You would have easily sold them - much better than modern boards.

Our 1920s floorboards are pine. Could yours have had varnish or shellac on them?

JohnB47

Are they noticeably heavy - compared to standard wood currently used for floorboards or stud walling? If so they might be pitch pine. I have some that I can't bear to burn - I did burn a few odd bits and they burn like firelighters. Lovely wood - looks like it'll last many hundreds of years.

yellow218

I echo other readers, what a shame to burn them. but hey....

You'll probably find they have been treated somehow. We have built a couple of timber framed out-buildings and burnt the off cuts. These crackle and pit too, even when left a few seasons. Personally i like it, nothing like a crackling fire! Just get a decent fire guard!

JustAnotherSaver

I'll have to google pitch pine to see what that is.

I have the door shut when the fire is going too so no chance of it spitting out & i only put new pieces on when it has died down enough to stop spitting

Basically our floor was renewed due to it being rotten. Not too sure anyone would want a rotten floor / wood but i guess you never know what's floating peoples boats.

What are the joists likely to have been made out of? I haven't gotten round to burning these yet but they're all cut up ready to go. These were in even worse condition than the floorboards, well the ends certainly were at least.

The floorboards didn't feel overly heavy but the joists were a little weighty perhaps. It's been 12 months since i was lugging them about as full lengths so i'm going off my memory here which is like a sieve at the best of times.

Again with the joists i noticed the grain was so much tighter on them than what is on new timber used these days.

keith969

JustAnotherSaver wrote: »

Again with the joists i noticed the grain was so much tighter on them than what is on new timber used these days.

Could be a sign that the wood was from slower growing trees than modern stuff. I get the occasional off cuts that crackle a lot but they seem to burn just as well. Currently some old pine skirting board is doing a grand job as kindling