Well, if you really want Brazilian Teak flooring and do not want to promote the conversion of the rain forest to pasture or unsustainable agriculture, then source it from someone who does sustainable forestry and not just land conversion harvesting. This is probably easier said than done (especially with products coming from developing nations), as there are many people in the process between the tree and the retail flooring product and some will say/promise things that are hard to verify. Even some of the third party certification systems have found errors in their own verification in developing countries and have had to make changes to ensure integrity. A/C systems, by their very nature, remove huge amount of moisture from the air and lower the relative humidity in a home in the summer to acceptable levels (45%-60%). This is necessary for solid wood flooring that has been dried to 6%-10% moisture content in order to prevent it from expanding excessively in the summer and then contracting again in the fall and winter with drier air. When you say "putting on a humidity control on our A/C system," are you referring to adding a humidifier for the winter on your heat pump? We have a newer heat pump with no humidifier, a finished basement with sump pump, and a moderately tight house and the winter RH is generally the same as in the summer (40%-60%). If you have natural gas forced air heat, it tends to dry the air out more because of the higher temps at the registers and so a humidifier might be needed if your RH gets too low (20%-30%) in the winter time. Again, this also depends on how tight/new the house is. Newer construction tends to be tighter and hold more water inside the home than older draftier houses. The crawl space and related water drainage issues are very site specific.

Yeah one finished room. (Of course still full of dust) They finished our bedroom yesterday. Still have to enventually come back and do the closet, but for now have moved on to the great room. camlan..Their doing the same thing here. Running the wood with no seams from room to room. I hope ours eventually "glow" right now they just glow of dust, but it still is looking nice. judydel. I like to buy rugs at TJ Max HomeGoods. Patty Cakes.. Oh no. The stairs is what inspired us to do this hardwood job. We just finished painting the stairs yesterday. The carpet that was on the stairs was old, dirty and ugly. It had to come up. My kids are teenagers, so hopefully safety wont be an issue. We'll see if they become too loud, etc., we can always eventually add a runner to them. beth..Your floors, rugs and house are beautiful. Thanks for sharing the photos and experience. work.. Thanks for the advice. I'll remember this for the near future. Id love a sweeper I could run on the floor and not have to worry about damage.

http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/2256276/how-long-should-foundation-concrete-cure?n=48 long discussion but heres a quote: macv Concrete does not actually harden by "curing" nor is there any point in time when concrete would be considered "cured." Concrete naturally hardens over time by "hydration", the chemical reaction between portland cement and water in the concrete mix. "Curing" describes a procedure that an installer may choose to use to insure more complete hydration of the portland cement (and therefore greater concrete strength) by controlling moisture loss during the critical early part of the hydration process (ie 3 to 7 days). In the case of a residential footing curing might consist of simply covering the concrete for 3 days. In any case the curing procedure would not normally continue beyond 5 or 7 days depending on the temperature of the air. 28 days has nothing to do with the maximum strength of concrete; it's just an arbitrary time chosen because the strength gained after that time period is normally not important from a design point of view and there has to be a standard measuring point in order to allow enforceable specifications and uniform strength testing. As long as moisture and a favorable temperature are present for hydration of the cement, the strength of new concrete continues to increase long after the early curing phase and the 28 day mark. Since the actual strength of the concrete in a residential footing is not particularly critical, testing is not required so the 28 day mark has no practical relevance in the field. In fact, if the concrete hasn't reached the minimum strength required by code in 7 days, it's unlikely to get there. The IRC requires a concrete footing to have a minimum compression strength of 2,500 psi which is a low value and easy to achieve (most specifications would be higher). If a concrete footing is reasonably protected for 3 days, it should have reached 70% of the minimum required strength and it should reach 100% by the 5th day. A lot of what they talk about is if the concrete is cured enough to continue construction on it. The general consensus in that thread is that it takes 2-3 days before continuing construction but I personally would wait at least a couple weeks if not a month in your application so extra moisture may release before the floor is laid. My biggest concern is with the moisture of the new slab affecting your floor. Any moisture that gets in engineered flooring will ruin them and cause expansion/buckling

Sophie has beaten me to it. The heat/cooling system MUST BE on and running at "ideal living conditions". And that needs to be consistent for several DAYS BEFORE the wood is DELIVERED. Once the wood is DELIVERED to the PERFECTLY CONDITIONED home (ahem....we are missing step 1.), then the wood acclimates to the house conditions for several days to several WEEKS (time is HIGHLY DEPENDENT on the WOOD MOISTURE readings at the time of DELIVERY....sigh). Good, now that the home and the wood are in sync (ie. everything is at living conditions for days and days and days - or even weeks) AND the moisture readings on the wood are PERFECT, you can then install the floors. After installation, the home must REMAIN in the "PERFECT ZONE" for ever and ever amen (pass the ketchup)! No turning off HVAC/AC while away on holidays. As it stands RIGHT NOW....you have to turn on the HVAC and WAIT for days and days and days (or even weeks) before you can install the wood. Ooops. Too late. So "next best option" = finish install ('cause you've already messed up and the warranty is TOTALLY void) and then WAIT. Don't do ANYTHING to these floors. Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Niente. Nix. Cover floors with ram board and get that HVAC installed ASAP! Test the wood RIGHT NOW!!! Document what you find. Read the INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS and the WARRANTY instructions while you are waiting for the HVAC guys to show up! Now you turn on HVAC and set it PRECISELY to what is needed (as per wood manufacture's requirements) and then WAIT until the WOOD reaches that point. Good. Now FIX ALL THE PROBLEMS in the floor FIRST (and this could take a while....hopefully you have TREMENDOUS amounts of waste/overage) and THEN start your sand and finish. I'm sorry to say but this floor could be your biggest nightmare come true. With a little luck and a SUPER HIGH END HVAC system that is many THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS MORE than the average HVAC system, you can save your wood. Your situation is all too common. And builders need to be taken to task for allowing the installation in an unconditioned space. Please get the GC to sign a waiver stating that if this floor fails it is HIS/HER fault and he/she MUST TAKE ALL REQUIRED STEPS to remove and replace this floor to your satisfaction...and put a time limit of 5 years on that baby. Just to make sure the builder NEVER does this again! S/He who allowed this to happen MUST BE HELD RESPONSIBLE for it! And that means a MASSIVE FINANCIAL HIT!