Spread it out. Out of the packaging. One board thick in the rooms it is intended for. It takes a long time for humidity to penetrate a pile of boards. See chapter 3. (sorry, the site used to have chapter by chapter links, but they are gone). Cupping is only one of the tings that can happen. Plain expansion and shrinkage occur, even if the wood holds it shape. See figure 3-3. 8 inch wood is going to have some decent size gaps between heating and cooling season. And if you really are in a low RH area, it is going to continue shrinking. Here is a link that might be useful: 'Wood Handbook' This post was edited by brickeyee on Mon, Apr 29, 13 at 14:24

I doubt if you will be happy with walnut, the softest of hardwoods. There is no finish that will make it much harder. It is what it is. The opposite end of the hardness scale is the ipe you mentioned. If you want a similar grain you may consider red birch, a beautiful light cherry colored wood much harder than walnut. Birch, as with all close grained woods, does show the indentations it gets more readily than the more textured woods like oak. This is because the smoother surface makes them easier to detect. No finish is perfect. Aluminum oxide is slow to wear through but also harder to repair. We have in our house a lifetime guaranteed wear through finish (Trustor WearMax) but I would not use it again. No sign of wear through but we do have indentations etc that I can not touch up to my satisfaction and I'm an expert at that type of thing. I suggest you walk through this with a competent professional to find a combination of ascetics and durability to suit your needs.

There is always going to be a debate about this, but I'll say what I tell most of my customers. First, what's the look you want? Most pre-finished woods will NOT(no matter what the company tells you) have a perfectly flat end result, and you will have seams. Every wood company known to the flooring world will put a disclaimer on their 'instructions' that the "use of stains or putties should be considered normal practices". So if either of those concern you, don't get pre-finished wood. On site finished, those key things will be sanded down and puttied before finishing and resulting in less if no visibility of wider seems, putty marks and scratches out of box. Second, finishes they put on pre-finished these days are considerably different in many ways. In a factory somewhere(probably China depending on the company) they can put the harshest chemicals they want on the wood because of the fact that it's in a "controlled environment" which then can(and mostly does) result in a better and stronger finish. With on-site finishing you are restricted legally on what finishes you can apply, and depending on situations and products it can take anywhere between 3 days to 2 weeks for only FINISHING. That takes a chunk out of and slows down your building or living time. And thirdly, you cannot compare Apples to Oranges, EVER. You can't go to your neighbors house and see the pre-finished Australian Cypress they purchased from Lumber Liquidators for cheap that they installed themselves and then go to the local classy, and expensive, restaurant and see their on-site darkly finished Red Oak professionally installed, and come up with what you want in your house. And honestly people, 99 times out of 100 how much you spend will determine the end result. Meaning if there is a Oak that you're looking at and it costs $1.50/sf(yeah we wish, right?) and there is another Oak that costs $4.65/sf, the more expensive one WILL have a better finish, density, and/or overall quality(like i said 99 times out of 100). There's too much to go into but the basic aspects are different companies get different quality of wood- meaning grain tightness(tighter is better less chance of damage during sawing) grain pattern, finish chemicals(if pre-finished), etc. And just some last comments to help you out. What it really all comes down to is you. It's your house, it's your likes and dislikes that matter. Joe Shmoe can try and try to sell you this product or that product, but only go for what you want(remember most companies will give a kick back, or a spiff, to the sales person to sell their product even if the sales person says they don't). You have to live in your house, nobody else does. The installer only cares if you're happy and he/she gets paid, and the salesman only cares if you're happy and he/she gets paid, but you can only be happy if you get what you really want. Also, I used to love Bamboo. I like the look and most notably it is one of the fastest growing woods(it's actually a grass) in the world. I don't like it for floors anymore because it scratches so easily, because of the nature of a grass it soaks up any liquid very quickly including finishes. If your heart is set on bamboo, go with on-site and expect a lot of finishing days and in the future refinishes. I know there is another thread on bamboo floors, so check that out. Then, as with all floors, make SURE you felt all your furniture with heavy duty felt(in Oregon it's tan, but everywhere it will be very thick) and no, plastic feet will not do- knock off all old feet and replace with heavy duty felt. A pre-finished product that I really like is hand scraped wood. Couple reasons for this is- personal preference as i like more "rustic" looking design- and also because scratches and dings and bangs don't show as easily. I've actually installed a floor that had such a dark finish and was hand scraped that we accidentally cross-grained scratched it after it was all laid with an appliance and we took a sharpie(yes the marker) and colored the scratch with it and the scratch literally disappeared even to us knowing where to look for the scratch. So a dark stained hand scraped wood is excellent for scratches. And lastly, if you "think" you can install it- get a professional, it's harder than it looks and pros have the right tricks and tools that make the final product perfect(not to mention if something goes wrong you have someone else's dollar that will have to fix it). The only reason you should do it yourself is if you "know" you can do it. Hope all that helps. Good luck with your remodels or new homes!

This floor was put in by an actual flooring company. It is the company that is contracted with this GC to do all his flooring. When He told me that I should use them because I'd get the best price, yada, yada, yada, he also said because "their installer/finishers were second to none". Now I want to ask if he knows this from his experience with them or because they told him that their installers/finishers were second to none! I was billed for "dustless" sanding & the GC has said the word dustless but neither the GC or the flooring company approached us to discuss how actually dusty the dustless is. I'm beginning to understand that you can ask as many questions as you want but if you don't ask the right questions, because of your lack of knowledge you won't end up with the information you need. Am I understanding both of you all's recommended course of action? I insist they go back and sand the floors-back to no stain? I do not ask the holes to be puttied except maybe the one in the photo below or similar, this one being dime size? I feel like this knot will lift out eventually. Then I make sure to start they are sanded properly, then stained, sealed or sealed, stained? Then poly'ed with sanding between coats. Total 3 coats. The boards with the deep gauges? The first pic really is quite deep & in a spot that will not be covered with a rug. It would be very difficult for sanding to get rid of the 2 places in the wood in the first 2 photos. Do I insist they be replaced? When you say problems with the short ends do you mean the cracks that show opening up from the show ends? Is the area in the center of the last photo lippage? The 1/2" linear sort of dome-shaped rise in the wood? As far as the humidity ect. We had small leaf acacia engineered hardwood installed in the bonus room last month by same flooring company. When the wood was delivered they did not want to bring it upstairs. I told them it was to be installed upstairs & delivering the wood early so it could acclimate make zero sense if it was not put in the room where it was to be installed. The wood was vertical stacked & left downstairs in unopened boxes. I emailed the owner/acts as install supervisor to voice my concerns about lack of proper acclimation ect. He said we would check the meter readings together before the install, although he did snidely ask me if I had a meter. Anyway, morning of readings were fine, inline with what I had researched as well as what he told me. The downstairs wood acclimated for at least 3 weeks, was not in boxes but was vertical stacked. We heated & cooled downstairs as normal during this time. Nobody offered to share any meter readings the morning of this install & I missed the owner when he was here at the start before he left. Sophie, do you still feel the issues here are from possible humidity/moisture or more likely poor preparation (sanding) & lack of dust control/cleanup before applying the poly finish? You know if you "dustless" sand & leave all the dust on the walls next to the floor being finished, pretty unrealistic to not think it 's going to float down onto the floor all day. Thank you so much for your input Cancork Floors & Sophie.