Hardwood Floors April/May 2024

Moisture Management

Ask anyone who works with wood flooring in the “city beneath the sea,” and they will tell you moisture control is king. Benton Block owns Abita Wood Floors, serving the Northshore area and beyond for more than 25 years. He started working on wood floors 40 years ago and puts it simply: “If you learn how to control the moisture here, you can control moisture anywhere.” Block explains, “When I get wood here, it usually comes from the manufacturer about 6 or 7 percent moisture content. I know it needs to be 10, 11, or 12 percent moisture content, which is a challenge because all construction these days is fast-tracked. When you tell them it has to acclimate, they freak out.” At the first National Oak Flooring Manufacturers Association (NOFMA) school Troendle attended, he recalls industry legend Mickey Moore saying, “If you live in Denver, Colorado, you get less wood than what you pay for, but if

PHOTOS COURTESY OF BENTON BLOCK | ABITA WOOD FLOORS

you live in New Orleans, Louisiana, you get more wood than you pay for.” While teaching installers how to do successful floor installations when you are below sea level is a unique challenge, Moore taught Troendle that you can put flooring in any climate; as long as you understand the wood and the mechanics of wood and how it grows. “About 20 years ago, I built a calculator that I placed on spaceafloor.com. You put in the target EMC, the average MC, and the species. I went to NWFA and manufacturers to include tangential and radial expansion rates. Taking the space size divided by the growth tells you what you should space the boards at. If you don’t put the space in the floor, the nails will pull out to the other side of the room,” he explains. “In New Orleans, you have to put a floor in for July, August, and September because that’s when the floor is going to grow to its widest and not buckle.” INSET: Benton Block has been serving the Northshore area and beyond for more than 25 years. He is pictured here (second to last on the right) with his wife, Bernardita (right), daughter, Bernadette (left), and the rest of the Abita Wood Floors team. ABOVE: Abita Wood Floors worked on the floors in Sunnybrook, which was built in the 1880s near Covington, Louisiana. It has been said that Andrew Jackson took shelter under Sunnybrook’s oak trees while traveling to the Battle of New Orleans.

Fast Facts NEW ORLEANS

POPULATION: 369,749 1 NICKNAME: The Big Easy or Crescent City FOUNDING: Founded by Jean Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville in 1718 2 . TREE HISTORY: The Anseman and McDonogh live oak trees in New Orleans City Park are estimated to be 750 - 900 years old 2 . SEA LEVEL: The city sits at an average of six feet below sea level 3 .

Sources: 1 Source: United States Census Bureau Estimate July 1, 2022.

2 Source: New Orleans & Company via neworleans.com, the official New Orleans tourism industry website. 3 Source: New Orleans, Louisiana in 2100: Effects of Subsidence, Sea-Level Rise, and Erosion. By Elizabeth A. Bloch, 2009. Florida Institute of Technology.

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