Wood floor experts and people who deal with reclaimed wood, please weigh in?
I have a floor in a summer house that we are winterizing: adding heat and insulation. The house is about 95 years old, the floor random width pine.
Until 5 years ago, there was minimum movement in the floorboards. They were flat as ... well,...boards.
We had some repairs done and a past contractor removed the tiny bit of insulation that was under the floor, between the joists below. (Below that was an unsealed dirt crawl space.) Two or three of the boards started cupping, going right back down when the weather warmed up again.
Now we have had the crawlspace sealed and waterproofed, and are adding insulation and heat to the rooms with the wood flooring in question. (One story house)
My contractor wants me to replace the boards with a new floor. (He has already installed an adjoining space with new flooring over a subfloor.)
I LOVE my contractor, but I dont want to replace this old floor.
My contractor says that when the space is heated, the old floors will shrink and move as they are not secured to a subfloor the way the new floor is.
The original plan was to sand the old floor, darken both, and finish both floors to match as well as possible. This is a cabin so it doesn't have to be perfect.
So: replace? Or keep the old floor?