Wood Floor ID

[Rukie]

Hello everyone! 

I live in Winnebago County, Wisconsin and I'm currently fixing up a home before I move into it. I pulled out all the carpet and I discovered all this unfinished tongue and groove wood below. 

It seems to be a softwood (I can press my fingernail into it) and its also incredibly light. It seems pretty porous. There's a red tint to it when I sand it. I'm wondering if it might be a red cedar or a red pine, but I'm not sure. I was hoping some specialists like you guys might be able to point me in the right direction! 

The house is circa 1900. 

I'm hoping to replace a few boards around the vent to tighten it up, and stain/seal the floor before moving in! I'd appreciate your thoughts!

Regards,
Rukie


 

 

 

 

[Magicman]

Looks very similar to our Southern Yellow Pine, aka: "SYP".

[Southside]

I will second that on the SYP. Maybe a lot of sap wood thus it feels soft.

[Don P]

Based on your location I'd bet red pine or jack pine. Is there any exposed end grain showing the transition zone between heartwood and sapwood? Red usually has a somewhat star shaped heartwood zone where most pines have just a round heartwood area. That floor looks to be the diagonal board sheathing layer where nowadays we use plywood or osb for that sheathing layer.

[WDH]

I suspect red pine as well.

[Rukie]

Thank you all for the input! I definitely want to look into Red Pine in more detail.

I've started pulling up  more boards, I can't say that I'm finding any "heartwood." Or at least, transitions aren't apparent.  

The color doesn't seem to match yellow pine at all, or at least, not whats in stores today. It doesn't seem to match the sapwood or heartwood of pine. Pine heartwood seems like a soft pink, not so much red. 

I've also noticed that under the light the wood seems to "sparkle." Almost like little facets of quartz. The floor boards are also very easy to split. 

In the attached pictures we have a comparison of floor and cedar planks at Lowes. We have wood cleaned with mineral spirits, and we have cedar and my floor boards stained. Some floor boards are from different rooms.