Where are you located?
Since our inception we have sold flooring to the entire continental United States. We shipped into Canada, Mexico and had floors ship to Hawaii in 2020. Our sales offices are in Mississippi and Florida, with manufacturing in Alabama, Louisiana, and North Carolina. For more information on our company visit our BBB page and our A+ rating.

Do you install or know local installers?
Just as we do with our floors, Bayou Rustic is incredibly careful who gets “Recommended” and anyone we offer to our customers has proven they understand real wood. For those of you buying our Pine we also make sure that any professional follows our instructions regarding finish and installation.

What are you lead times?
Seasonal and vary by species or products. IN GENERAL, we run 10- 14 days on our Heart and Character Pine. We have dedicated logistics partners and staff that communicates from start to finish. We track your floor from pick up to destination insuring you have plenty of time to prepare for your delivery or arrange your pickup. Caribbean Heart Pine and Brazilian Imports are ready to ship so lead times depend on shipping distances and paperwork. Hardwood time vary based on the time of the year and availability.

How and when do you accept payment?
We accept PayPal, **Bill me Later, Visa, MasterCard, and Discover and American Express. We offer cash discounts of 2.5% and have veterans’ discount. You can finance your flooring with six months no interest using PayPal.

Can you match our existing floor?
One of the keys when attempting to match an existing pine floor, the right trees taken at the right age, make sense? The biggest hurdle however, mother nature. Have you ever seen a hundred-year-old floor below the existing finish? The short answer, they get better looking with age; meaning each time you refinish it, the patina and colors are darker. Therefore, the question how to match an existing pine floor hinges on choosing the correct materials, i.e., grain pattern, grain type, knots (if so sizes), and the amount (if any) of heart pine.

How much extra should we order?
One the questions everyone should ask when buying any type of flooring, how much extra should we order? The answer, or waste factor, is 10%. The 10% extra allows for mistakes during installation, along with any other damages which can occur during the shipping process. Being careful helps, but even real wood professionals with decades of experience order 10% for insurance and selection.

How much is Shipping?
What a great question and one with a different answer for every single customer. Shipping is the one variable which can drastically alter your delivered cost per square foot. How? While we do not increase the flooring cost for small orders shipping becomes a larger percentage of the total. For example, 2000 square feet may cost .28 per square foot ($560.00) to ship whereas 500 square feet may add .60 to delivered cost.

Can you refinish engineered Hardwoods?
The answer depends on the wear layer, or the thickness of the wood. 4mm is the minimum thickness needed to even attempt to refinish an engineered floor. The wear layer is the top solid part of an engineered hardwood floor that will wear away as your floor ages.

It is the only re-sandable part of a floor—sand past the wear layer, and you get to the plywood core. If you read the marketing, you will hear it stated unequivocally that you can refinish 2-3 millimeter engineered. floors. This is a fantasy; they cannot possibly be refinished unless you did it brand new out of the box. The wood is not there, you will hit the composite material every other foot and probably quit after 10 minutes.

Can your floors be glued down?
For years, the answer was that the normal shrinkage and swelling cycle that occurs with changes in moisture content (such as seasonal humidity) may weaken and eventually break any glue bond between the planks and subfloor. Second, a proper vapor barrier cannot be installed when gluing directly to concrete. The answer however is yes provided you take advantage of today’s technology. Bostik’s BEST® urethane glue has exceptionally low moisture vapor permeability and is not adversely affected by moisture vapor. As a result, it will reduce moisture vapor transmission through concrete. When applied as directed as a moisture vapor membrane, it will prevent damages caused by subfloor moisture beneath dimensionally stable, engineered wood flooring only. Furthermore, the urethane-based glue allows for those tiny movements and shifts that can occur during climate changes.

Should we glue and nail?
Most installers will argue this point for one of two reasons; number one they do not understand the concept of ‘movable’ glue with a moisture barrier instead of nails, or they do not understand real wood. The purpose of nailing real wood flooring is so that it can make tiny seasonal moves, this is true with any species. The answer, you do one of the other with solid wood (3/4) floors and if you glue it must be polymer based, such as Bostiks Best.

Is Southern Yellow Pine a species?
No, in general, Southern Yellow Pine is 4 species. Most think it is a species all its own, which is in the top five of myths we dispel every day. Southern Yellow Pine is a description, much as Alabama Heart Pine is a description and we use that state name because of the cache. The soil, climate and available resources make this descriptive term let the buyer, in most cases understand the nature of the flooring with regards to age, knots etc. Plus, longleaf heartwood is beautiful. The grain is not your usual oak pattern (found in 75% of homes) and is a rich, red color thanks to the resin. One hundred percent heartwood means the color will be consistent. Even 98 percent heart will have yellow sapwood streaks that produce a strong/obvious color variation.

How hard is pine flooring?
Janka Hardness of Caribbean Heart pine is 1280, Heart Pine 1250 and Southern Yellow Pine 690. Now those numbers, two of them anyway are very misleading. The 690 score of Southern Yellow Pine takes in all the species within, what is, really a description and not a standalone species. As for our Southern Yellow Pine, our Character grade Longleaf Southern Yellow Pine will have a varied amount of heart and or sap wood in every board and pallet (bundle). Measuring the actual hardness is impossible. As for the 1250 of Heart Pine, some will be discussed below in the heart content paragraph, but just know that the industry has no watch dog for heart content and marketing. Buyer beware. Ask the question; “does your 50% heart content ad mean 50% or better, 50% is max or does it mean, and this is happening today that 50% of the boards will have heart content.

What is Heart Content?
What constitutes heart content? What is the difference between sap wood and heartwood? All wood has outer sapwood and inner heartwood layers. The sapwood is the transport system of the tree, moving water and nutrients up from the roots. The heartwood is the older and denser inner layers of the tree. Heartwood is not metabolically active and is the waste storage area of the tree as well as the tree’s primary support structure. Heartwood is usually darker than sapwood due to the stored compounds. Remember that Heart Pine is not a species it is about time and age, which is not found in fast growing timber grown to build houses.

What finish do you recommend?
The main distinction between urethane or an oil finish; one sits on top the other penetrates. Deciding which finish is best for your project depends upon several variables. Urethane finishes form a layer of protection on top of the wood surface while oils penetrates. Urethane finishes are extremely durable and are easy to clean with a dry mop and hardwood floor cleaner. However, this durability comes with a price; a urethane finish can make it hard to do spot repairs. And finally, as the urethane wear layer breaks down, the entire floor will have to be stripped & refinished. Whereas, if maintained properly an oil finished floor never needs to be stripped like a urethane finish.