Antique Heart Pine

Before the 18th Century, Longleaf Pine forests covered approximately 30-60 million acres along the coastal plains from Virginia’s southern tip to eastern Texas. The Longleaf Pine trees stood between 80-120 feet tall and require, at minimum, 100 to 150 years to mature. They can live to be 500 years old! Just 1 inch of Heart Pine girth requires a whopping 30 years of growth. Due to the deforestation and over-harvesting, only about 3% of the original Longleaf Pine forests still stand.

Heart Wood is preferred over Sapwood due to its strength, hardness, rigidity, and golden rich colour. Longleaf Pine has been called many things over the years: Longstraw, Yellow, Southern Yellow, Swamp, Hard or Heart, Pitch, and Georgia Pine. Yet, its species name directly means “of the marsh.” Today, we mainly refer to it as Reclaimed Heart Pine because the quality of trees used to fabricate building materials from the 19th century no longer exists. All of Old Hudson Flooring’s Antique Heart Pine is between 200 to 500 years old and that was before it was first processed. The reclaimed wood currently being used has been in place for over 160 years! We guarantee you’re getting a rich piece of history when buy from Old Hudson Flooring.

The way to tell you have a true piece of Antique Heart Pine is by the amount of rings per inch. The majority of Antique Heart Pine has at least 6 rings per inch. The more rings per inch means the tree had time to grow slowly, thus, allowing it to become denser and sturdier than other trees with less rings per inch. Obviously, a tree with more rings in said inch is better than a tree with less. A Longleaf Pine with around 4 rings or less per inch indicates that it is a New Growth tree. This means that it is not antique and is not of the same quality as our reclaimed lumber that was grown before the 19th century.

 

 

OLD vs NEW