About The Hardwood Flooring Summit:

The Hardwood Flooring Summit is taking place in Atlanta, at the Westin Peachtree Plaza hotel (which is the tallest hotel in the western hemisphere). The Hardwood Flooring Summit is organized and hosted by The Claims Advisor, which is a proud member of The National Wood Flooring Association and The World Floor Covering Association. The Claims Advisor has been consulting the flooring industry for more than twenty years. The Claims Advisor has conducted over one hundred-fifty training sessions throughout North America, and provides claims manuals and other educational material for the flooring industry.

The World Floor Covering Association has approved the utilization of up to a $500 trade scholarship for this conference. Regular members of the WFCA who are attending The Hardwood Flooring Summit may be eligible for this scholarship opportunity.

About The Hardwood Flooring Summit’s Blog:

This blog will focus on hardwood flooring.

Specifically, we will address education, claims, installation, manufacturing, and inspections.

The goal with this blog is to have interactive communication between anyone and everyone who’s interested in hardwood flooring. Please leave a comment on any article that you enjoy reading.

Dan Blake, President

The Hardwood Flooring Summit

PO Box 507

Hoschton, GA

30548

Website: www.woodconference.com

Over 40 Expert Speakers and Instructors to Teach at The Hardwood Flooring Summit

At The Hardwood Flooring Summit, more than forty leading experts on hardwood flooring will openly share their expertise and unbiased advice to members of the flooring industry. This educational conference will take place August 14th through 17th in Atlanta.

Atlanta, Georgia May 15, 2008 – The Hardwood Flooring Summit is a conference focusing on hardwood flooring education. The Summit will take place August 14th through 17th, 2008 in Atlanta, Georgia. The conference will host over forty skilled speakers and instructors on wood flooring. Experts in every facet of the hardwood flooring industry will teach and train the attendees (who will include retailers, claims personnel, distributors, manufacturers, inspectors, and installers). This conference is open to everyone in the flooring industry seeking professional advancement via educational means.

The Hardwood Flooring Summit will include speaker sessions, forty-five breakout classes, and expert panels and debates. In addition to the main portion of the conference, The Hardwood Flooring Summit is offering a two day claims photography and inspection report writing course on August 12th and 13th. This extra two day course is included with registration of The Hardwood Flooring Summit. There will also be an optional hardwood flooring mill tour on either of the two days prior to the main portion of the conference.

The World Floor Covering Association has approved the utilization of their $500 trade scholarship. Regular members of the WFCA who are attending The Hardwood Flooring Summit may be eligible for this scholarship opportunity. Contact The World Floor Covering Association at (800) 624-6880 for more information on this trade scholarship.

The list of speakers is scheduled to include:

Brian Bond, PhD.: Professor of Wood Science, Virginia Tech University

Ed Korczak: National Wood Flooring Association – CAE, Executive Director/CEO

Don Conner: National Wood Flooring Association Certified Professionals -President & Mullican – Technical Director

D. Christopher Davis: President & CEO, World Floor Covering Association

Dan Natkin: Mannington Hardwood Business Manager

Len Daubler: Anderson Hardwood Floors – Technical Director

Rick Jones: Scandian – Technical Director

Joe Amato: Mannington – Award winning wood floor designer

Todd Shutte: BonaKemi – Director of Sales

Steve Lima: Bostik – Technical Director

Carl Williams: Academy of Textiles and Flooring

Lew Migliore: Floor Covering News collumnist

Kevin Mullany: NWFA Board Member, NWFA Inspector

Tony Miraldi: Technical Director and Claims Manager, Somerset

Riley Gazzaway: Top industry retailer. Former President of The World Floor Covering Association.

Mike Sundell: Prior President of Basic Coatings.

Chesty West: Technical Director and Claims Manager, Zickgraf

Steve Marley: Technical Director and Claims Manager, Johnson Premium Hardwood Flooring

For additional information on The Hardwood Flooring Summit, contact Dan Blake at 1-(877)888-1013 or visit www.woodconference.com.

The Westin Peachtree Plaza

(404) 659-1400

210 Peachtree Street

Atlanta, GA 30303

Hotel Website: http://tinyurl.com/673rn4

Google Maps Street View link to driving directions from the airport to the hotel: http://tinyurl.com/6kkv7z

Atlanta Airport Shuttle: The shuttle leaves every 20 minutes from the airport to downtown. You can also call the Sales Department and purchase tickets in advance and get a $2 discount. They will provide a greeter in the airport with group name if requested for $30phr. Not really necessary, but some groups like the extra service.

Main# 404-524-3400….Sales is Ext. 404. (Tanya Young and there are 2 other sales managers as well).

MTI Limo service: Lincoln Town Car-$60hr one way, $120 R/trip, plus tax and grat. Lincoln Navigator-$100 one way/$200 R/trip; plus tax and gratuity. The limo is $85 one way/$170 R/trip plus tax and grat. Vans 15 passenger $60 one way/$120 R/trip, plus tax and grat. 20% grat, 7% tax. 27% total. 404-669-0900, or if you are staying in the hotel, it’s ext. #75342. Prices may vary for Group bookings, please call main# with details of group.

MARTA: Public Transit system, begins in terminal near baggage claim and drops off 1/2 block from Westin Peachtree at Peachtree Center.
Cost is $1.75 each way. Please take the Ellis St. Exit.
Marta Website: http://www.itsmarta.com/

Keith Papulski has been involved with the flooring industry for almost 40 years, primarily in the areas of product development and manufacturing.

He began working for ORCON Corp. in 1969 where he was instrumental in the development of hot-melt carpet seaming tape and related products. Later, as owner of Y&K Manufacturing, Keith supplied ORCON and other companies with a variety of flooring installation tools.

In 1991, Keith was named general manager of Taylor Tools in Denver, Colorado, where he continues to oversee product research & development as well as Manufacturing, Sales and Marketing.

Keith has been a member of the ASTM F-06 committee since 2000.

Keith Papulski will be one of forty expert speakers and instructors at The Hardwood Flooring Summit, which is taking place in Atlanta on August 12-17, 2008. For a full list of conference speakers, please visit The Hardwood Flooring Summit’s Speaker Page.

The Hardwood Flooring Summit is just over a month away (August 2008), and many conference attendees are asking about fun things to do while they’re in Atlanta for The Summit. You may be attending the conference with your family, and in that case, you’ll be looking for family attractions. Having lived in Atlanta for over twenty years, here’s a few of my personal recommendations:

The Georgia Aquarium is located in Pemberton Place (named in honor of John Pemberton, the inventor of Coca-Cola) in Atlanta. The aquarium is within walking distance of The Hardwood Flooring Summit. It is the world’s largest aquarium. The Georgia Aquarium has more than 8.1 million gallons of marine and fresh water. With all of this water, the aquarium is able to host more than 100,000 animals of 500 different species.

The World of Coca-Cola is next door to the Georgia Aquarium. It’s a permanent exhibition that features the Coca-Cola Company. It focuses on the history of Coca-Cola, and its well-known advertisements. It also has a lot of entertainment areas and attractions. It opened to the public on May 24, 2007, replacing a 17-year-old smaller museum located a few miles away.

The World of Coca-Cola and the aquarium are across the street from Olympic Fountain of Rings, a lot of Olympic style decoration and artwork, and bricks commemorating people who helped fund the park. They host a lot of events at this park during the summer, so check out Screen On The Green, where they play movies on a large movie screen outside. It’s free, and only about 2 1/2 blocks from The Westin Peachtree Plaza (which is where The Summit is being held).

The CNN Centeris also only a few blocks from The Hardwood Flooring Summit. They offer studio tours. The atrium escalator that is used to transport visitors on the CNN tour has been listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest freestanding (supported only at the ends) escalator in the world. They have a large food court in the CNN headquarter atrium.

The CNN Center is connected (literally) to Phillips Arena, which is the home of the NHL’s Thrashers (the best team in the league) and the Hawks of the NBA. Unfortunately, neither league is in season during August. But here’s a list of eventsat Phillips Arena.

Phillips Arena and The CNN Center are right next door to the newly renovated home of the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons, the Georgia Dome. The Falcons will be hosting Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts on August 16, 2008.

If you’re into baseball, you can do the tomahawk chop while watching the Braves at Turner Field(the locals call it “The Ted”). Here’s the schedule for the Bravos during the month of August 2008. The Braves are on a home stand during the week of The Hardwood Flooring Summit. They’ll be playing the Chicago Cubs in a three game series on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday (August 12-14, 2008). Then they’re slated to match up against the San Francisco Giants in a four game weekend series from Friday through the following Monday.

A short drive away from The Hardwood Flooring Summit is the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site. The site was established on October 10, 1980. It consists of several buildings surrounding Martin Luther King, Jr.’s boyhood home on Auburn Avenue in the Sweet Auburn district of Atlanta, Georgia. Ebenezer Baptist Church, the church where King and his father Martin Luther King, Sr. pastored, is also part of the national historic site. These places are critical components in the interpretation of the life of Martin Luther King Jr. and his legacy as a leader of the American civil rights movement.

If you’re into Gone With the Wind, you should check out The Margaret Mitchell House & Museum. The Margaret Mitchell House and Museum was the home of author Margaret Mitchell. Located Midtown Atlanta at 990 Peachtree Street, Georgia, the house was known as the Crescent Apartments when she and her husband lived in Apt. 1 on the ground floor from 1925 to 1932. While living here, she wrote the bulk of her Pulitzer prize-winning novel, Gone with the Wind. In addition to the house, there is a Visitor Center and a museum building wholly devoted to the filming of the 1939 film based on this book.

Georgia’s most popular tourist attraction, Stone Mountain Park is celebrating it’s 50th anniversary this year. Here’s a list of http://www.stonemountainpark.com/attractions-shows/attractions and shows at Stone Mountain Park. Stone Mountain is a granite dome monadnock located in Stone Mountain, Georgia, which is a suburb of Atlanta. At its summit, the elevation is 1,683 feet (513 m) amsl and 825 feet (251.5 m) above the surrounding plateau. The mountain extends underground to several surrounding counties. Stone Mountain is the largest exposed granite ’stone’ in the world.

A lot of people have been asking about hotel information, so I’ve included contact information to get The Hardwood Flooring Summit’s group rate on hotel reservations:

To book your hotel reservations for The Hardwood Flooring Summit, contact Kate Lynn of The Trendle Group (The Trendle Group is the corporate event planning company that’s working with The Hardwood Flooring Summit). Email her in order to get the discounted group rate at The Westin Peachtree Plaza.

*UPDATED August 4, 2008* For those of you looking for a good price on airfare to and from Atlanta for the upcoming Hardwood Flooring Summit (August 12-17 2008), I’ve included a few places to start looking for travel information. Many of these airfare rates are actually cheaper than driving.

Clark Howard (who has a nationally syndicated radio show) always has good deals on travel to and from Atlanta. Visit his site for details.

Also, here’s Airtran’s current special rates for travel to and from Atlanta. The Hardwood Flooring Summit isn’t affiliated with Airtran in any way, other than the fact that we fly with them quite a bit. They always seem to have good prices, as well as newer planes and pretty good customer service. The prices listed below are all one way fares (no round trip required), and you have to book your flights by August 7, 2008 in order to get these special rates.

Go to Air Tran’s Net Escapes Page for details on how to book your flight to The Hardwood Flooring Summit.

Akron/Canton – $94
Baltimore – $89
Bloomington/Normal – $89
Boston – $109
Buffalo/Niagara – $99
Burlington – $89
Charleston – $69
Charlotte – $69
Chicago (Midway) – $94
Dallas/Ft. Worth – $104
Dayton – $94
Denver – $129
Detroit – $99
Flint – $99
Ft. Lauderdale – $89
Ft. Myers – $89
Gulfport/Biloxi – $79
Houston (Hobby) – $99
Indianapolis – $94
Jacksonville – $79
Kansas City – $94
Las Vegas – $139
Los Angeles (LAX) – $139
Memphis – $69
Miami – $89
Milwaukee – $99
Minneapolis/St. Paul – $99
Moline/Quad Cities – $89
New Orleans – $89
New York (LaGuardia) – $109
Newark – $99
Newburgh – $99
Newport News/Williamsburg – $79
Orlando – $89
Pensacola/Gulf Coast – $79
Philadelphia – $89
Phoenix – $129
Pittsburgh – $99
Portland – $109
Raleigh/Durham – $79
Richmond – $79
Rochester – $99
San Antonio – $94
San Diego – $139
San Francisco – $139
San Juan – $109
Sarasota/Bradenton – $89
Savannah/Hilton Head – $59
Seattle – $159
St. Louis – $89
Tampa – $89
Washington, D.C. (Dulles) – $89
Washington, D.C. (Reagan National) – $89
West Palm Beach – $89
White Plains – $99
Wichita – $94

The Hardwood Flooring Summit announces BR-111’s Jack Racine as one of forty guest speakers. The dates for this educational conference are August 14th through 17th, at the Westin Peachtree Plaza in Atlanta.

Atlanta, Georgia July 7, 2008 – BR-111’s Director of Technical services, Jack Racine, will be a speaker at the upcoming Hardwood Flooring Summit. BR-111’s Racine will present a “Water and Wood” class at the Summit. The Hardwood Flooring Summit will host a total of forty expert speakers and instructors, which will take place at the Westin Peachtree Plaza in Atlanta from August 14th to 17th, 2008. The Hardwood Flooring Summit is the first conference dedicated to hardwood flooring education.

In choosing this topic, Racine stressed the importance of education within the hardwood flooring industry. When asked why retailers should attend the only conference focused on hardwood flooring education, Racine exclaimed that “Education is everything in this industry. It scares me when dealers or installers say ‘They’ve been doing this for twenty-eight years’, because sometimes retailers are closed to training because they’ve seen it all.”

Being the Director of Technical Services at BR-111, Racine has learned an unfortunate truth within the industry, stating that “Many dealers and installers don’t understand what acclimation of hardwood flooring really means, or why it is critical to understand acclimation”. Furthermore, Racine states that “People who have worked with hardwood flooring for many years are unfamiliar with FSP, EMC, and OD, or even what a moisture content percentage chart is”.

Splits and Checks: the Hardwood Flooring Industry’s Biggest Problem

Splits and checks are a huge problem in the hardwood flooring industry. In regards to the cause of splits and checks, there is conflicting information. Some industry experts point to manufacturing related issues as the source of splits and checks in hardwood floors. Other industry experts state that it is an environmental related issue, while still others claim that it is a natural phenomenon in hardwood.

The Hardwood Flooring Summit plans to highlight this problem by providing the industry with many answers. This will be done in two steps. First of all,this paper describes checks and splits in a technical manner. This paper also documents the kiln drying process of hardwood flooring. While this paper does provide technical information on one of the biggest problems facing the hardwood flooring industry, it does not aim to resolve the issue of splits and checks.

In order to work towards this resolution, The Hardwood Flooring Summit is holding a detailed discussion on splits and checks in hardwood flooring. Dr. Brian Bond (who is a professor at Virginia Tech’s Department of Wood Science & Forest Products) is extremely knowledgeable (and highly educated) in regards to splits and checks in hardwood flooring, as well as the kiln drying process of hardwood. His input has provided much of the technical data supplied in this paper. Dr. Bond is scheduled to be a key speaker at the upcoming Hardwood Flooring Summit, which is the only educational conference dedicated to hardwood floors.

According to Dr. Bond, a face check in hardwood is defined as “a failure in the wood when the force exceeds the stress in tension”. Cupping (due to a lack of moisture) is often the cause for this excessive force placed on the boards. The bottom of boards absorb moisture, and expand against each other with tremendous force. This causes compression stress fractures, splits, and/or face checks.

Let’s take a look at the kiln drying process, which all hardwood flooring undergoes. Naturally, these steps may not be exactly the same. Since hardwood flooring is manufactured in many locations throughout the world, and there are certainly some variations in the manufacturer’s specifications in regards to kiln drying. That being said, the following explanation should provide a solid foundation of understanding on how the lumber drying process works:

Before the hardwood is placed in the kiln dryer, they are stacked with stickers. According to Dr. Bond, these generally range in measurement from 3/4” to 7/8” in thickness, and from 7/8 to 1 1/4” in width. The stacks are placed in outside yards, and allowed to air dry. The air drying process takes place over the course of three months—or even longer.

Stacking the wood in this way provides air flow through the packages. Once the air drying process is complete, the wood is transferred from the yard directly to a kiln. The hardwood is dried in the kiln.

The kiln is circulated with dry, heated air. The interior temperatures of the kiln generally range between 90°F to 180°F. The goal of placing the wood in the kiln is to have the wood reach a moisture content that is comparable to the moisture content in the average North American home. A moisture content range (for the hardwood flooring) of between 6% to 9% is recommended by The National Wood Flooring Association.

During this drying process, splits and checks commonly close. As the splits and checks close, they become invisible to the naked eye. Boards are then cut down in size, and precision milled to a specific thickness and width. Many finish coats are applied in a pristine environment.

The boards are then inspected and graded, according to industry accepted rules and guidelines. Part of this inspection and grading process includes evaluating the wood with the manufacturer’s moisture meters and human eyes before it is received by the end user.

At The Hardwood Flooring Summit, Dr. Bond will focus on the formation of stresses that occur during drying process. He will cover the theory behind checks and splits in the drying process. He will also discuss stresses and forces caused by equilibrium moisture content (i.e. relative humidity) changes in installed flooring.