“Down in Kentucky you have plenty of thoroughbred farms and all along the rolling hills you’ll also see miles and miles of black three rail fences,” says Jered Slusser Pioneer Millworks sales manager. “Those fences are made out of oak and the oak is painted black and the black paint that’s on there makes it look gorgeous, it’s also a non-toxic finish that tastes bad to the horses, so this keeps the horses from chewing on the fence and the fence lasts a little bit longer. The fence is weathered over time and eventually reaches a point where it’s difficult to repaint and refinish it, so they will actually take the fence down and replace the planks with new ones.”

That’s where Pioneer Millworks comes in. We rescue the long-lasting planks from landfills and burn piles and provide the wood a new lease on life. “We’re able to salvage those boards and bring them into our shop where we’re able to start off with a really nice consistent nominal 1 x 6 for the most part and use that to create a variety of different products,” says Slusser. 

Slusser continues, “When the fence boards arrive to us, we remove any metal that might be in the boards. We then scan everything and pull out any nails or anything metal. Then we kiln dry the stock to bring it to an equilibrium moisture content. This is important because even though the wood is dry and has been outside for years and years, we want to make sure it’s down to a good moisture content to use for interior finishes. When we do that, we’re drying the board at around an inch thick and from that you can take that board and make it into a solid piece of flooring which would finish out at ¾” thick.”

Once we have appropriately assimilated the fence boards to their new purpose, we then give them an additional layer of stability with our engineered substrate. Pioneer Millworks offers an engineered alternative for most of our reclaimed wood products. 

This process starts with a high quality ®FSC-certified Baltic Birch plywood substrate that is formaldehyde-free with low-VOC glue. This provides a healthy, sustainable, and solid base for our engineered line that results in minimal movement and allows for versatile installation options.

The substrate base is then topped with a thick 4 mm wear layer of the reclaimed fence boards with end matched tongue & groove, square edge, or micro bevel milling, available in both finished or unfinished. The substantial 4 mm wear layer reaches nearly to the tongue, which allows our engineered flooring to be refinished as many times as solid wood tongue & groove flooring.

Slusser says, “To maximize the usage of the material, we can take the board and rather than getting one square foot of a solid product, we can actually get three times of square footage out of it by turning it into an engineered floor.”

Our engineered line is also UL GREENGUARD Gold certified unfinished or available with a UV-nanocomposite finish. This means our engineered line is solid, stable, and has been rigorously tested to not off-gas noxious chemicals. This material transparency lets you know exactly what is going into each engineered product we offer and lets you rest easy that the product you install is healthy for both home and planet. 

Slusser concludes, “Our engineered floor functions just like a solid wood floor; it has the 4 mm wear layer on it and that’s enough to get you several sanding’s through the life of the floor and it also gives it a tremendous amount of stability.”