Calling all hardwood installation experts! I have an ongoing new construction custom house (not fancy but not spec). My latest questions are hardwood flooring. My contract states "Red Oak Select hardwood flooring" I thought "select" meant not a lot of short pieces in the lot yet I noticed a large amount of pieces 1 foot long....is this typical for a "select" grade? Seems like the installer is laying out the floor to acclimate the wood but he is working from the two sides towards the center "aisle" of the room... I say "aisle" because its his staging area for bundles and a hell of a lot of dirt that he swept to the middle area. I'm concerned about the dirt and that he did not scrape/sweep very well before he put down a single layer of 15# roofing felt. If there is small amounts of debris (dirt, sheet rock mud chunks etc.) does this cause the hardwood to have raised areas or cause it to squeak? Obviously the bigger the chunk the more impact but I can feel small intermittent areas when run my hand over the felt nothing huge but I can feel it. [URL="http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeo4iz1/"]http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeo4iz1/[/URL] Thanks for any help. FF

I'm trying to manage my expectations here. The plan is to install an engineered floor on a concrete slab. It may be glued and floated or we may use click lock floating. Unfortunately, we don't have consistent climate control in that room. In the winter, if the wood stove is going, relative humidity can drop to 20%. If it's not on, the temp can drop to 45ish. In the summer, RH could reach 80%+, with temps even higher. This is our reality. Given this, how should I expect a good quality engineered floor to perform? Should I prepare myself for some winter gapping? Will floating prevent buckling in the summer? Thanks.