Not all hardwood flooring is truly hardwood flooring and each type of hardwood has its own unique properties related to drying. Engineered wood is especially problematic and understanding the different types and how each is constructed is critical to drying success. As a general rule, the more the wood fiber has been processed and laminated during manufacturing, the more rapid and dramatic the effects of wetting are. Here are five primary types of engineered wood and properties to be aware of:

• Plywood – It has the least amount of engineering and uses the most natural fiber bonding, making it resilient to dramatic swelling and delamination.
• Comply – Consists of sheets of veneer on its surface and smaller fibers (not made of veneer) in its core. Artificial adhesive is used and very little of the wood fiber is naturally bonded resulting in greater potential for delamination.

• Oriented Strand Board – Large chips of wood are laminated to form a single sheet. A lot more adhesive is used resulting in a much greater likelihood of permanent damage.
• Laminated Veneer Lumber – Strips of natural wood fiber are laminated to form a dimensional product, rather than a flat sheet. Similar to Oriented Strand Board, it has a likelihood of permanent damage.
• Medium Density Fiberboard – Consists of the smallest natural fiber and is the least natural in state, resulting in the most permanent and rapid damage.

Relative humidity probes like thermo-hygrometers are prone to loss of calibration and should be monitored frequently, but there are some common sense steps you can take to help them hold their calibration.

Avoid exposing instruments to abnormally high and low temperature or humidity. For example, do not leave a thermo-hygrometer on the dashboard of a vehicle when it’s warm out. Conversely, don’t leave meters in vehicles and locations that are not heated when temperatures are freezing. Meters exposed to extreme temperatures will require more frequent monitoring of calibration.

Be sure to check the operator’s manual for specific guidelines regarding frequency of calibration for each of your instruments.
Dri-Eaz Product Manuals

Your website should provide both you and your customers with timely information. The biggest mistake companies make is creating a website, and then never changing or updating the information on it. Customers need to see new information regularly (every 1-2 months) to have a reason to come back. It helps them feel confident that what they find there is current. You especially want to post information about new products, services and promotions.

A website can also provide you with useful information. Your web-service provider should be able to supply a report about how many unique visitors find your website and what pages they view most often. This is helpful to gauge how many people use the website, what information or services they are most interested in, and if any changes you make to the web content increase traffic to the site.

And if you don’t have a website—wake up! In today’s computer savvy world, more often than not, customers search the web for services before they use the phone book. If you don’t have a website and your competitors do—they have a competitive advantage.