Ten Oaks Flooring is a third generation, family owned hardwood flooring manufacturer located in Stuart, Virginia. While the company itself is relatively new, starting production in January of 2006, the family has a long history in the wood products industry.

General Manager Buddy Williams has been in the industry for over 50 years, getting his start in 1957 working for his father V. R. Williams at Stuart Lumber Company in Stuart, VA. The company expanded into particleboard and was sold to Masonite in the 70’s.

In 1982, Buddy bought the flooring operation, moved it to a new facility and began production as Stuart Flooring Corporation in 1984. At that time, Buddy’s daughter Terri and her husband Gary Birkett joined him until the company was sold to Tarkett in 1998.

The family worked for Tarkett for several years before buying the Vaughn Furniture plant in Stuart, VA, where Ten Oaks Flooring was born. Currently, ten family members including the fourth generation are involved in the business.

Ten Oaks Flooring buys lumber from area sawmills and processes it through its moulding line into strip flooring. The operation produces 18 mmbf per year of 2 ¼” and 3 ¼” width strip flooring in Red Oak and White Oak.

Gary Birkett is the Plant Manager and also the Dry Kiln Operator. “We run a total of seven kilns, three of which are USNR Irvington Moore high-performance dry kilns,” he said. Two of them hold 80,000 bf and one holds 50,000 bf.

The high-performance kilns look like typical aluminum panel package kilns with carrier doors, but they feature modulating heat control valves, extra fin pipe, fans with higher horsepower, and double the standard venting capacity. These high-performance dry kilns are designed to be flexible enough to effectively dry a wide variety of species from the slow drying refractory hardwoods to the lower density, fast drying white wood species.

“These kilns reach set-point very quickly,” Gary said. “ We’re drying White Oak in them now and they work great. We have no complaints at all. That’s why we used them almost exclusively at Stuart Flooring where we had 14 USNR Irvington Moore kilns onsite.”

Terri Birkett, Sales and Marketing Manager at Ten Oaks, took a few minutes to explain some of the unique product differences that Ten Oaks provides.

“What we’re doing different from what we did at Stuart Flooring is the six side moisture barrier seal,” she explained. “There is a UV cured urethane sealer all the way around each piece of flooring that reaches into the grooves and coats the tongue, making the wood extremely stable.”

Adding the moisture barrier seal immediately following manufacturing keeps the flooring protected from moisture on all sides, so the installation contractor doesn’t have to acclimate it. It also protects the surface of the floor until its ready to be sanded and finished.

“A lot of this has to do with the fact that wood just moves,” said Terri. “Even after you mould it, it can still move on you. But the seal helps keep it from bowing and twisting.”

Ten Oaks is upbeat about the future and plans to expand when the time is right. “But right now,” Gary admitted, “we’ve tightened our belts in order to make it through this economic downturn.”

“I recommend that other manufacturers consider USNR Irvington Moore when they look at building new dry kilns,” Gary stated. “USNR knows how to make good dry kilns, and that’s why there are so many of them around. They make an excellent product.“

Terri Birkett authored the children's book TRUAX (based on the Dr. Seuss story of the Lorax) to promote an understanding of the logic in forest management. A member of the National Wood Flooring Manufacturer's Association (NOFMA) Terri also serves on her local school board.