Kiln Dried Lumber Vs Air Dried

Air dried lumber will eventually bite you in the butt and nullify by orders of magnitude the pennies you are currently saving by not purchasing kiln dried.

Kiln dried lumber vs air dried.

Green lumber is mostly utilized in the pallet industry. Air dried western red cedar. The downside of kiln dried wood is that the exposure to high heat makes the wood extra dry which causes it to burn faster and lose flavor. Kiln dried lumber is often used for furniture cabinets and flooring.

How long it takes to dry out will depend on climate. Air dry slow kiln takes much longer to be at a usable moisture content for building projects but for turning is much more stable than green and not as hard on the chisels. Kiln dried lumber is much more uniformly at balance with the moisture in the air all the way through the wood. However it s a more expensive process stresses the wood more than air drying and uses fossil fuels to produce the heat that s needed to dry the wood.

Placing logs in a kiln speeds up the process of drying the logs out and allows for a quicker turnaround time. The process of air drying takes up more space in comparison to kiln dried logs. Kiln dried lumber actually takes longer to achieve that equilibrium because the lignin is more set and the cell walls more rigid and it won t absorb much. Some woodworkers feel air dried lumber is nicer to work and that kiln dried lumber is a bit more brittle.

So it isn t so much a matter of stability as it is a matter of controlled environment and consistency. During a cold wet winter it may take months or even a year. Pockets of pitch can liquefy if the wood reaches a new high in temperature. Kiln drying is also hard on the substructure of the wood damaging it and does not last as long as air dried slow kiln wood.

Air dried lumber isn t as rigid and will more readily soak up moisture. Air dried wood is wood that has been dried outside in piles by the sun. Many cabinet shops have found that by having the lumber distributor skip plane to 15 16 or finish plane to 13 16 they save a ton of labor in planing expense. Air dried lumber is often used in patio furniture fencing and decking.

Often air dried lumber is wetter in the middle than on the outside borders even after years of lying in a barn or attic loft. During a dry hot summer the wood could be ready to go in a matter of weeks if it gets enough sunlight. In the marketplace western red cedar might be available unseasoned or green which means it hasn t gone through a drying process the moisture content of this wood could be up to 25 percent moisture.