Question
My local Amish sawyer is going to cut about 20,000 bf of white and red oak for me. The larger logs he'll quarter saw. I'm assuming we'll be air drying this wood in stacks about 4' high and 4' wide, with 8' boards. Can I stack these wider and still get proper air flow? What's the amount of room I should leave around each stack? How many stacks should I plan on coming up with, for 20K bf?
Also, neither my sawyer nor I have the room to store this lumber indoors, after it's fully air dry. So what care should I give the boards once fully air dried (full equilibrium with the outdoors)? This is Central Wisconsin.
I will be selling some as air dry, and for buyers that want kiln drying, I'd kiln dry the purchased amount to 6-8%. Thus I'd like to leave all of it outdoors and kiln dry it to order, but I want to be sure it's properly protected.
Forum Responses
(Sawing and Drying Forum)
From contributor S:
I'm in northern Wisconsin. Your 4x4 stacks are about 500 b.f. We pile three high no more than 2 deep, going cross way of the prevailing winds. I will keep wood outside for 12-18 months, and no longer. I don't cover the top pile - to me it's not worth the time. It's cheaper to lose the top row than fool around with having a good cover. I'm moving way too much wood to deal with that. I typically have 60 -100,000 b.f. on stickers at any one time. For air drying the most important thing is air flow, air flow, air flow.
How are you moving so much lumber? What's your market?
If you have kiln capacity, why not dry the lumber after it air dries? Then you can dead pile it and reduce space by 50%. Most stock will eventually be kiln dried before use. I would also coat ends of boards prior to air drying to minimize end checks and splits.
Check on air-dried prices, as seldom are they much higher than green prices. Hence, selling green instead of air-dried is more profitable if you find a market. On the other hand, selling kiln dried is even more profitable.
A stack 4' wide and 8' long generally contains 28 bf of lumber (less than 32 due to gaps and shorter pieces). If you assume that 75% of 22,000 BF will be air dried and it is all 4/4 (no ties, timbers, etc.), then you are looking at about 550 layers of lumber and so you will need about (5 x 550 =) 2800 4' long stickers. Probably not much more than 5' wide piles would be suggested. As stickers are almost always 3/4" and the 4/4 lumber is 1-1/8" max., each layer is 1-7/8". So you will need one stack of lumber that is about 70 feet high, or several smaller piles (4' is common height). Often several 4' high stacks are combined to give an over 12' height; any higher gets too tippy.
The arrangement of the piles is important, as you want them fairly close so that the wood does not dry too quickly. See a good text, such as "" for ideas. Usually we see 4 piles wide with two foot between them edge to edge, with the ends of a pile being close to the ends of the next pile (to help control end checking). You need pile covers to prevent rain damage.
Once down to about 30% to 25% MC, the risk of rain damage goes way up, so it would be ideal if you had an open shed to store the lumber at this point. Although you can air-dry to 20% MC or a bit drier, quality loss can be quite large unless protected from rain and sun.
Note that air dried lumber is still subject to insect damage, but is safe from stain, decay, checking, etc. You might find that kiln drying it all is the best, as that would allow you to respond instantly to a buyer, small or large orders. In fact, you might find that buyers are most often contacted by you rather than having them contact you first. In other words, you have to do the leg work. Kiln dried lumber should be stored at about 35% relative humidity; the outside air is about 65% RH, so a closed shed is necessary.
