From the Horses Mouth - Air Drying Lumber - by Chris Lincoln
S&W Report / Summer / Fall 1998, Volume 12
The longer I work with wood, the more I marvel at its versatility, and the more I realize that, the quality of the final product is directly related to the quality of care given stacking and stickering the lumber for drying. The following information is taken from a handout I give customers before sawing their logs. There have been piles of quarter sawn and high quality boards turned to garbage by stacking an uneven ground, using green stickers, or orienting the pile in a manner that does not encourage air circulation. There are just a few tricks I have discovered along the way.

If you know of a better/different way to do something, please let me know. The goal of "From the Horses' Mouth" is to encourage the exchange of information amongst our membership.

Before You Begin Stacking:

- Make sure that you have more than enough dry, insect, fungus and bark free stickers. The ideal wood to use is dry 1" x 2" cedar since it doesn't seem to react with other woods.
- Paint log ends and colour code them for species and year.

Preparing the Site:

- Make sure the ground is level, then create a base that will keep the lumber at least 12" off the ground.
- The ideal site for drying lumber is in a clearing, on high ground, with a gravelly base.
- Cut or spray all vegetation around the base of the stack.
- Orient the piles in a north south direction so that the air will move easily through them. If stacks are grouped, orient them northeast to southwest so that a west wind hits the end of the stacks and air is forced along all of the rows.
End view of stickered pile:
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Stacking and Stickering:

- Sort your lumber, your longest boards and boards taken from reaction wood go on bottom.
- Make sure that all bark is off the planks.
- When stickering, the maximum sticker spacing is 16" for hardwood and 24" for softwood
- After your boards have been stacked; cover them with material that extends at least 12" over all sides. Old roofing tin works well, and can be easily tilted to facilitate runoff.
- As your wood dries, keep vegetation cut around the piles so that there is always good air movement.
Side View of Stickered Pile:
Moisture Content:

The difference between free water and bound water - even though it is self explanatory, it is useful to think of the wood as a sponge. Once the sponge is squeezed out (free water) the sponge is still damp and needs to dry (bound water)
Average Green Moisture Content of Selected Hardwoods: By properly positioning the wettest lumber in the pile, you can take advantage of the greater air movement on the west side of the stack.
Table 2:
Table 2 shows the approximate time to air dry lumber to 20% moisture content. The lower figure is spring / summer (good drying weather) and the higher figure is lumber stacked over the winter.
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