At Clarence Creek Wood Select we are equipped with 4 kiln units and offer custom kiln-drying service to our customers. For details on this service please see below. If you have any further questions please don't hesitate to call or email us.

Kiln-drying is an essential service in woodworking. It dries the wood and reduces the moisture content to about 8%. It also eliminates all the bugs and fungus that live inside the wood. A kiln-dried wood is clean of insects and stable enough for being used in furniture-making and other woodworking projects where maintaining the shape and accuracy of the dimension of the pieces are important. Using wood that is only air-dried in furniture-making can lead to warping, checking, and damaged joins.

After a tree is cut, the log will be milled into boards. For proper kiln-drying, we strongly recommend not to exceed 3" thickness for boards. Cutting 4"x4" and 6"x6" posts is an exception. Thicker lumber will never completely dry in its core and might contain bugs or change its shape over time.

Freshly cut boards have a high level of moisture and need to be air-dried before they can be put in the kiln. Air-drying is done by stacking the boards with stickers between them (sticker-stacking) and keeping them dry and exposed to air ventilation. We recommend that the boards are air-dried for at least 2-3 months before kiln-drying. Skipping air-drying will result in stains in the wood and/or checking and warping of it.

In order to achieve the best results in drying wood, we separate the lumber into different groups based on the type and thickness. Each group will be treated differently in our kilns. Sometimes the lumber has to wait until we have a full load of that type for one of our kilns.

To minimize your waiting time we recommend that you bring your wood to us as early as possible. This help us to plan our kiln schedules more efficiently, so we can dry your lumber at the earliest opportunity.

Once the boards have been air-dried they will be loaded in the kiln. The duration of kiln-drying is usually between one and two months. The actual time depends on the thickness of the wood (thicker wood dries slower), whether it is hardwood or softwood (hardwood dries slower), and the weather (it takes longer in colder weather).

In our current pricing scheme, the cost for kiln-drying depends on the volume of your wood (measured in Board Feet). To get an estimate on how much kiln-drying your wood will cost please contact us. We would need information about the amount of your wood and dimensions of your pieces.