At Clarence Creek Wood Select we are equipped with 4 kiln units and offer custom kiln-drying as a service to our customers. If you wish to kiln-dry your lumber please make an appointment to bring in your wood. We prefer to receive your lumber outside of our shop hours.

The cost of kiln-drying depends on the volume of your wood, measured in Board Foot. We have a minimum charge for smaller orders, and also consider discounts for large orders. To get an estimate please let us know the amount of your wood and dimensions of your pieces. Also please note that drying Oak costs more than other types of wood. This is due to the acidic nature of this wood and the damage it causes to our equipment.

It takes usually between one to three months for us to dry your wood.

If your wood is ready for kiln-drying, it usually takes between a week to a month for it to be loaded in one of our kilns. The actual drying can take between one to two months.

For details on our kiln-drying 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 might live inside the wood. A kiln-dried wood is clean for being used in household. It is also stable for 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 lumber. For proper kiln-drying, we strongly recommend not to exceed 3" thickness. Thicker lumber won't properly dry in its core.

It's best to stack the lumber right after milling, separated by dry hardwood stickers (called sticker-stacking). This will save some time and starts the air-drying process. Some people prefer to strap and bundle the stacks as well. This makes keeping and handling the lumber much easier and safer. Please note that for loading in our kilns the bundles should be 4' wide, and ideally 8' long (other lengths up to 16' work as well). The weight of each bundle shouldn't exceed 2000 lbs. If you need dry stickers for stacking your lumber we can lend you some. The bundles that conform to our requirements will be handled and dried much faster as we don't need to open and bundle them again.   

Air-drying is a very important part of drying process. 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 and keeping them dry and exposed to air ventilation. To ensure quality of your lumber, it's better that air-drying is done slowly. Avoid placing the lumber in heated areas, direct sun light and extreme heat and wind while it's being air-dried. We recommend that the boards are air-dried for at least 2-3 months before kiln-drying. Lack of proper air-drying may result in stains, checking and warping of the lumber.

Once the boards have been air-dried they ready to be loaded in the kiln. The duration of kiln-drying is usually between one to 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 outside (it takes longer in colder weather).