How to Dry Green Lumber

Freshly-milled lumber is called "green" because it has a high moisture content. It needs to dry before it can be used for projects. Here are my recommendations for drying green lumber you may have purchased from me, or lumber you hired me to mill from your logs:

To get the most usable material out of your pile of green lumber you should stack it off the ground on a flat surface with ~1" between boards, and separate rows with spacers (stickers). This promotes airflow so wood can dry more evenly and prevent mold growth. I make stickers by ripping down the lowest quality boards that were milled, but dry pine construction lumber ripped to smaller pieces will work too. Using the same species of wood as stickers prevents "sticker burn", which is a dark stain across boards where the stickers were placed. Using dry stickers (i.e. not green scraps from a different tree species) reduces this effect.

Cover the stack with whatever flat material you have on hand (sheet metal, plywood, or even old boards), and then add weight on top. The "roof" protects the lumber from direct sunlight and rain. The weight reduces boards from warping while they dry. The more weight the better. The rule of thumb for air drying green lumber is 1 year if drying time for each inch of thickness. Below is how I stack and sticker my lumber for drying: