Don’t Ruin Your Table with Wet Wood!
Imagine this…you are a homeowner with a beautiful old maple tree that you love but, unfortunately, needs to be taken down for safety reasons. You are heartbroken, that tree has shaded your house, been the site of many picnics and child time play activities. You can’t bear the thought of cutting it down. You delay until it's absolutely necessary. Then, you get a great idea to hire a local woodworker to make you a dining room table from the tree rather than send it to the landfill. The woodworker lets you know that the wood needs to be dried. This can take years if its air dried, months if it is kiln dried (conventional, dehumidification, or solar), or weeks if its vacuum kiln dried. You don’t understand why. Let’s break down the reasons you need to dry your wood before building something new.
Any wood, regardless of what it is used for needs to be dried prior to building or making something new. This is because a tree is full of water. Trees are a bit like sponges, they absorb and release water based on the humidity of its surroundings. The amount of water in a tree is referred to as its moisture content and is expressed in a percentage. So when it is humid, the tree will absorb water and expand and when it is drier, it will lose water and contract.
It is common for a newly cut tree to have a moisture content over 30%. For indoor wood products, it is best practice to have wood with a moisture content of 6-8%. That’s a lot of water to lose!
Dimensional Stability
If a product was made with wet wood, as it dries, the wood will shrink and cause deformities. Not only that, as seasons change and the humidity within the house changes, the wood will continue to swell and shrink; causing more damage over time. While even a dried piece of wood will swell and contract slightly, it is much more stable because the range of fluctuations is so small compared to one that wasn’t dried properly.
Prevent Fungal Attack
We’ve all seen fungus growing on trees out in nature. Well, cut wood can also grow fungus and mold if it is not dried properly.
Insects and Insect Eggs
We aren’t the only ones that love trees. Trees can be home to all types of insects and their eggs. Most of the time, we can’t even see them and don’t know that they are there. No one wants an unexpected guest at dinner. Air drying doesn’t usually get hot enough to kill the insects and their eggs. A heated source above 135 degrees, like a vacuum kiln, is needed.
Blistering and Peeling of Paint
If you are going to paint the wood, a moisture content over 14% can result in the blistering and peeling of the paint.
Improves the Strength of the Wood
As the tree absorbs moisture, the strength of the tree fibers decrease. Think of how easily it is to bend wet fibers versus dry wood.
Air drying is the cheapest method but it also takes the longest and you don’t get the added benefit of killing the insects or their eggs. Kiln drying greatly reduces that time to months or even weeks with the use of a vacuum kiln. Having it kiln dried, while it may cost money, can help to improve the chances that the dining room table from your favorite maple tree will last you decades to come and many more memories.
