So in this video we talk about kiln dried lumber and how is it part of a new home
construction process. That's starting right now.
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Hi everyone I'm Karl Yeh, welcome to another Homebuyer's School video, a
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little notification bell so you don't miss anything. So, today I'm joined by
Kurt Gibson, Director of field operations with Brookfield Residential, and the
question we're going to answer today is, what is kiln dried lumber and how is it
part of a new home?
- Well kiln dried lumber is a process you go through to bring lumber from
from the forest to a job site, and often you know—you got a tree and you gotta
cut it down and you've gotta mill it and put it in to process and essentially what
happens is, they basically put it in a large oven and the basically it gets
moisture content removed out of it for most kinds, and the normal range for
moisture content is they want to get it down between 18-19 percent—
again depending on the climate we're in, it'll go up or go down where it's at, but the
idea is to get kiln dried lumber so you have it usable on a worksite.
I think there's some real myths to that. Some of the myths are people think there
is never any twisting, and warping that can occur. I will say that it's very common
that that can happen, but it is to help reduce that. If you took obviously
material right out of the forest, you'd have tremendous warping and twisting.
So it's trying to help reduce that | in a lot of cases.
- So is it any kind of lumber? So when you talk about kiln dried lumber, so it could
be any type of tree that could be used?
Yeah, I mean obviously there's gotta be a more thorough process for if you're using
wood on kitchen cabinet doors or you gotta use it for hardwood flooring—
typically on a hardwood floor or cabinet doors it would be as low as 6 percent
and so you're getting that down a lot more because it's more of a finished
product. It makes a substantial difference on that, and you know when I
mentioned that the 13-19 percent, that is mostly lumber. If you have like I said,
finishing material or cabinets, it's going to be a lot lower than that.
- So when you talk about 13-19 percent, what does that mean?
- It's basically the amount of moisture content, or probably the easiest way to
say is the water content you have in the product, so they're really trying to reduce
it, I mean obviously—like a lot of us— human beings we have a lot of water
and those trees have a lot of water and they're trying to reduce that down.
In a Calgary climate, it'll be very dry and you want to reduce it—
- You want to reduce it a little bit lower? Okay.
- But sometimes people want—like if you got hardwood floors, you want to have a
certain level of moisture because—again it's a living organism even through it's
dry, it's taken out of the tree, you still want to have a moisture content in there
to give it its best health.
- Oh, okay. So let's say for example, if the lumber is going to Vancouver, or let's say
somewhere where it's going to be a little bit more wet, I guess the content—the
water content will be a little bit higher?
- It can be, it can be designed like that for sure. Because obviously, it's like anything
else I mean, wood is like any product, you want to make sure it's comfortable in its
surroundings, and it'll adapt and that sort of thing. And when you're building a
house and you're putting it all together, it does take a while for it to adapt. But
you're right, it depends on the climate. There are certain products like a
hardwood floor in Calgary, you probably don't want to put like a bamboo floor in
because it requires such a high moisture content and it's just—what's gonna
happen is you're gonna get cupping, or you're going to get shrinkage and
cracking on that material so it's not a great product to put in Calgary—where
you know, a regular hardwood floor with maple floors is much better because it's
a harder product.
- And I think the big question here is, does this type of lumber actually
absorb moisture?
- Every wood still absorbs moisture, it always does. It's trying to find the right
balance so that it performs in the right way, I mean that's always the key
that they're trying to get to by having that kiln counter on number that they're
trying to achieve, whether it's a finished product or whether it's a raw lumber
is what they're trying to do to make sure it performs in the right way so—
I mean there's always air content or water content in the air.
- So one last question, I know we in previous videos we talked about
engineered hardwood, does that have anything to do with a kiln dried lumber?
Well engineered hardwood—typically there's a a small top layer that's—still has
a wood. It's not as like—the whole hardwood is typically 3 quarter inch thick
and the engineered hardwood has a small top layer, so it can still be affected
by it, but it's generally not as conducive to the moisture issues because it also
has a manufactured substrate that stops it from warping or cracking and stuff to.
- Perfect, do you have anything else to add?
- No I don't.
- Awesome. Well thank you very much for joining us and we'll catch you next time.
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