To Kiln Dry or Not to Kiln Dry

Well I guess that it really detents upon the quality, type and your intended use for your lumber.  For the most part if you have quality hard wood lumber you need to have it dried.  You can sticker the lumber and try to air dry it in an uncontrolled environment.  There are several problems with this approach, the uncontrolled drying rate and the moisture content that remains in the lumber. 

In the Arkansas area the lowest moisture content that can be obtained is about 14 to 20 percent.  You can leave the lumber air drying for years and this is moisture content that you would be left with.  In order to air dry lumber to 6%, the average outside relative humidity would need to about 22 percent.  In our area the average humidity is well above the 22% required.

There is a great discussion on the woodweb web site at From WOODWEB's Knowledge Base: Limits_of_Air_Drying.html

 

Here the kiln is loaded with about 1,500 BF of Red Oak.