Do you sticker your air dried lumber after it is dried?

[Rob Diz]

Simple question.

I usually buy kiln dried lumber. But I'm about to pick up some air dried lumber. I have do doubt that it is as dry as it can get without going into a kiln. I will be storing the rough cut lumber in an unheated garage.

I really don't have the space to sticker the wood, but I'm wondering if I need to find a way to get that extra room.

So, do you sticker air dried lumber once you know that it has been properly dried?

[Johnny Kleso]

I do, I have about 700 BF of wood under a tarp in my back yard..

I not sure if you would need to if it was inside but I'm pretty sure it cant hurt..

[Joe Chritz]

Word has it there is no need to worry about stickering dry lumber. It will eventually reach the moisture content of the surroundings.

Green lumber is sticker ed to allow for even drying so it doesn't dry to fast on one side and cup or warp.

I generally sticker mine but just because it seemed like a good thing to do. I am working on a better storage for lumber and when I get something I doubt it will be on stickers.

Joe

[Frank Drew]

If the wood is in fact dry I wouldn't sticker it because that would take up room unnecessarily and would, in fact, allow the wood to pick up moisture you'd rather it didn't, IMO.

[Jack Briggs]

I don't sticker dried lumber. But, then again, space is at a luxury in my shop.



Cheers,

[Scott Brihn]

Rob,

In October I moved 700bf I sawed in April from my backyard to my basement. I stickered the stack in the basement. The 8/4 was between 16%-18% MC and the 4/4 was at 12%-14% MC. My thought was the additional air exposure provided by the stickers would help me get the stack down to 10%-12% by next spring.

Scott

[Jim Becker]

In general, I don't sticker air dried (or kiln dried) lumber, but have occasionally done so with some thin 1/4" stickers to allow some additional air flow through the rack when things are packed pretty dense. Any lumber is going to assume local MC, for the most part, regardless how it was dried.

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Scott, without the airflow you had in the yard, your stack may take longer to get down to the typical 10-12% MC. You may want to use a fan at least to keep the air moving in your basement. (Hopefully you have a bone dry basement, too...these areas typically have a higher MC from "upstairs" or "outside" in many homes.

[David Keller NC]

Rob - I would always suggest that you sticker lumber, kiln-dried or otherwise. There are two important reasons:

1) Lumber is always giving up/taking up moisture in response to changing humidity conditions. If you don't sticker the lumber, there's a fair chance that the outside boards will be at a considerably different moisture content that the boards on the inside (though they will all reach the same MC eventually if held at the same relative humidity level). This differential might cause you problems when you get a bunch of them out to build a project and don't have 3 weeks to wait for them to all equilibrate.

2) Because lumber is always absorbing/desorbing water, it has a tendency to cup across the grain as the heart/sapwood sides move differentially. Stickering allows you to place a good deal of weight across the width of the boards, and controls this tendency to cup.

[Cody Colston]

Yes.......

[Richard M. Wolfe]

If you have the room, inclination and stickers you can go ahead and sticker it. I generally don't to save on space and for ease of handling. If there is a question as to the uniformity of boards used in a project they can be pulled and set aside in the open for a couple or three weeks to acclimate, but that holds true for both air dried and kiln dried. If you do stick them make sure the stickers are uniform thickness.

[CPeter James]

I try to keep everything on stickers even after ten years of air drying. Why, you ask? Because I have had problems with insects and boring worms getting into the centers of unstickered piles and have lost several thousand board feet of lumber this way. When I bring it into the shop to get to the shop humidity level, I use 1/4" stickers. they don't take up much room and help keep the pile stabilized.

CPeter

[Paul Downes]

There is also the danger of developing some mold/ mildew between air dried wood that isn't stickered. All you need is a few high humidity days and the wood will pick up some moisture. Kiln dried wood has the water forced out of the wood cells and is a lot less likely to pick up moisture. Check over on woodweb.com for the technical aspects of this issue.

[Michael McCoy]

Most of my lumber is stored vertically so stickering isn't an option.

[Steve Clardy]

No........

[Anthony Whitesell]

I'm with Jim. I use 1/4" stickers on my good wood. The eastern white pine firewood bundles I pick up get 3/4" stickers until its dry again (they're usually sitting outside at the lumber yard) then it gets none. Too much of it, too little space, and too inexpensive to worry about.