The Forestry Forum

Rather than building and operating a kiln, can lumber be dried in a building that is climate controlled to achieve kiln dried MC? Say, kept at 70 and 40% humidity with a normal heating/cooling system and dehumidifier. I imagine it would take a while but would be somewhere between air drying and a kiln time wise. 

Something would have to be figured out for sterilization.

Would this dry wood too quick? Does this in general just not work?

Just something I've been thinking about.

Thank you

Sure, but ....the vapors coming off wood, especially hardwood is pretty acidic.  I've seen it eat through 1/4" ion a few years, imagine what it will do to your building's air conditioner system?  Kilns are design for it, with lots stainless steel and ceramic covered components.

Also, for every 1000 lbs of wet wood, 500 lbs of water needs to come out if it is green.  That's also pretty hard on your HVAC system

It works.  I have a 20-foot container that has four doors down a side.  I use cheap walmart fans, and a wm dehumidifier.  I half dry and half store wood in it.  It gets it down to 7%.  If not adding wood, I can run the DH once a month for a day or so and keep it all dry.  I would not load it full of wet stuff.  air dry goes in.  and if fresh wood is in, I get about 5 gallons a day of water coming out.  been going about 5 years.   the temp is whatever the sun does that day.  It was recommended that I paint it black.

The problem with what you're proposing is that the lumber may dry too quickly, and you won't be able to sterilize it.  If it's a fast drying species such as pine or poplar, you'd probably be ok.

If you tried to dry 8/4 oak that way, you'd get a lot of surface checking due to the low RH% in the building.