New house

[Nova]

  My wife and I are on the front end of building a new house.  We recently purschased 40 acres and have cleared about 1.5 acres for the driveway and house so far.  We purchased a Peterson 27 hp 8"WPF which is scheduled to arrive in Vancouver 4 March and then work its way across the country to hopefully clear customs by the end of the month  8).  We hope to have the foundation in by mid May, depending upon when the weight restrictions come off the local roads and then build a kiln, probably DH and start making serious amounts of sawdust for timbers/lumber for the house.  The only firm decisions so far are the Peterson, several LogRite tools (thanks Kevin ) and the engineer slowly  :( grinding away on the plans for a 32' x 36' two story post and beam house.

  I lucked into finding this website thru Part_Timer when I was discussing several options on the sawmill just prior to purchasing the Peterson.  To my suprise I found a group of like minded individuals who have already done what we are about to start and have already figured out some of the things that have been burning a hole in my brain as we try to put things in place to get the home built.  With your forbearance I will tap into the collective knowledge of the FF.  Thanx in advance.

  Currently I am looking into the pros and cons of purchasing a 40' reefer to convert or building a kiln chamber from scratch or if from a cost/benefit perspective if just subbing out the kiln work to a guy 15 miles down the road would make more sense.  The reefer option is less expensive I think but the built unit would be better suited for ease of use.  Any advice on this subject would be appreciated.

[Ianab]

Re the kiln question, is this a one off stack of wood for the house construction, or are you thinking of milling and selling more timber in the future? If it's a one off, contract it out. If you can see yourself doing more milling / contract drying etc in the future then building your own kiln might be a better idea.

Cheers

Ian

[Nova]

Ian,  I am thinking the same thing but I am trying to be wise re cash flow on the front end as well as time management so we can be in the house before the snow flies this fall.  I am planning to continue to cut/sell after the house is built and I can see the benefit of having a kiln.  Perhaps my real question was the trade off between using the reefer - I am led to believe that it will be a bit tight for loading/unloading as well as checking the load during the drying cycle - and what I expect will be a higher up front cost for a wooden kiln chamber, at least if one follows the manufacurers recommendations for the kiln chamber.

[Minnesota_boy]

I agree with Ian, doing it once, contract it out.  If you plan on continuing cutting and drying to sell, then your own kiln is a good idea.   This isn't necessarily an either/or thing.  You can contract out, and have your own kiln.  It may be a decent plan to start with the reefer because you can be up and running very quickly, at the cost of less efficient loading and unloading (not necessarily so) and later build your own kiln tha tfits what you want to do based on experience of working with a kiln.

For some woods it may still be a good plan to contract out the drying if the other kiln owner has lots of experience.  Some woods are more difficult to dry properly and you could lose a great deal of the value learning what someone else already knows.

[Nova]

(not necessarily so)

Minn, care to elaborate?

Unless things change drastically, it is not a question of if I build a kiln, but when.  I alluded to cash flow earlier, building a house and starting a business at the same time is going to stretch us a bit and we want to minimize the amount of debt we take on at the beginning of the business start up until things are established and the business has a better cash position.  I also alluded to time management regarding the house being completed before cold weather returns.  The more I sub out, the faster things get done but, the higher the cost.  As you can see, a circular argument that goes nowhere until I make a decision.  Your observation on this not being an either/or thing is also one I have considered but as of yet I have not reached the point where I have seen anything that is helping make my decision (in my own researching, not the answers to my post).  I was wondering if there are others who have "done that" and have the benefit of hindsight on things they would do again, and perhaps more importantly, not do again re kiln chamber type, satisfaction with reefers as a kiln as compared to a fabricated wooden chamber and cost of mods.

Thanx

[Minnesota_boy]

If you set up a reefer to be loaded by hand, you'll find it to be crowded and difficult to load without bumping the heat exchanger.  That can be overcome by making roller carts that can run on tracks you'd install in the reefer and outside so the cartload of wood can be pushed or winched into the reefer.  If you have a loader that can handle a full cartload, hand work becomes minimized becuse you can make stacks right off the mill ready for the kiln and use the loader to move them where you want, either a staging area waiting for the kiln or directly onto the kiln carts.

Unloading the kiln becomes pretty easy too if you can roll the cart out, remove its load and load it up again to minimize the time that the kiln is empty.  You can unstack the lumber while the kiln is starting the next load.

[Nova]

Minn, I thought that was what you were referring to.  I have a line on a second hand tractor that if I can close the deal I will use as a loader and kiln carts are also on the short list as well.  What about monitoring the load during the drying cycle.  I think the inside dimensions are 7'4" to 7'6" depending upon the amount of insulation.  Although doable, sounds a bit tight to me if you are going to inspect both sides of a six foot wide stack (unless you make the stacks narrower??? then I think I may need to look at additional fans in order to get the same BF of lumber per charge?  ??? ).

[Minnesota_boy]

Figure out how many board-feet you will have in that 6 foot wide stack, then use the calculator to determine the weight.  Now compare that to how much you can lift with the tractor loader.

Now back that down to a 4 foot wide pile and calculate the weight again.  Loader going to lift it?  Maybe not.  Lotta weight in a pile of green lumber.

Back to the 6 foot wide stack.   How long of forks will the tractor loader have?  It takes pretty strong forks to hold a 6 foot wide pile.

[Nova]

   Hadn't thought of that one.  Back to the books.  Thanks, I like making these kind of mistakes, because it's not too late to fix them.  I'll do the math and check it against the specs on the machine.

How wide do most people make their stacks if using a reefer?

[Part_Timer]

Nova

Glad you found your way here. Make sure to get us some pics when you get to cutting.

Which options did you decide to get along with the mill

Tom

[logwalker]

What are the dimensions and species of the sticks you are planning on drying? When you say "post and beam" are you refering to timberframe? I am out here on the left coast and following your post with some interest. My wife and I went thru a similar process but with Douglas Fir as the specie. We just airdried a few months and stick-framed without considering m.c. Good results. Do they do that in your part of the world?  Logwalker

[Nova]

Part_Timer - ordered the hi-lo standard frame with a weather board (siding) attachment.  After talking to you I added the microkerf kit but it missed the shipment so I am going to hold off until I get closer to cutting hardwood and then order it again.  Thanks for telling me about this site .  How are the slabs coming?  I will be picking your brain later when I get to the interior finishing stage.

Logwalker - I don't have a timber schedule yet because I am still waiting on the final plans from the engineer.  I have to have an engineers stamp to get a building permit where we are building.  Will be using eastern white pine for the frame.  Lucked into a source at a good price close to where we will live.  The guy owns 90 acres about 1 km from our lot and approximately 400 - 500 feet lower in elevation.  He has tons of ewp and we have zip, go figure.  Expecting will be cutting timber from 6" x 6" up to 9" x 14".  I wanted to build on 12 and 16 foot centers but the engineer is not that keen on putting his stamp on that because we are in a high wind/high snow load area of the province so we will be using 8 and 12 foot centers.  Would prefer to have the timbers cut and a.d. now but not going to happen until the mill arrives.  Complicating matters is the freeze thaw cycle and the road closures that occur in this neck of the woods.  We'll end up air drying for a few months while I am preparing the timbers for wiring and hardware.  I define timber frame as large timber with joinery and post and beam as large timber with hardware connections.  I know the purists will cring but I want to live inside this house before the snow flies, hence the hardware.  I don't think I could get proficient at cutting the joinery fast enough to meet this goal and I am not willing to take a chance that I am right by going the joinery route.  How did you connect the stick frame and the timbers?  In-fill, exterior, other?  Regarding the m.c., we will go easy on heating the first winter while the frame equilibrates over the winter and following spring.  I am hoping that routing pathways for the wiring will act as a check relief and let the exposed faces remain more or less check free, but I am not going to be too upset if they do check as this is just one more part of the character that t.f. and p&b houses have.

[Part_Timer]

Nova
The slab didn't work out so well.  I took the weight off to early and it cupped real bad.  The back checked very bad down the center.  On the bright side the q sawn on the sides is ok.  I think that I'll wait and plane it down and see how bad the checking is.  I left them about 2 1/2" thick. Worst case I'll cut the sides off and either make 2 benches or glue them back together for a bench top.

Live and learn

Tom