Kiln drying · Syracuse & Central New York
Kiln drying for your lumber
Bring us your air-dried boards and slabs and take them home dry, flat and heat-treated. We dry in an iDRY AIR container kiln, one scheduled load at a time.
Call (315) 412-4007
Why dry it in a kiln
Air-drying gets lumber down to roughly 20% moisture and stops there. That’s fine for a barn, not for a table. Wood that goes indoors wetter than 6–8% keeps shrinking after it’s built: tops split, glue joints open, drawers bind.
A kiln takes the boards the rest of the way in weeks, under control. Heat, moving air and a controller that watches both bring the moisture down evenly, so the wood comes out flat instead of cupped and checked.
How our kiln works
The iDRY AIR bolts onto an insulated 20-foot shipping container. A 2-horsepower fan pushes heated air through the stickered pack, then reverses, so both faces of every board dry at the same rate instead of one side racing ahead.
At the end of the cycle the chamber climbs toward 165°F. That heat-treats the load and kills insects and their eggs, so what leaves the yard is dry and sterile.
What to bring, and how long it takes
Bring it air-dried to about 20%. Pine is the exception: bring it green and we run it hot, up to about 160°F, which sets the pitch so it planes clean. Boards can be up to 18 feet long.
Four-quarter pine takes about 8 days. Four-quarter hardwood takes about three weeks. Thicker stock takes longer. Hardwood and softwood run in separate loads, because a whole load dries at the pace of its slowest board.
Getting on the schedule
The kiln fires on set dates, and each load fills up in board feet. Call with the species, thickness, rough board feet, longest length and how dry it is now, and we’ll tell you which load it belongs in.
The cost is board feet × the daily rate × days in the kiln. The calculator below does the math.
iDRY AIR Equipment plate
- Capacity
- up to 4,000 BF / load
- Chamber
- 20-ft side-load container
- Heat
- 6 kW · max 165°F
- Fan
- 2 HP · variable speed · reversible
- Control
- PLC + touchscreen
- Heat treat
- USDA heat-treat ready
- 4/4 hardwood
- ≈ 3 weeks
- 4/4 pine
- ≈ 8 days
Work it out
How much wood have you got, and what will it cost to dry?
Measure a board, get its board feet, then see what a run through the kiln comes to.
What to bring, and when
- When should I bring my lumber?
- When it’s air-dried to about 20% moisture. At that point it goes straight into the next load. Green lumber has to sit for months first, and we don’t have the dry storage to hold it for you.
- Can you dry green lumber?
- For some species, yes, but it takes longer and risks cracking and warping. Lumber that comes in at 20% dries clean and predictably. Pine is the exception: bring it green.
- How long can the boards be?
- Up to 18 feet.
- How much fits in a load?
- Up to 4,000 board feet, but the real limit depends on thickness and species. The board shows how much of the next load is already spoken for.
- Can different woods dry together?
- Yes, but the whole load runs at the pace of the slowest wood. 500 board feet of white oak in a pine load means everything dries at white-oak speed. So we run hardwood loads and softwood loads separately.
- Why keep pine separate?
- We run pine hot, up to about 160°F. That pulls the moisture fast and sets the pitch, so the boards go through a planer without gumming it up. White oak never gets that hot. If you bring pine for a hardwood load, we’ll slot it into the next softwood load.
- How do I reserve space?
- Call with the species, thickness, rough board feet, longest length and how dry it is. We’ll tell you which load it belongs in.
- What does it cost?
- Board feet times the daily rate times days in the kiln. The calculator does the math.
Keep reading
Get a quote
Tell us what you’re building.
Species, rough sizes and how dry it needs to be is enough to start. Or call.
(315) 412-4007