Just a thought

[Julio Navarro]

Here in Florida, as you all know, we have high temperatures almost all year round and our attics are like ovens a good part of the year. My thought is, can attic space be used as a "natural" oven to dry lumber?

The obvious concern would be the day and night effect of heating and cooling variance, the humidity tends to be high up there so would that nullify the drying effect of the heat? If the humidy could be fanned out and still keep the heat high could a garage attic space in a hot zone be and option to "cure" green lumber?

[Bob Smalser]

Go over to Woodweb where forestry professor Gene Wengert holds court to the commercial folks, and you'll find he doesn't advocate air drying wood and recommends you go to your local kiln operator.

Yet when pressed, he'll admit all the personal wood for his own hobbies is harvested locally and air dried in a potentially ideal place....his attic.

Just make sure there's air flow up there from eave to gable, and the air can get to the wood. Otherwise you'll just add to the blue mold already up there in the sapwood of the rafters.

[Julio Navarro]

The mold issue is a very good point! We have a serious problem with that here in Florida.

If good air ventilation can be achieved it may be possible to dry some pieces over the long term and still avoid the mold problem.

[Pam Niedermayer]

A premier Japanese dai (wooden plane body) maker, Inamoto-san and his brother, air dry their stock in the shop attic for about 5 years before using it. Their dai stock is very stable.

Pam

[Larry Norton]

You should also consider the weight of the wood in the attic. Too much weight on roof trusses could cause major problems. I don't remember how much is too much, but as I recall reading somewhere, it's not a whole lot. If it's an older stick framed roof, it's not as critical.

[Julio Navarro]

You should also consider the weight of the wood in the attic.

Absolutely, I would not consider putting a tree up there unless the trusses where beefed up for that purpose by an engineer.