Can you salvage water damaged wood?

**skibum** · 09-28-2003, 07:13 PM

This past weekend, I was checking out some wood sources in my area. I stopped at a new-to-me hardware/millwork place and noticed the ads for water damaged lumber. Heavy spring rains caused flooding and some of their stock was affected. I asked to look at it and was shown a stack of material, stapped and stacked on small pallets. Looked like most was 4/4 rough, poplar, oak, cherry, odd widths and lengths. Because it was strapped, I couldn't pull any of it out. I don't know how long it was under water before it was palletized.I went back and talked to the owner. He said they had wanted to sell it per pallet, but now would be happy just to get rid of it piecemeal.I don't have a moisture meter, just my eyeballs working for me. Could you spare some advise on this topic? I'm tempted by the haul I could make on this, but really concerned about the possible problems with warping,twisting, swelling, etc..
Thanks,
Joe

**MorePowerMatt** · 09-28-2003, 07:19 PM

If you have the space resources, buy the wood and then dry it out. It's in the rough now, so you'd of course need to surface and joint it before use. The warps, cups, and twists could then be taken out during smoothing. (Dad and I have done this before.)

Of course, that doesn't make me an expert. Just dry the wood out, hope for the best and prepare for the worst. It may be worth it for the reduced cost of the wood.

Matt

Co-president of the Anti-Nanny Filter League.

**TDHofstetter** · 09-28-2003, 09:22 PM

Joe, how much are they knocking off the price for your trouble? Better be a substantial amount; you may have to cut it down pretty small to save it, even with careful stickering & weighting - especially if it's palletized now. May have started to rot inside the palletized stack, may already be warped & just held in tension by the banding. Might take a pretty long time to dry back out, too, if it was submerged for a very long time.

If the price cut is pretty nice, you might get lucky. Might. If not, at least you'll have some dimensioned firewood... :)

-- Tim --

An intelligent man always seeks greener grass.
A wise man grows it under his feet.