Call a lumber mill

Local lumber mills can be a fantastic way to build your home on a budget, particularly if your code officer allows you to use rough-cut lumber (if you don’t know ask).  Local lumber mills have a variety of benefits over box store lumber.  First on our priority list is cost, with a budget of $5000 for the whole project and $1000 of that gone to windows, doors and roof, a small carbon footprint, locally sourced house is great but only if it gets built. We just ordered our flooring, roof decking and adirondack siding for the whole house, delivered, for $1257 from County Line Lumber in Greene, NY (if you’re in the vicinity I highly recommend giving them a call).  As a comparison, the 1x various widths x various lengths that we’ll be using for the floor and roof decking came in at $.48/board foot, whereas the box store price hovers around $.84/board foot.  This is a giant win for us, we’ll have the shell done and be able to move inside and work sheltered from the elements for around $2400.  And because the mill cuts “true” we’ll get lumber that is the actual size it claims to be (if you’ve ever measured a box store 2x4, you’ll know it should be labeled 1 1/2x 3 1/2) so the lumber will be that much sturdier.

adirondack siding Mike cut with the chainsaw mill
ignore the construction mess

 The cost saving is in part due to the lumber being green and rough-cut.  Not all code officers will approve this but ours, a timber framer himself, had no issue with it.  The rough-cut simply means we’ll have to sand the floor, and the roof decking, which we’re leaving exposed though we’ll be painting it, will have what we think is a really lovely textural quality.  As the lumber is green we do have to consider shrinkage, which is why we’re having it delivered a month before putting it to use.  When it arrives we’ll sticker it, which simply means we’ll stack it on top of some kind of support so air can circulate around it, and let it dry in the sun as much as possible before we use it.  I’ll address more of the shrinkage considerations in later posts as we utilize the lumber but suffice it to say for us dealing with the green, rough-cut lumber was totally worth it.

Another benefit of local lumber mills is you get to speak with highly knowledgeable people whose life’s work is lumber, an experience I have yet to replicate at a building supply box store.  Tim from County Line came to our property to assess our timber (valueless due to it being mostly soft-wood and black locusts which are apparently more trouble than they’re worth to mill but as you’ll remember from other posts can be a homesteader’s bestie—oh well, I didn’t really want to clear that many trees from the land anyway and there was honestly something liberating in knowing that the value of our land is what it means to us and what we do with it).  During the hour and a half he spent walking around with us he identified our trees, gave us tips on what to use them for, how to anticipate the amount of product we can get from them, and a lot of tips for timber framing and utilizing green wood.  And when we save up to put in a nice hardwood floor next year, we’ve already got a relationship with him.

Mike has a real eye for detail, look at that door frame!

Last but not least, utilizing a local lumber mill means local lumber, means smaller carbon footprint because we’re not buying lumber that’s been shipped great distances to be processed and then shipped out to stores all over the country before coming to us.  Local mills also tend to understand the importance of sustainable harvesting better than profit boxes. 

The only downside I’ve found to local lumber mills...try as I might I found very little information online.  As Tim put it, “my son keeps telling me I should get a website, I don’t know, I guess I should.”  I like doing things online, I like to research as much as I can and compare prices and read reviews.  Well, it seems local businesses and builders prefer word of mouth and interpersonal relations, so get comfortable with it, I’m working on it.