Wood

Lumber has been an unexpected headache. I want to frame out the roof with wood so that I am not using the bales structural members. When I thought about this initially I was going to use standard framing lumber from a mill. It was going to be straight forward, 4x4s as posts with 2x6s as the cross members. I priced them and everything was great and then I started thinking.

Buying newly milled lumber is in direct opposition with the basis of this project. I am not ready to declare that all logging and milling of wood is a bad thing, I have bought my share of 2 x 4s, but I want to to research an environmentally freindly building method and I feel like that means that I need to do some problem solving instead of going to lowes. I know there is too much wood out there in the world that is being thrown out for me to need to buy new.

So I have been hunting, thought not yet in the right places. I started on craigslist, which I check several times a day for any posts for scrap lumber. I have also put up a post of my own looking for any used or re-claimed lumber. I have also been calling the trash collection agencies in the area to see if they have an area for building materials. That has been a bit of a wild goose chase, I haven't found the right lead. The city of richmond has a special recycling area for yard waste and thinking this might lead me to recycled building materials I went to check it out. The place is like a tree grave yard. Massive tree trunks are piled on top of each other some are 30 feet long and probably 4 feet wide. Then there are seperate piles of branches and leaves. Though not what I was looking for I feel that place has possibilities. There is the option of hiring some one with a portable mill to come cut a trash trunk in the lumber for my home. My only worry there is about the wood being properly cured. I know very little about wood drying except that it generally takes years.