Reclaimed Lumber - Wood Origins

Wood Origins

In the United States of America, wood once functioned as the primary building material because it was strong, relatively inexpensive and abundant. Today many of these woods that were once plentiful are only available in large quantities through reclamation. One common reclaimed wood, longleaf pine, was used in factories and warehouses built during the Industrial Revolution. Longleaf heart pine was once the most functional wood for construction in America. It was slow-growing (taking 200 to 400 years to mature), tall, straight, and had a natural ability to resist mold and insects. More importantly, it was abundant. Longleaf yellow pine grew in thick forests that spanned over 140,000 square miles (360,000 km2).

Another previously common wood for building was American Chestnut. Beginning in 1904, a chestnut blight spread across the US killing billions of American Chestnuts. Before the wood was destroyed, it was used to build barns and other structures, which preserved the wood for later reuse when these structures were later dismantled.

Barns serve as one of the most common sources for reclaimed wood in the United States. Barns constructed up through the early part of the 19th century were typically built using whatever trees were right there on the property. They often contain a mixed blend of oak, chestnut and other woods including poplar, hickory and pine. Beam sizes were limited to what could be moved by man and horse. The wood was either hand hewn using an axe or squared with an adze. Early settlers also recognized the oak from its European sub-species. Soon red, white, black, scarlet, willow, post and pin oak varieties were being cut and transformed into barns too.

Mill buildings throughout the southeast also provide an abundant source of reclaimed wood. Some of these buildings and complexes comprise more than a million square feet of floorspace and can yield three to five times that amount of board feet of flooring. These buildings also often have no economic or reuse possibility and can be a fire hazard, as well as having varying degrees of environmental cleanup required. Reclaiming lumber and brick from retired mills puts these materials to a good use instead of a landfill.

Another surprising source of reclaimed wood is old snowfence. At the end of their tenure on the mountains and plains of the Rocky Mountain region, snowfence boards are a tremendous source of consistent, structurally sound, and reliable reclaimed wood. In many locations the water content of snowfence wood naturally drops to two percent, minimizing the need for treatment, and thereby avoiding the risk of harmful offgassing associated with many sources of reclaimed wood.