Help on Green Lumber

Last week a local sawmill cut out some pine siding boards for me. They are 1x8, mostly 12 footers.. I am going to re-side my shed with them. I?m guessing I do not want to paint or install them until they are ?dry?? They are currently just stacked inside the shed now. How best to dry them if indeed they should be dried down? Of course do not want to deal with warping issues.

I would let them dry several months, stack them flat with slats between them about ever 12"

You don't say where you are located, and I can't find you on zee map! Your local weather and humidity will have some effect, big difference from 12% humidity in AZ to 90 in LA! It also depends how your going to put them on, vertical with no battens they should be fairly dry, as lap siding not so important. Like David said, sticker them and cover the pile, but not down the sides.

If board and batten go at it now.

when I worked at the lumber yard and got a box car load of wet lumber in, we would keep it off the ground, we would stack about 6 boards high then lay lathe across the boards every 6-12 inches. then stack 6 more boards on the pile and place more lathe down till we got the lumber stacked.

How ever much space you have you layer the boards with sticks between the boards so air can circulate between the boards. Then you let them sit for a year if you are in a reasonably dry climate. It takes longer if you live in a damp climate. Less if you live in a desert climate.

Woodworkers call it "stickering" to put cross pieces between each board to dry the wood. I've seen wet pine come into the low humidity of the desert. If it isn't stickered and weighted down, it will warp and cup into unusable shapes in a very short time.

I take it of my sawmill and nail it up . let it dry and after about a year paint it .

(quoted from post at 14:03:21 03/30/16) If board and batten go at it now.

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I agree, if board and batten go ahead with it. I helped side a building with fresh 1" boards so wet the nails squished sap out and now ten years or so later it is doing fine. The bats were left off on purpose to give the building a rustic look.

Whether or not you decide to dry them first, coat the end grain as soon as possible with some sort of waterproof preservative. That will keep the ends from "checking" (splitting).

If you dry them first, they will warp, and you might have to re-mill them to get them straight enough to use. I think I would just coat the end grain and nail them up, but wait a few weeks before painting the new siding.

Pine siding is usually put up green, I like the suggestion to seal the end grain. Here is lumber on stickers for drying. It was all I could do to lift these 2x12x20 alone when green but they are much lighter after drying.

If you are going to stack and sticker your boards, put the first sticker as close to the end as you can as that is how far the end checking will go. You might only have to square that end to eliminate all of the checking. Painting the ends of the boards will all but eliminate checking but I question whether it is worthwhile on pine lumber. For sure you want to paint the ends of high value hardwoods. Put stickers no farther than 3 feet apart on pine, much less on hardwood. The logs may vary in length but put the last line of stickers as close to the other end as possible. Make sure the stickers are lined up one above the other on both sides of the pile. If you miss lining up the stickers by 2" on the second row, all the lumber above that will warp there.

Make sure to provide a good footing under the pile that will support the pile and keep it off the ground. There should be a footer under each line of stickers. I found that putting one sticker on top of the footer would limit the molding of the wood where it would otherwise touch the footer. Put 2 stickers with a gap between them on each end footer to keep the footers level, the other footers can have just one sticker centered.

I concur on nailing pine on green, sealing the ends is not a bad idea. Grandpa didn't let the lumber dry when he built the barn. He didn't have time too.