I’m building a horse barn and would like to use green white oak from the local mill for as much as possible. I’ve read all the discussion on board and batten siding but didn’t see any specific to using (very) green white oak. I’m considering board on batten so there’ll be less for the idiot thoroughbreds to hurt themselves on, but I’m not sure is a good idea given the amount of probable shrinkage.
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Replies
I would do it. Allow for lots of shrinkage. It sounds like a great idea. How thick would it be?
Edited 6/26/2005 9:41 am ET by RayMoore
Edited 6/26/2005 9:41 am ET by RayMoore
Thickness is a good question. I could use some advice there as well. They'll cut it any way I ask them to. 1" seems awfully thick, but maybe not a bad idea due to the aforementioned boneheaded equine. I'd rather use 3/4" though.
Lest I offend any horse owners out there, let me clarify... I'm talking about my wife's horse. *My* thoroughbred is intelligent and kind and beautiful and careful to avoid buildings and humans when she jumps out of her skin.
BTDT..get full 1"..it'll vary by an eigth or so, depending on the sawyer and his mill...
Any equine that gets squirilly enough to be squirelly enough to bust it up, is dog food. Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
"Viva!!! Chileo" !!!! The man with a golden heart. And a Thumbs up attitude.
Fer got to add..some profile info would help..where Are you?
Is WO readily available?
I am in KY ( horse capital of the world) an by all means, get no less than 1'' in the rough. Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
"Viva!!! Chileo" !!!! The man with a golden heart. And a Thumbs up attitude.
I'm in southern Michigan.
At work, I design and build temporary stages and grandstands, mostly built on scaffolding. I went looking for material to use for mudsills and came across this local sawmill. I couldn't believe that I could get white oak for 60% the price of anything at a lumberyard. Then the wheels started turning on my own construction projects.
This guy gets mostly red and white oak, with some maple and a little elm. I'm having him save the elm for me for more mudsills - he assures me they absolutely will not split. He gets black walnut and cherry sometimes but he ships them out to a veneer mill. Most of his sawn lumber goes into making pallets.
I guess working with green wood has it's disadvantages but I can't imagine why more people aren't using for barns and outbuildings, given the cost and aesthetic appeal. Maybe I'm in for a rude awakening.
One more thing you may want to consider/anticipate here is that if you use green WO (or most any species, for that matter).....for the siding on this building..........the outside of those boards will be exposed to far more direct sunlight and air movement than the other side. This pretty much guarantees cupping.....even if the material is all quartersawn.And that cupping may well be significant and powerful enough to pull the single row of nails that will be holding the battens. The wider the boards you use, the greater the likely cupping. One way around this would be to coat the exterior sides of the boards with a material that would significantly impede the release of moisture. Ideally, enough so that it then roughly equaled the exchange rate on the interior sides......but still wouldn't interfere with painting or staining, if you ever intended to do that.Knowledge is power, but only if applied in a timely fashion.
Someone suggested screws for the battens, and with a pole style building with nothing but the nailers on the inside I'm hoping it won't cup too badly. This morning the sawmill guy told me that the biggest obstacle to using green lumber is building code. We're zoned ag/open space so maybe I'll catch a break there. But a quick look at IBC doens't give me much hope for using non-graded lumber for anything structural.
I like to think you'll catch the break you need since the zoning is ag and it's a livestock/out building.Don't know if you intended to use the ungraded WO for the structural members or not, but it *may* not be allowed.I'm thinking that your codes could require you to use graded stock for poles and such, but should allow the use of your wet and ungraded WO for siding material, so long as you place the necessary diagonal structural braces. Knowledge is power, but only if applied in a timely fashion.
Edited 6/27/2005 10:12 am ET by GOLDHILLER
Goldhiller,
I'm sorry you are wrong there.. Code calls for wood that meets grade not graded wood.. (otherwise timberframe homes would never be built).. all that is needed is for you to confirm to the inspector that you meet or exceed standards.. Siding isn't structural so it's not required to be graded.. Framing timbers that are greater than 8x8 aren't graded either so if you go that size or bigger you're home safe too..
read a little bit about grading wood and you can self grade your own wood.. and it's easy to do.
I'll grant you some building inspectors can be pretty annal about things one solution was somebody bought a rubber stamp and "graded" his own wood. Got away with it too!
You are correct. Bad choice of wording on my part.Grading lumber is something I've been familiar with for about 30 years now. Started out in the custom furniture and cabinet biz.But no, I don't know much about even our local residential codes when it comes to timber-framed houses. There hasn't been a timber-framed house erected around here for decades. A few TF barns, yes. And a few TF barn conversions which I'm sure were looked over good and hard before a permit was issued. Didn't get in on those, so I have no current reliable knowledge of structural requirements/adequacy to meet code.......or how persnickety the inspector and building department got with them.Knowledge is power, but only if applied in a timely fashion.
You almost HAVE to use green wood, ya can't very well nail dry white oak.
Put it up as tite as ya want, make the battns accordingly.
Shrinkage in any wood is as dependant on the grain orientation as is the species..I.E. QS WO won't cup or shink as much as a flat sawn board.
Use commonsense in the selection of the application and cull any suspect boards.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
I kidnapped the runaway bride..her eyse weren't like that in the before pics.
You probably know this if you have researched board and batten siding, but one nail only at center of board, and one at center of batten, for each purlin fastening point.
This allows for shrinkage without splitting.
Gene Davis, Davis Housewrights, Inc., Lake Placid, NY
Rosco,
Most graded liumber that you buy at your local lumberyard comes with 19% moisture,.Either KD 19 or SD 19 That means kiln dried or shipped dried to 19% moisture plus or minus a couple of points. The actual tolerance varies a lot..
Now buy your wood from a sawmill and test it.. as long as you aren't buying wood that was sawn down in the early spring you'll find that the wood tests out very close to those same numbers!
Shrinkage isn't your problem.
It's rot!
I know! White oak is a good decay restant wood! It's what I am building the inside of my timberframe home with..
But White oak has tannins, that's what helps keep it from rotting. Those tannins attack steel and cause it to rust and when it rusts the result is an acid that rots the wood..
You will need to nail it with stainless steel nails!*
(Buy or rent a nail gun Trust me you don't want to be nailing white oak by hand when you use stainless steel nails!!!!!!!)
If the cost of stainless steel scares you then you can use Ash, ash is usually cheaper than white oak and can be nailed with regular nails (when it's green)
Two problems with Ash, First it can decay but paint will solve that and second horses will chew it. (they won't touch white oak, they hate the taste of tannnins)
Horses will chew on anything, even well feed horses. (except white oak or black walnut)
* well, your other choice is silicone bronze,.... ;-) Galvanized nails will also rot usually someplace the nail will scrap off or just scratch the galvanization and then rot happens!
Plain sawn, or quarter sawn?
-Jazzdogg-
Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right.
So far we've just been talking about plain sawn. I'll have to ask about quartersawn, but I suspect either he can't/won't do it, or it will be out of my budget.
put the heart side out and you'll be alright - it's bound to have some character, rejoice in it -
"there's enough for everyone"
...heart side out, ...show some charactor, ...rejoice.. I think I'll write that on the back of my hand.
The only reason I asked is because, as you know, QS only expands & contracts half as much as plain sawn.-Jazzdogg-
"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." Bertrand Russell
Dont forget that if you use white oak in a horse barn the ammonia in the horse urine will fume the wood. I believe the process of fumming oak was discovered in Europe in barns that where used to house horses. Good luck
I don't know what fuming the wood means. Anybody help me out there?
Turns it dark. A lot of old oak furniture was fumed instead of stained.