Green Lumber – Saving You Money Or Causing Problems?

Saving money is a tricky business, especially when it comes to building projects. On the one hand, you can save a lot of money buying cheaper building materials, but on the other hand, you don’t want materials that are going to fail or give you problems a few years down the road.
For some building materials, the problems are climate-related. Take green lumber for example. Green lumber is wood that hasn’t been dried in a kiln or over a long period of time. This means that there still is fairly high moisture content in the lumber.
What can happen when you use this for building a home is that the wood will shrink and crack as it dries up. It can cause cracks in your drywall, popped nails, and other issues as the wood deforms when it dries.
The high moisture content could also create favorable conditions for mold to grow, which can be a major headache. This is why green lumber really only should be used in areas with high heat and low humidity.