Lumber vs. Timber: The Word That Actually Tells You What's in the Stack

People ask us what the difference is between lumber and timber. Short answer: in American shops, "timber" is the tree or the rough, structural-sized piece. "Lumber" is what comes off the mill, dimensioned and dry enough to use. The British use "timber" for both. Either way, the words don't tell you what matters.

What matters is what's actually in the stack.

Three things that matter more than the word

Species. Moisture content. How it was dried.

A board labeled "kiln dried oak" can be any of a dozen oaks, at any moisture content, dried by any method including sitting in a metal box with a space heater. The word on the tag is the cheapest part of selling wood. Anyone can write it.

What we actually sell

Most of our hardwood is salvaged from urban tree removals across DuPage County. Maple, walnut, ash, cherry, white oak, hackberry, elm. Whatever came down last month and made it onto our trailer instead of the mulcher.

We mill it on a TimberKing 2220 bandsaw. Logs up to 48 inches in diameter and 12 feet long. Mill minimum is $300 — that covers setup, log inspection, and a blade if the tree ate something we couldn't see.

The wood air-dries on stickers in the yard for months, sometimes a full year, until it's at 20% moisture content or under. Then it goes into the iDRY Plus vacuum kiln — 4,000 board feet of capacity, max 16 feet 4 inches long, 60 inches wide, 65 inches tall. It comes out at 6 to 8% MC, sterilized, ready to be a table.

Why "rough" and "dimensioned" mean different things to different sellers

Rough sawn lumber from us is wood that came off the mill, got air-dried and kiln dried, and still has the saw marks. It's stable. It just hasn't been planed flat.

Rough sawn lumber from a guy who milled a log last weekend and sold it Saturday is something else entirely. It looks the same. It will move on you for a year after you build with it.

Where did you buy it. Was it kiln dried. How was it kiln dried. Three questions for any board that didn't come out of our kiln.

What about the structural stuff

Dimensional softwood for framing — 2x4s, 2x6s, joists — that's a different supply chain than what we run. Big-box stores and lumberyards do that volume. We don't. If you're framing a wall, that's not us.

What we are is the place to call when you want a slab for a dining table, a top for a bar, custom thicknesses a box store doesn't carry, or someone to dry a stack of wood you milled yourself. Custom drying runs $1.80 to $3.50 per board foot, 250 board feet minimum, one week minimum.

The word matters less than the meter

You can call it lumber. You can call it timber. You can call it whatever. The pin meter doesn't care.

Bring a meter when you shop for wood. If a seller doesn't want one in their boards, you've learned what you needed to learn.