Lumber Stack Probes: A Sawmill’s Secret For Better Moisture Management

Waiting for lumber to dry is kind of like waiting for cookies to bake. You have to keep a careful eye on both to know when they’re ready.

If you take out your cookies too soon, your cookies won’t be finished. They’ll be raw, and goopy, and no one will want to buy them at a bake sale. If you wait too long, your cookies could end up burnt.

In the same way, if you pull your wood from your kiln before it’s sufficiently dried, you risk selling your customer a faulty product, which may end up costing you money as well as hurting your reputation. If you wait too long, you could risk damaging the wood by overdrying it. Not only would this degrade the value of your wood, you would also waste energy and space in your sawmill drying out wood that’s already dry enough.

This is why sawmills that dry wood have to check the moisture of their wood to prevent selling overly wet or overly dry wood by determining when the wood is dry.
The development of in-kiln and in-line moisture systems has made the moisture testing process faster and easier—especially for large sawmills. But some sawmills may not have a place to install an in-line system. Even if those systems are installed, most lumber producers check the moisture content with a handheld meter or stack probe while the wood is stacked and stickered at the end of the drying process.

Checking with a handheld meter allows sawmill workers a way to quickly check the moisture of their wood stacks. One of the most accurate and convenient ways to measure the moisture content of a stack of lumber is with the L722 Lumber Stack Probe.

Learn how this probe can enhance moisture management as we explain:

• The challenge of moisture management in lumber production
• What the L722 Lumber Stack Probe is
• The benefits of getting an L722
• Where you can purchase your Lumber Stack Probe

Let’s get started.

The Challenge of Moisture Management in Lumber Production

Among the variety of challenges lumber producers face, two primary ones are:

Hidden moisture:

• Boards with a high moisture content are often found at the center of the stack. Because the sides of the stack are more exposed to air, they usually dry faster, making them drier than the rest of the stack. However, it takes longer for the moisture in the center boards to dry.
• If you only measured the outer boards, you might conclude that all the boards were dry, meaning you could end up stopping the drying process while the stack of lumber contained too much moisture.
• This is why it’s important to measure the center boards for hidden moisture. The only problem is that reaching the center with traditional handheld meters can be difficult and take up a lot of your time.

Time-consuming processes:

• Checking moisture takes a long time when you’re working with pin moisture meters. Unlike pinless meters, pin meters come with pins that must be driven into a piece of wood to measure the moisture content.
• Also, reading the moisture content of boards at the center of a stack of wood can be extremely challenging with a pin meter.
• If you’re working with an especially dense piece of wood, this can be very difficult to do. You could end up breaking the pins or getting them stuck in the wood in your effort to drive them in. You would also have to find a way to get the pins out of the wood as any remaining broken pins could damage sawmill equipment if the wood is run through further processing.

The L722 Lumber Stack Probe meets these challenges head-on, helping sawmill workers manage wood moisture with more accuracy, efficiency, and speed.

Enter the L722 Lumber Stack Probe

The L722 Lumber Stack Probe connects to the L622 Digital Recording Moisture Meter which displays its moisture readings.

The L722 Lumber Stack Probe acts as an extension of the L622 Digital Recording Moisture Meter. The probe sensor is long and thin, which allows your L622 to take moisture readings deeper within a stack that would otherwise be difficult to reach and take readings from.

The L722 comes in two lengths—the 26-inch and the 40-inch. Both models have durable hinges suitable for the rigor of a sawmill environment. On top of that, both of their sensors contain leaf springs which enable proper contact between the sensor and the lumber to ensure accurate readings.

All you have to do is:

1. Connect the L722 to the L622
2. Change the species setting to account for the species you’re scanning
3. Insert the L722 probe between the gaps in the boards at the center of the stack
4. Look at the moisture reading results on the display of the L622

Benefits of the L722

The L722 can revolutionize your sawmill’s moisture management experience.

It makes checking moisture:

• Efficient
• Cost-effective
• Frustration-Free

Let’s start by talking about its efficiency.

Efficiency

The L722 Lumber Stack Probe can fit into stickered stacks of wood to allow for easy and quick measurements.

The L722 helps lumber producers determine when the wood is dry with speed and efficiency.

In the past, many people would choose to be satisfied with measuring the sides of their lumber stack even though it might give them inaccurate results.

However, with the L722, you can insert the probe through the openings in the stack of lumber without taking the stack apart. And its pinless design means you don’t have to spend time driving in pins, either.

You can get a reading in seconds, just by pushing the sensor into the stack of wood that you want to measure.

Its Stat Pak software can help analyze the data of all the moisture measurements you’ve recorded to help you identify moisture trends. This can help you recognize areas where you can improve moisture management.

It can help you know when your wood is dry enough to end the drying process, helping you better anticipate when the next batch will be ready, ensuring that you don’t spend any extra time waiting for your wood to dry—or worse, that you don’t damage the wood by over-drying it.

The speed and ease of the L722 promotes frequent moisture checks, which ultimately enhances the sawmill’s workflow and quality control.

And, in producing high-quality lumber at a faster rate, your operation will be able to conduct more cost-effective business.

Cost-effective

The L722 can help you avoid unnecessary costs and make more money.

Promoting quick and accurate moisture management helps improve lumber quality, which, in turn, helps you save the cost of wasted lumber.

This is because inaccurate moisture readings, or a lack of moisture measurement data, lead to mistakes related to the drying of the lumber.

Underdrying the wood could cause damage to the wood. The higher moisture level could lead to moisture damage like shrinking, warping, or mold growth for construction lumber. Meanwhile, underdrying wood that must be dried to a specific moisture content (like certain wood products) may sustain damage as it adjusts to the moisture of the surrounding air.

For construction lumber, overdrying your wood will cause additional defects, causing much of the wood to be given a lower grade. If a person uses overdried lumber for wood products, defects will appear after the wood absorbs moisture from the surrounding air. Either way, you could lose the profit you earned. And over-drying wood means you’ll be wasting money, energy, and manual labor to dry wood that’s already been sufficiently dried.

Fortunately, the L722 can help you prevent under or over-drying wood. And it’s so easy and fast that it cuts down on the cost of measuring moisture content.

In this way, the L722 can increase sawmill profitability and limit the frustrations that come with moisture management.

Frustration-Free

L722s are easy to use and dependable, helping you avoid the frustration that comes with using meters that cannot be used to measure the wood deep in a stack of wood.

It can be used to measure lumber that’s drying in a heated kiln at temperatures of 200°F (93°C) for short periods of time.

The L722 can get you accurate moisture readings your operation can depend on.

Take it from the sawmill, Kaster’s Kustom Cutting:

“[With] handheld meters you’d only be able to get to the top [of the stack], so I wouldn’t know checking [the moisture content of] this wood [at the top] what any of the rest of the inside stuff is. So something like this [the L722] is really nice. …We’re able to stick this [the L722] in, again, anywhere you want to go, and [choose] how far in [into the stack]. …So, usually, when we do the kilns we do multiple spots, different depths to just kind of see where we’re at.”

Want to get more accurate measurements at a fraction of the time it takes other methods to get readings?

You may want to get an L722 for your own sawmill.

Get Your Own Lumber Stack Probe

The L722 has helped sawmills enhance the speed and efficiency of their workflow and the quality of their lumber.

See what the L722 can do for you.

Buy the L722 and L622 combo from our store today.

Jason Wright

Jason Wright, Business Development Specialist for New Products, joined Wagner Meters in 2019. He comes to Wagner with over 35 years of experience in the flooring industry.