Tag Archives: douglas fir paneling

You don’t use a fork to eat ice cream.

You don’t use bowling shoes for ballet.

And you don’t use mixed grain Douglas fir when vertical grain is what you need.

These two types of lumber are both cut from the same Northwest-grown conifers, but they’re processed differently and best suited for different uses.

Vertical grain Doug fir is sawn perpendicular to the growth rings of the tree. This means that if you are looking at a piece of vertical grain wood, you’ll be able to see the lumber’s tight growth rings in straight lines running vertically up and down the face of the wood. Vertical grain offers more consistent coloring, and is a more stable and durable product. That’s because when it expands and contracts naturally in response to natural moisture in the air, it does so evenly throughout the board--no warping, twisting or buckling.

Mixed grain, on the other hand, is just what it sounds like--a mixed parcel of wood. When you order mixed grain from your lumber supplier, some of the boards in your allotment will be vertical grain. Others will be what’s called cathedral grain or flat grain. These logs were run through the saw parallel to the tree’s growth rings. When you look at a flat grain board, you’ll see a wider, wavier grain pattern. There’s a more visible light to dark variation. And while it’s still tough, it’s not generally considered as stable or as durable as clear vertical grain.

For some things, we highly recommend using nothing less than vertical grain. When you need something with the highest durability available, such as flooring, decking, or exterior siding--or anything that needs to stand up to the elements or to heavy wear--vertical grain Douglas fir is your best bet. Vertical grain Douglas fir is also the wood of choice when you need the specific clear, consistent look of this beautiful, natural product.

However, there are many times where mixed grain Douglas fir might be perfect for your building project. Not only does it offer a more varied look, it’s also more economical and still a durable type of lumber. For indoor paneling or trim, mixed grain Douglas fir provides an excellent product with a slightly different look than vertical grain. Rather than vertical grain’s subtle pattern, mixed grain can offer a more rustic look. AltruFir’s mixed grain reclaimed Douglas fir paneling features beautiful variation in color, from deepest brown to pale gold. The occasional knot and nail hole add to the antique look.

Because sometimes, worn-in is exactly the look you want, whether it’s for paneling, trim, or even the floor. If you’re building a mountain cabin, you don’t want a polished, pristine surface. You want your wood to develop a natural patina, and mixed grain lumber will more easily acquire that well-loved, antique look.

Mixed grain is also the builder’s material of choice for structural or dimensional lumber. According to the Western Wood Products Association, Douglas fir has a superior strength-to weight ratio, it holds nails in place well,  and it has high strength ratings when compared to other Western softwoods. It’s the leading structural building material in the country.

All that high demand building material--which will eventually be hidden behind sheetrock--is generally mixed grain Douglas fir. It’s sturdy, it holds nails and screws well, and it doesn’t splinter or crack. And when you’re talking about framing material that won’t be exposed to the elements, mixed grain is the perfect choice--quality and economy combined.

After all, just think about it:

You don’t put ketchup on caviar.

You don’t go skiing in your scuba gear.

And there’s no reason to choose vertical grain Douglas fir when sometimes mixed grain Douglas fir is the product you really want for the job.

By Jennifer Rouse

This post was posted in Douglas Fir Flooring, Douglas Fir Trim, Douglas Fir Paneling and was tagged with Douglas-fir, douglas fir paneling, mixed grain doug fir, vertical grain doug fir, doug fir, uses for vertical grain doug fir, uses for mixed grain doug fir, vertical grain, mixed grain, mixed grain reclaimed douglas fir paneling, reclained douglas fir paneling, mixed grain douglas fir paneling, patina, western wood products association

Douglas fir C & Better grade

C & Better grade is the best Douglas fir grade available. But Doug fir buyers and browsers take note: C & Better grade can be many things to many people. So, here’s the lowdown on Douglas fir C & Better grade or C & BTR for short.

Wait… what’s a ‘grade’ again?

You may already be in-the-know about how the American Lumber Standard Committee (ALSC) sets the standards for and accredits wood grading systems in the US. You may also know that these standards are carried out by lumber agencies that inspect and grademark different wood species, creating a matrix of standards and grades and finishes that can confuse the heck out of people who just want good quality, good-looking wood.

What does Douglas fir C & Better grade mean?

Douglas fir with a C & Better grade has no visible wood-knots and has an even-complexion. Clear vertical grain (CVG) Douglas fir carries a C & Better grade because it is cut to accentuate the light and dark straight grain pattern of the wood fiber. In addition to wood grain clarity, C & Better Douglas fir is less likely to change (warp) – a straight grain stays straight even when its environment doesn’t. So, C & Better grade is your best bet when durability and appearance are important.

Is Douglas fir C & Better grade the same everywhere?

No, it’s not. Although the ALSC accredits wood-grading systems for lumber agencies, there is room for interpretation when it comes down to different lumber agencies writing their own set of rules (based on ALSC criteria) and inspecting their own stock of lumber.

For example, the Western Wood Products Association is just one lumber agency in the US specializing in softwood lumber on the West Coast. The Northeastern Lumber Manufacturers Association or NELMA writes rules for wood-grading systems for softwoods on the East Coast. Essentially, wood-grading systems vary from coast to coast.

But did you know that there is further variation with how wood can be sold? When it comes to Douglas fir wood grades, there are structural grades and appearance grades and within these two end-use categories, there are further delineations. For instance, Douglas fir appearance grades can be called Select, Finish, Common, and Alternate.

So why isn’t Douglas fir C & Better grade the same everywhere?

According to the WWPA, “color, grain pattern, texture, knot type and size are the factors that influence the grade. For this reason Douglas fir [is] marketed as a distinct species to allow for a larger range of visual choices.” So with the wide range of visual choices comes a wide range of visual appearances.

There’s Douglas fir C & Better grade with a loose-looking grain or standard grain. There’s Douglas fir C & Better grade with a tighter grain or CVG grain. And then there’s Douglas fir C & Better grade with grain patterns somewhere in between.

All in all, Douglas fir C & Better grade is more than skin…er, wood-deep. It’s a ‘grade’ that accounts for both durability and appearance.

- Nicole Morales

This post was posted in All Entries, Douglas Fir Flooring, Douglas Fir Trim, Douglas Fir Paneling and was tagged with Douglas fir flooring, douglas fir trim, douglas fir paneling, Doug Fir flooring, Vertical Grain Douglas Fir, Doug Fir paneling, Doug Fir trim, c and better

When you’re shopping around for Douglas fir, one of the things you’ll hear advertised often is “tight-grain” Douglas fir. Lumber suppliers like AltruFir pride themselves on the clear, tight, vertical grain of the Douglas fir they sell, and they should--this lumber is stable, strong, and beautiful--among the best building materials you’ll find anywhere. What you may not know is the story behind those claims.

Much of the tight-grained Douglas fir that’s produced today comes from the forests of British Columbia. Why is that? Why are our neighbors to the north producing large, high-quality logs, while the Douglas fir grown in Oregon and Washington is mostly smaller-diameter? There are a number of reasons why the forests in the U.S. and Canada have developed differently.

Sit back and learn the tale of two forests.

If you were a Douglas fir sapling about 200 years ago, and you planted your roots in the fertile soil of Oregon, chances are you might not have lasted very long. Even before the arrival of European settlers, forests in Oregon and Washington were historically more affected by fire than B.C. forests were. According to a study on the history of old-growth forestsby the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Pacific Northwest research station, frequent low intensity fires were a normal part of the landscape in many of Oregon’s forests. “As a result, trees regenerated almost continuously,” the authors wrote.

But, if you were a lucky seedling, you might have survived to the early days of the twentieth century. Now it’s about 1920, and Oregon is booming. All the gorgeous Craftsman bungalows in Portland were built out of Douglas fir. Douglas fir that was cut during the early days of Oregon’s logging industry. Another study from the Pacific Northwest Research station puts it this way: “The prevailing harvest practice was simple liquidation.” Large tracts of Oregon forests were cut, slash burned, and left to regenerate naturally.

And regenerate they did--for about 40 or 50 years, or maybe 75 or 80, at the longest. Then the stands were logged and replanted again-and again. Even as timber management practices have improved over the years, the demand for landowners to get repetitive harvests out of their land has not let up. An article in the Journal of Forestry, describes the race for harvest: “The intensively managed plantations being planted today in the Pacific Northwest are growing at rate on par with intensively managed conifer plantations being harvested today in other regions of the world, where the competition has continued to move ahead.”

Here’s the thing about Douglas fir that’s harvested as soon as it reaches what’s considered “merchantable diameter”--it may be big enough to cut, but it’s not fully mature. A Forest Service study on the characteristics of old-growth Douglas fir forests says that trees younger than 75 are in the fastest-growing phase of their life. “Forests up to about 75-100 years old can generally be considered ecologically young in the Douglas fir region. This is the period of very rapid growth or ‘adolescence,’” the authors wrote.

Douglas fir grows more slowly as it ages, and the slow growing phases are when it develops those tight growth rings. These adolescent trees simply haven’t had a chance to mature into the kind of trees that produce the beautiful, high-quality fiber we’re looking for. That kind of growth happens when a tree grows slowly and steadily.

Now let’s imagine that our little Oregonian Douglas fir seedling did manage to survive fire and repeated harvesting. If that’s the case, it most likely means that this tree is by now in a forest owned by the federal government.

In Oregon and Washington, most of the remaining old, large diameter trees are now on protected land. This isn’t a bad thing--old growth forests are a marvel that should be preserved for the health of the planet and for future generations. But it does mean that few large logs with tight growth rings are being harvested in Oregon and Washington these days. Federal timber harvests have fallen dramatically in the past 20 years. Instead, much of the U.S. Douglas fir is grown on private timberlands that are managed for maximum output, not slow growth and large-diameter trees.

Now let’s imagine that our hypothetical Douglas fir seedling instead found itself blown northward on the wind. Imagine that it grew, instead, in British Columbia.

This western-most Canadian province is big. In fact, it’s larger than Oregon, Washington and California combined, and two-thirds of the province is forested.

And the Douglas firs that grew here? They simply weren’t subjected to the kinds of disturbance that their southern neighbors were. The study on the history of Pacific Northwest forests, the same one that mentioned the fire disturbances in Oregon and Washington forests, notes that “fire was rare or absent...” In a natural landscape in this area, the small patches of old, young, and maturing trees create a nearly continuous old-growth forest with a fine-grained texture.”

Basically, if you were a Douglas fir seedling growing up in British Columbia, nothing happened to you. Ever. To this very day, according to the best estimate of the Canadian government, 68 percent of the trees in British Columbia are 160 years old or older.

That doesn’t mean that if you grew in Canada, you were immune from the possibility of harvest. On the contrary, logging has been historically and continues to be a huge part of British Columbia’s economy. The difference here is the sheer size of the province’s forests.

The majority of Canada’s timber land--93 percent--is owned by the government, and it’s managed differently than the privately-owned forests in the U.S. The forests that are cut, planted with a single species, and then cut again in a few decades? They’re virtually non-existent here. In fact, B.C. does not have any “intensively managed” forests that meet the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s definition of a plantation forest. Even Weyerhauser, one of the largest timber companies in the world, says that it does things differently on its Canadian lands: “Because of differences in weather, soil conditions, and ownership, we manage land in Canada less intensively than we do land in the United States and Southern Hemisphere, working to maintain natural forest qualities and serve a wide range of community interests while still producing timber.”

So, let’s sum up: if you’re a Canadian Douglas fir seedling, you’re much less likely to have been torched by fires when you were young; the land you stand on probably isn’t owned by a company that feels pressured to harvest as soon as you get to 40 or 50 years old; and there are so many millions of you big, old trees that the government is still able to harvest some of you without worrying that doing so is depriving the world of the last 100+ year-old trees in the province.

Does this mean the second- and third-generation Douglas fir grown in the U.S. is worthless? Certainly not. Douglas fir is one of the best construction materials around, and the trees harvested today produce thousands of board feet of valuable timber each year.

But when it comes to the lumber we favor at AltruFir, it’s the large-diameter trees from B.C. that are more likely to pass our inspections and give us the kind of tight grained, high-quality wood fiber help us live up to our advertising.

- Jennifer Rouse

This post was posted in Douglas Fir Flooring, Douglas Fir Trim, History and Interest, Douglas Fir Paneling and was tagged with Douglas fir flooring, clear vertical grain, douglas fir trim, douglas fir paneling