How to Order

You may place your order by phone or email, and some orders may be placed on our online store. Before placing your order, there are a few options you should look over. We will need to know what species you would like, if it will be dried or green, rough or planed, graded or ungraded.

The information below should help you better understand your options and our process, availability, and turn around times. Please contact us with specific questions, and to discuss your projects needs. Call us: (207)587-2145 or Email us: [email protected]

Wood Grades

In the lumber industry the saying “you get what you paid for” holds true. It is important to recognize the differences in lumber grades and the difference in planing/milling quality when shopping for lumber. If you have any questions, please ask them before placing an order.

Grades for Products Made by The Wood Mill of Maine

Graded

We are a small production mill, allowing us to have higher quality standards, and visually inspect each piece as it comes off our mill. Graded products have sound tight knots. There can be a mix of both solid red and black knots, and we guarantee the lumber to have no holes, cracks or planing defects. Please note, for lumber thicker than 1″, checking from drying is not considered a defect. You will receive a zero waste product meaning every piece you receive would be suitable for your home or one of ours.

Ungraded (run of the mill)

Mill run lumber is impartially pulled and milled from our inventory. It is not graded at any point of production. Some of the lumber will resemble top grade, and some will have defects including sweep, large knots, loose/missing knots, cracks, wane, rot, holes, and minor planing defects (like nicks). Many defects can be cut out of the wood during installation, so you will still have a lot of good quality product. Eastern Hemlock is only available in mill run or industrial grade. If you are worried mill run grade is not up to the standards of your project, we suggest you either order extra to account for waste, or consider buying our zero waste graded product.

Seconds (industrial grade)

Seconds are the discards from when we mill a graded order. Seconds will have defects including sweep, large knots, loose/missing knots, cracks, wane, rot, holes, and planing defects (miss). Seconds are sold at up to 75% off of the graded product price, and are only sold as full units.

To view what we currently have available, click here!

Pine Flooring

We grade our White Pine flooring harder than any other product we make. For more information on our Pine flooring grades, click here!

Grades for Common Pine Products Made Elsewhere

Most other Pine mills follow the NELMA grading standard: The grades are Industrial, Standard, Premium, Finish, and Select. For detailed info on this grading system, check out the NELMA grader sheet:  Download the NELMA Grader Sheet

When ordering products manufactured by a NELMA mill, you should expect to see some damage from handling, more sweep, lower quality finish from milling, and a higher moisture content than in products manufactured by The Wood Mill of Maine.

Pine, Cedar, or Hemlock

Eastern White Pine

Since the early settlers arrived, Maine has been famous for it’s eastern white pine.  Known to grow up to 250′ tall, eastern white pines were the giants of the Northeast and were sought after for ship masts for the British fleet. It has a fine grain, and uniform texture, shapes easily for patters and profiles, stays true to form, and holds finishes very well. White pine has been an American favorite because of its versatility, stability, desirable white, yellow, and tan color. Knots are typically a red or black in color. It is the lumber of choice for timber framing and is often used as paneling, wainscoting, siding, wide pine flooring, log cabin logs, furniture, mouldings, and many other uses. There are many homes over 200 years old throughout New England with beautiful original pine throughout. We typically have rough sawn pine available in various dimensions. Custom rough cut pine is usually available with a 1-2 week turnaround time. Kiln drying and planing can take up to 5 weeks. Pine when sawn in the summer can develop a blue stain from the summer heat. If this is a concern for you, please call us, and we can talk about alternatives.

Eastern White Cedar

Also called Atlantic White Cedar, Northern White Cedar, and swamp cedar, it is a highly desirable for its rot and insect resistant traits. Cedar is often used where water, moisture, or soil are present such as decking, sauna wood, log cabin logs, boat building, fencing and posts, shingles, siding, and throughout homes as paneling and trim. Cedar trees do not grow large or strait like pine, which makes it very difficult to get long lengths. A typical piece of cedar paneling can be anywhere from 4′ – 10′ with the average being about 8′. We specialize in high quality cedar. Cedar is not recommended for load baring structures such as beams and floor joists.

Eastern Hemlock

Hemlock is known as the softwood which pretends to be a hardwood. It has the looks of a softwood, but turns grey and becomes incredibly hard as it dries. Because of this  Hemlock is only available green, and can be planed to your specifications. It is usually considered a construction timber and is used for large beams, floor joists, house lifting cribbing, barn siding, etc. Hemlock can grow to large size and length making it ideal for long length timbers. Hemlock is not recommended for interior finish or flooring use because it can move & twist as it dries, and in some cases can easily splinter, and is only offered in a mill run grade, or industrial grade. Please note that if you want Hemlock planed, it will likely have some fuzzing since it will be planed green.

Kiln Dried, Air Dried or Green

Kiln Dried

Drying lumber removes moisture from the wood, and minimizes shrinkage you will experience with green lumber. All of our stock dimension eastern white pine is kiln dried in our Nyle dehumidification kilns. Log cabin logs and siding are dried to 15-20% moisture content to minimize shrinkage and checking. Paneling is dried to 10-12% moisture content which is suitable for interior walls and ceilings. Flooring & mouldings are dried to 6-8% moisture content for maximum stability and minimal shrinkage. Drying can take from 14-21 days and is a process that must be done right to insure a top quality product. Most custom cut pine orders require up to 5 weeks lead time. 

Air Dried

Our stock cedar is stickered and air dried to below 20% for log cabin logs and below 12% for paneling, siding and decking. Kiln drying cedar is unnecessary because of how easily cedar gives up its moisture. In the summer, cedar will be sufficiently dry just a few weeks, and have only minimal shrinkage after being installed.

Green

Green means the lumber is not air dried or kiln dried. For pine and cedar we recommend that you buy a air dried or kiln dried product to minimize movement and shrinkage. There are a few exceptions however. One is for large timbers such as beams. Any timber over 16′ will not fit in a kiln. This is okay, because most builders using large beams are used to working with green timbers and know how they need to be installed. Another exception is Hemlock, which is nearly impossible to work with after drying. If hemlock is kiln dried (or even air dried) before being installed it tends to twist, cup and splinter. Because of this, all hemlock orders cut out of a fresh logs leaving the lumber as “green” as possible for installation. Green lumber can still be planed but the finish will not be as smooth as a kiln dried timber.

Rough Sawn or Planed

Rough Sawn

This is a term for how lumber comes off a saw mill. We try to get our rough dimentioned lumber sawn at the actual nominal size. This means a rough sawn 2×4 should really be a 2″ x 4″. In a perfect world this holds true, but rough sawn lumber has inaccuracies from sawing and due to shrinkage while drying. A 2 x4 might actually be as large as 2.25 x 4.25 or in very rare cases slightly below a true 2 x 4. Rough sawn lumber can save you the planing cost if you don’t need the accuracy and smooth finish of a planed product, or you want to plane your own wood.

Planed

This means the lumber was put through our 4 sided planer, giving each piece a smooth and uniform finish. We offer a wide variety of planed products and stock our most popular items, including log cabin siding, wall paneling, and cedar decking. We also often make custom profiles. We can mill you almost anything, such as that custom moldings, siding, or replacement logs for a log cabin. There is a planer setup charge for custom orders. This charge is waved on orders over 2000 linear feet, and any lumber milled squared four sides.