Why We Use Dead-Standing Timber

Mammoth Mill is strategically located in the Southern Rockies at an altitude of over 8,200 feet. Dead-standing trees are the preferred harvest for our mill. This produces high-quality, stable wood with low shrinkage and settling. All timber is stored at this location, ensuring a continuance of a very low-moisture environment. We harvest our dead-standing logs at this altitude and above. The dry climate and natural curing process over many years thoroughly dries dead-standing trees. Utilizing dry wood is absolutely essential for stable house logs. When moisture content is high in a log, shrinking, cracking and warping can occur. Wood used in conventional home construction is commonly kiln or air dried. While kiln or air drying yields a certain degree of dryness, using these processes on formidable pieces of wood, such as house logs, makes it difficult to dry the logs all the way to the center by duplicating the natural aging process.

The environmentally sustainable effects in using dead-standing timber are also impressive. Prevention of forest fires due to the removal of this wood encourages natural regeneration of the forest and sustains wildlife habitats. Every dead-standing tree used prevents a living tree from being killed. The dimensions of the wood we remove are less than that typically used by conventional standards. We use trees killed primarily by fire as well as some that are killed due to periodic beetle infestation. A negligible to negative carbon footprint is left due to the fact we remove trees that would be left to rot or burn. Kilns utilize a great deal of energy to operate which is eliminated when using the natural aging process. Ecologically and environmentally, solid wood is the only building product that is renewable, biodegradable, recyclable and energy efficient – not to mention extremely beautiful.