Mold on Red Pine - Pictures included!

[mjl_2007]

Hey all,

Well we remodeled our old corn crib into an air drying shed for lumber. The lumber that is on the east and west ends of the building seem to be drying fine. I had concerns about stacking all the lumber through the middle and getting enough air flow (The building is 50' long). The middle part is open on the north and south ends. Well, I had two piles of red pine in there. One pile was fresh sawn about a week ago. The other pile was sawn in March and just put in there. It has been very hot and humid for the past couple of weeks. Sure enough the fresh sawn pile in the middle of the crib started to mold - a lot. I used the pressure washer to clean it off a few boards. So here are my questions:

1. The boards I cleaned off still have a minor green tint in areas on them. Will the planer take care of this? I just noticed the mold starting 2 days ago.

2. Are these boards salvageable? Or will the mold come back?

3. What can I do to prevent this from happening again? I am thinking the center part of the building might not work so well for air drying? If I had fans running in there, would it be worth while?

4. Is red pine more prone to molding? I haven't noticed any mold in the piles of white pine, red oak, and maple so far (all these piles were on the outside part of the building though.)

Here are some pictures of the mold on the boards and of the air drying building to give you an idea.





This is the east side of the building. All of the lumber appears to be fine.



Below is the center part of the building where the molding pine was


Layout of building

[red oaks lumber]

you have learned first hand how not to store air drying lumber, pine especilly :(. you need air flow, air flow store your bundles out in the wide open until the mc is below 20%  then store them in your corn crib. or don't saw pine during the long hot humid days of summer. the blue stain you see in the wood won't plane out but, it won't hurt it either.
red pine does blue up faster than white pine, it will mold sooner also if your logs have been sitting awhile before you got them sawed.

[mjl_2007]

Yeah, I'm ok with the blue stain, kinda like it actually. But if I pressure wash off all the mold will it come back? Of course I will leave these stacks outside now. You can still see a tint of green from the mold after they are cleaned off.

[barbender]

I think the tint of green is bluestain that formed under the mold, that is what I have had happen. Red Pine seems to mold faster than anything else I have sawn.

[naturewalk789]

i,m new to lumber   can  it  be bleach,if not  can the pine that  he  have there , can it  still be used for framing

[barbender]

You can bleach off mold, because it forms on the surface, but bluestain will go through the full depth of any sapwood. But, it doesn't affect strength, so you can use it for framing.