Antique Heart Pine
Old-growth longleaf pulled from 19th-century mills and factories.
Thermally Modified Wood
Thermally modified · Pine, heart pine, cypress, white oak
Thermal modification is heat and steam, no chemistry, and ours was the first kiln in Louisiana built to do it. A load runs about five days in three phases: a slow climb that draws the moisture down, a hard spike in a low-oxygen chamber that converts the sugars and acids in the cell walls, then steam to bring the moisture back to where the wood can live. What is left has nothing in it for mold, rot or fungus to eat.
The result is dimensionally stable, rot resistant and safe to handle, cut and burn — none of the copper or arsenic that comes with pressure treatment. It darkens to a uniform coffee brown through the full thickness, so a scratch does not show a light core.
We run pine, antique heart pine, cypress and white oak through it — for interior flooring, decking, docks, siding, doors, bathrooms and saunas — and whole beams go in the kiln too. Left unfinished it silvers like teak; with a UV oil it holds the brown.
Spec sheet
- Process
- Heat + steam, no chemicals
- Cycle
- 3 phases, about 5 days
- Profiles
- Flooring, decking, siding, crown, S4S
- Thickness
- 5/4" and 1"
- Widths
- 4"–11"
- Durability
- Class 1–2, ground contact excluded
- Lead time
- 3–5 weeks
- Quoted in
- sq ft
Surface
- Smooth
- Dirty top
- Rough sawn
Grade
- Clear
- Character
See it down
A minute walking through a finished house in thermally modified white oak. The kiln takes the color all the way through the board, so it reads the same at the threshold as it does in the middle of the room.
Jobs we've shipped
12 photos · click to enlarge
