What wood to use for a sugarhouse

[TapTapTap]

we built ours just this year - out off pine from the property. I have almost no rain, and no hood. i think the secret was the 12:12 pitch on 9 ft walls. metal roof was partly lined with pine boards - ran out of time and boards

[sap retreiver]

Use what you have. You didn't tell us what you have, as most others have said that's what we use just what God gave us. If you want an opinion on what you have tell us what you have

[Johnjenner]

Most of our snow has melted so i am starting up the mill tomorrow. As for what i have, mainly pine and oak. I am sawing jackpine,red pine, spruce, cedar, and oak this year. Not sawing white pine since i have lots already. So this should answer the question as to what i have to select from. Depending on what i use will probably do tongue and grove On the roof and cover with steel. On the wall will do ship lap to match the other buildings

[Russell Lampron]

Most of our snow has melted so i am starting up the mill tomorrow. As for what i have, mainly pine and oak. I am sawing jackpine,red pine, spruce, cedar, and oak this year. Not sawing white pine since i have lots already. So this should answer the question as to what i have to select from. Depending on what i use will probably do tongue and grove On the roof and cover with steel. On the wall will do ship lap to match the other buildings

Use the spruce for framing, the nails will never back out if you didn't already know this.

[Havingfun]

What the thoughts out there on ash? I would assume it wood be ok for timbers and under a metal rook but how about for exterior 1 1/4"? Of course i would have to treat and no ground contact. Thanks

[sap retreiver]

Needs to be treated if exposed. Otherwise it's a great building material

[Johnny Yooper]

just completed building a vertical log sugar shack in the woods behind our house; 75 cedar logs (and 3 spruce logs) taken from deer camp in the U.P., would have taken more spruce as that's a good choice as well, but only saw the one in the cedar swamp and it was handy and yielded three nice logs; also used about 100 pine logs from central Wis., and about a dozen popple logs from my woods here for door and window headers and jambs. From the species you have, I'd choose cedar for anything exposed, even if you treat it. I've been using cedar for outdoor projects for over 40 years (garden fencing, posts to support deer camp, log sauna, etc.; it's one of the best species for exposure in this part of the country. Even so, treat it nonetheless. You mentioned oak.......not sure if you have white or red or something else; if white, that's better than red if exposed to the weather. As mentioned, hemlock is another good choice for exposed situations, just don't see as much of that milled up as in the past. I had a couple dozen large spruce and white ash milled a couple years ago and I think I'll use that for the ceiling in the shack. This is my first log building project using pine so we'll see how that goes. Good luck with your project.

[claystroup]

Please post some pictures of your vertical log shack. What size is it? I was thinking of doing the same thing with the 8’ cedar fence posts they sell at TSC. We had a 10 x 14 vertical log shed with a dirt floor at our cabin in northern Michigan that we tore down about 15 yrs ago when we built our garage. Burned it up for campfire wood. Should have made a sugar shack out of it!

[Johnny Yooper]

Clay,

I've tried to attach a couple of pics off the shack; it's a unique footprint:20'x30'x8'x32'-4" (trapezoid), reason being is I needed to fit it between the property line and an existing road and the two are not parallel, so I squeezed as much as I could into that pie shaped piece; I split it into two rooms, one for boiling, and the other side will have two sets of double bunks, table, chairs, woodstove, sink, and an 8'x5' picture window, will double as a camp/clubhouse for the kids. The 30' wall is 10' high with a shed style roof with a 2 foot pitch in 20 feet.IMG_20180414_095940350_HDR.jpgIMG_20180414_095900146.jpg

[red dorakeen]

Clay,

I've tried to attach a couple of pics off the shack; it's a unique footprint:20'x30'x8'x32'-4" (trapezoid), reason being is I needed to fit it between the property line and an existing road and the two are not parallel, so I squeezed as much as I could into that pie shaped piece; I split it into two rooms, one for boiling, and the other side will have two sets of double bunks, table, chairs, woodstove, sink, and an 8'x5' picture window, will double as a camp/clubhouse for the kids. The 30' wall is 10' high with a shed style roof with a 2 foot pitch in 20 feet.Attachment 18633Attachment 18634

Nice building!