Worms in butternut

Does the place where you purchased the wood kiln dry their lumber before they sell it? This is the most effective way to kill pretty much everything living in the lumber - hot and dry environment will desiccate the little buggers. My guess is that it was not kiln dried. Not sure how much lumber you have but you could bag the wood and add silica gel dessicant pads and let it bake in the sun for a few weeks in a tightly sealed bag. You can buy silica gel desiccant packs lots of places.

If you have too much lumber I'd ask the seller to put it in a kiln as my first option.

Thank you... I do have a bit more then a little. I'll call my supplier tomorrow... he's a tree farmer in northern NH who sells wood much cheaper then most and he does have a kiln (I've been in it) and most of his wood is dried in it. When I bought it, he did warn me of the possibility of active worms as all of NH's butternut trees are under attack... He sells me most woods at $4/brd.ft. On my last trip he sold me a bunch of curly cherry for that price. I'm not one to nickle and dime folks soo...


Thanks for advice and using the resources at my disposal, I'm going too brush all the sawdust off, shrink wrap that infested lumber and bake it in the sun till winter. I will protect it from the rain and not use it for a couple of years while keeping it under wrap. Thanks again "Saw Dust Rules".

Will putting the wood in the hot sun make it warp? It seems to me it might.

I have no experience with Butternut lumber. I have had both hickory and honey locust trees cut into lumber. These woods seem to attract wood comping bugs. My experience with these is sticker the lumber, the bugs will comp on the sap wood, and stop as the lumber dries. You loose some of the sap wood, but very little heart wood. Now if you have powder post beetles, then those buggers will eat it all and not stop. Then a trip to a kiln is your only option. Kiln drying is really the only way to truly kill all the bugs.