Our Wood Notes:
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Zoombee is located in Cranbrook which is in the heart of the British Columbia Kootenays. We have the perfect growing season giving us access to superior pine and fir products. Getting the highest quality raw material is a passion for us. This does not make us the low cost provider but does make the installation look beautiful for a reasonable price. With wood products you often pay for what you get....for us, it all starts with our raw materials. To manufacture our profiled wood products, we work with our dimensional wood supplier to get their highest graded, kiln dried materials in pine and fir. Supplier material we buy is typically 13-15% moisture (a box store 2x4 averages 19% moisture). We then stabilize the wood further by drying it to less than 10% moisture in our onsite kiln so that it minimizes shrinking, cupping or drying gaps. Once dry and stable, we continue to process into profiles for our customers. Quality is our passion; wood is good and we have good wood.
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Profiled Pine:
Pine is excellent for profiling and is a great wood to leave natural, stain or paint. It has soft knots so the material has less flaws when the shaping operation occurs. Pine has low tannins to prevent discolouration of the paint. When painting pine, be sure to use a primer prior to top coats of paint. It is softer wood in general and is perfect to install on your ceiling or walls.
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Profiled FIR:
Fir is a durable wood that was often used as shiplaps, flooring and siding in days past. Fir has harder knots and will have more knot failures when shaping it. These imperfections are tallied and additional material is added in so you only pay for usable wood. Fir has a warm salmon tone and it stains beautifully. It is paintable but make sure you used a top quality stain blocking primer before putting your top coats on; it has natural tannins that will blead through paint discolouring it if you don't.
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FIR TIMBERS:
Zoombee supplies fir timbers We get these from the Creston Valley area, supplied by a small private milling operation. We cut to order allowing us to supply the sizes specific to your job. For our fir timbers, we search for the best quality logs to cut the timbers from. We find straight logs with low pitch content giving us superior quality, small knot timbers. Fir timbers are not kiln dried and larger sizes will take a few years to completely dry out. Be aware that timbers may twist after they start to dry out. This is natural and impossible to predict. The outside of the timber will dry faster than the interior. The shrinking of the outside will cause natural cracking of the timber. You can try to minimize the cracking by sealing the timber with your stain to slow down the shrinking/drying and cracking of the wood. Even with a crack, the material is still super strong. Special attention is paid to supply minimum wane on our timbers making your finished project look fantastic.
CEDAR:
Cedar is one of the most beautiful woods. We have access to inland Western Red which does have knots. Clear cedar often comes from the costal varieties and tends to be more aromatic and is three times the price. We use inland second growth cedar to manufacture our products from. It tends to have smaller tight knots and a consistent colouring. Cedar is a soft wood with very hard knots so during the process of shaping it in our molder, we will have some knots fail. This results in varying lengths of usable material once profiled. These flaws are tallied and additional material is added in so you only pay for usable wood. Cedar has natural preservatives within the wood making it excellent for sidings, facias and fencing posts. It also stains beautifully for a nice warn look that is second to none.
