Houston Lumber, Direct from the Mill

The same highway, the other direction

We mill dry balsam: the logs left burnt or behind in the bush that larger mills will not take. Every log leaves the yard as squared cants for finished lumber or as chips bound for a local pellet plant, so nothing is wasted.

Our yard is on Highway 16 between Witset and Hazelton. Houston is east along the same highway, past Smithers. It is one road, no ferries and no detours, which is the whole reason buying direct from a mill works for people out that way.

What Houston calls about

Most of what leaves the yard toward Houston is farm and fence material rather than construction lumber:

• Two-inch rough-cut boards in random widths for fence lines, corral rails, and barn walls. A rough two-inch board is a full two inches thick, where a dressed 2x from a yard is an inch and a half.
• 4x4 and 6x6 cants where a solid post or a heavy timber is wanted.
• Wood chips by the trailer load.

What we will not pretend

Our boards and posts are untreated. For a fence post going into the ground, that matters: untreated balsam in ground contact will not last like a treated post, and we would rather say so than sell you the wrong thing. Plenty of people buy rough posts anyway and accept the trade, and plenty buy their rails from us and their treated posts in town. Either is fine by us.

We also do not carry hardware or fasteners. We sell the wood we cut.

If you are fencing, the fence material calculator will turn a run length into a board and post count before you call.