Dickson, TN—Lewis Lumber and Milling Inc., located here, recently acquired an old Sealy mattress facility in Clarion, PA, which Lewis will convert into a plant to make Hardwood flooring and cabinet mouldings, as they do in Dickson. This 100,000 square foot facility, situated on 48 acres, is being retrofitted to accommodate needed equipment.
Tom Edwards, COO of Lewis, stated, “We will be replicating the machines and infrastructure that we utilize in Tennessee. We manufacture long length plank flooring, cabinet moldings and cabinet components. We have already purchased eight Brunner-Hildebrand kilns that will be shipping at the end of the year, and the first one will start to be erected in January. The eight kilns will have the capacity to dry 750,000 board feet of lumber. We have also already ordered most of the machinery that we require for the interior.
“We will be buying green lumber in Pennsylvania,” Edwards noted. “All species will be 4/4 lumber and the species will consist of Hard Maple (Primarily No. 1 Common and Better), White Oak (No. 3 Common and Better), Red Oak (No. 1 Common and Better) and Cherry (FAS). Historically, we only sell a finished product, but we will be setting the Clarion plant up to sell lumber if that is needed at a later date. We will be consuming 18-20 million board feet of green lumber annually at our new location in Northwest Pennsylvania. “We should be able to start bringing in green lumber in February to March of 2022 and then we hope to start manufacturing finished goods in Clarion in April to May of 2022,” Edwards said.
For more information, you can visit www.reliancehardwoodflooring.com.
