Virginia Reclaimed Flooring turns wood waste into fuel and electricity

Ruckersville, VA— With ground-breaking, eco-friendly standards and expanded facilities, Mountain Lumber, a Ruckersville, Virginia reclaimed flooring company, has grown even greener. A pioneer in many environmentally friendly efforts, the company is the first of its kind to transform sawdust and wood chips from its manufacturing processes into fuel to power on-site drying kilns and to create electricity for the plant.

“We’ve never cut down a tree to make flooring,” says Willie Drake, who founded Mountain Lumber more than 30 years ago. “It just seems natural that a leading reclaimed lumber company should also carve a path in developing a manufacturing process that makes the most out of a very limited natural resource. This is just one of the innovative ways we’ve chosen to do the right thing and keep our long-standing commitment to environmentalism. We hope others will follow our lead.”

According to general manager John Williams, Mountain Lumber’s new facilities will allow it to recycle its sawdust in a way no other reclaimed flooring company has ever attempted.

Mountain Lumber, Williams says, will take the waste from its saws and use it as fuel to power the drying kilns that reduce the moisture content in the wood. And while the company has always aimed to make the most of the sawdust - and for years has offered it to farmers as bedding – Williams says powering the kilns will be a big step forward in keeping its operations “green”.

In addition, the company is looking ahead to other uses for the sawdust and Mountain Lumber fully expects to generate some of the company’s electricity with it.

By transforming waste into energy, and with the acquisition of Madison Wood Flooring in Madison, Virginia, Drake says Mountain Lumber is raising the bar on the flooring industry’s environmental standards while greatly increasing production levels.

With the purchase of Madison Wood Flooring, Mountain Lumber now has the manufacturing resources it needs to meet a growing demand for historic and ecologically-friendly wood flooring, says Drake.

In the recent acquisition, Mountain Lumber purchased Madison Wood Flooring’s entire 12-acre manufacturing facility that includes the land, mill shop, kilns and warehouses.

“This [purchase] gives us the space we need to run the most efficient flooring line in the business,” Drake says.