About DH Manufacturing

DH Manufacturing has wood remanufacturing plants located in Houston, BC and Drayton Valley, Alberta. Our company truck fleet transports the wood waste/trim blocks from several lumber operations to the remanufacturing facilities. Delivery of all finished products are with our own fleet. This raw material is sorted, chopped, trimmed and edged into custom width and length materials that are processed into finished products. All remaining wood waste is processed into wood chips and shavings for resale. DH Manufacturing Inc. employs 60 dedicated local residents at the two facilities.

DH Manufacturing started operating in December 2006 by purchasing a financially unstable existing operation with a 100’ x 90’ building located at 1250 Hols Road in Houston, BC. The plant processed wooden trim blocks for a fingerjoint operation located in the Hazelton area.

A small three man chopsaw operation processed planer throwout (PTO) material for dunnage and some kiln strip sales. Planer throw outs are non-planed lumber in various lengths and dimensions that do not make any lumber grade for sales in the lumber market.

The operation quickly rebounded with increased product recovery with increased productivity by minimizing production downtime due to increased preventative maintenance and streamlining block flow on the production line.

New owner, Dennis Hotte, was instrumental with the background knowledge of sawmill lumber production working with several Canadian lumber companies throughout British Columbia since the mid 1970’s. His vast experience working in the lumber industry for many years proved invaluable with the engineering, maintenance and production capability of the employees and equipment.

Our experienced blockline crew takes pride with their production record producing top quality fingerjoint ready blocks for the final fingerjoint production line. The blockline production crew processes 1.5-2 million board feet of trim blocks per month at the Houston site.

In early 2007, a multi rip strip machine was purchased enabling the company to produce custom, top quality assorted dimension and lengths kiln strips to sell back to the lumber companies in the Houston area. A second multi rip machine was purchased to rip 2” x 6” dimension lumber into custom made 2 ½” x ¾” wide kiln strips for sales extending beyond the local area.

Wooden lathe sales quickly developed with the installation of specific collars to increase recovery on the multi rip machine. Product sales of quality kiln strips, dunnage and lathe products took off and the operation was servicing sawmills throughout the Bulkley Valley and into several communities in British Columbia and Alberta.

In the summer of 2007, an opportunity to purchase and install a used Industrial finger joint production machine became a reality. Finger joint lumber operation started in October 2007 with Canadian and US lumber sales. The company expanded the existing building by over 9600 sq. ft. to accommodate the finger jointer operation and curing area for the finished product.

Dennis and his maintenance crew constantly integrated more efficient and effective production strategically focused on increased productivity on the finger jointer operation increasing current production to 160 lugs/minute. Two shifts of 9 employees have operated 4 10 hours shifts/week production enabling the company to become a high producer, low cost operation producing top quality finger joint lumber.

In 2021 in Houston, DH Manufacturing constructed a 8000 + sq. ft. building to house the newly purchased Canadian made, Conception RP _1000_ auto fingerjointer. This newly purchased production machine has drastically increased production. This equipment enables the company to utilize the available employees to other production jobs on site while increasing productivity for the company with no loss of employment for local residents.