Imported kiln dry logs ?

[ash_smith123]

Il call it "force air dried in a timber framed box over a less time than our kiln dried hardwood"

rolls off the tongue that!

I hear "barn dried" in the firewood industry a lot, can anyone let me know what Moisture content that has to be?

[richardwale]

Il call it "force air dried in a timber framed box over a less time than our kiln dried hardwood"

rolls off the tongue that!

I hear "barn dried" in the firewood industry a lot, can anyone let me know what Moisture content that has to be?

 

Easy, 25% or less

[cornish wood burner]

I use softwood "chipwood" mainly. It's sold as "chipwood" so if I don't buy it, it would be on its way to be burnt somewhere else, probably at 40%+ moisture in the biomass plant in port talbot

With the size of the P Talbot plant I too doubt if they have space to air dry their fuel, so as you say must go in at 40%+. They must use a step grate type system and use some combustion heat to dry the chip before it gets to the fire. A bit like your kiln drying but a bit more efficient.

 

Presumably you air dry your chipwood down to a reasonable level then chip it?You must have a fairly large efficient boiler so do you not find the RHI covers your fuel costs?

[ash_smith123]

I have no issue with what Ash is doing, the fact he is shifting a good amount of logs shows he is getting something right. For me the crucial thing is honesty with customers about moisture content then being consistent in delivering what you claim. We could argue all day about what the terminology seasoned means.

 

On the subject of kiln dried it has often seemed a bit odd that some merchants are so against it. I see it as an opportunity. We are all in business, the fundamental object of which is to make a living/profit. Rightly or wrongly there is a big market out there for kiln dried. 1/3 of all our sales are kiln dried, on these sales we make more profit. At no point do we lie to customers we just say that the kiln dried are about 5-10% drier and let them decide. If they want kiln dried happy days, then it is down to the customer to decide if they are happy with what they buy. For me this is basic sensible business.

 

Judging by the houses of many of my customers buying kiln dried they are far from stupid. They can quickly work out what's what and make the choice on what they buy.

 

The log business is a tough place to make profit. If customers want to pay a premium let's make the most of the opportunity.

 

 

Finally someone who speaks some sense!

I'm now about 40-60% split from seasoned/kiln dried and kiln dried is catching up! The most simple thing to do in business is supply the demand!!

[ash_smith123]

With the size of the P Talbot plant I too doubt if they have space to air dry their fuel, so as you say must go in at 40%+. They must use a step grate type system and use some combustion heat to dry the chip before it gets to the fire. A bit like your kiln drying but a bit more efficient.

 

 

 

Presumably you air dry your chipwood down to a reasonable level then chip it?You must have a fairly large efficient boiler so do you not find the RHI covers your fuel costs?

 

 

We've got a log boiler but buy what the supplier classes as softwood chipwood. Bought some pop cheap in the past as well, when dry it kicked out some insane heat!

yes the RHI payments easily cover the fuel costs.

[Big J]

Get rid of these ridiculous grants and all other government incentives.

 

It's all FUBAR.

 

Agreed. A business needs to make economic sense regardless of whether government funding is available or not.

 

I am slightly worried about the number of times we've agreed on things in the past few days TCD!

 

Beyond that, all this debate as to what constitutes seasoned/kiln dried (in terms of moisture content) only reaffirms my belief that the sale of seasoned firewood is nonsense. Fell it, cut it, split it, let the customer assume the responsibility of seasoning it. They save money, you save money, everyone wins. It's only because we're a country of short termist numpties that this isn't drilled into us.

 

Seriously though, I wonder if the lack of any understanding regarding the burning, seasoning and storage of firewood is down to the fact that it's not actually something that has traditionally been done on any scale. Forest cover is now 11.8% across the UK, which is the highest it's been since 1750 (twice what it was during the First World War). Even then, it's less than 1/3 of the EU average of 35%. The British have historically had access to abundant quantities of cheap coal, whereas our European neighbours have always had abundant access to cheap wood (and an amenable climate to dry it). Perhaps we are just used to being short termist (ie, we've run out of coal, better call the coal man). This is definitely an area where we ought to be more European!

[cornish wood burner]

We've got a log boiler but buy what the supplier classes as softwood chipwood. Bought some pop cheap in the past as well, when dry it kicked out some insane heat!

yes the RHI payments easily cover the fuel costs.

 

I thought you might have gone the chip boiler route. We have a 999kw chip boiler and apart from routine maintenance it runs itself. Around 92% efficient when we feed it decent softwood chip. From memory up to 93% but Sod's law says when we book a chipper it rains. Just chipped some that should come in at about 20% so a reasonable couple of days there. We also get a crazy amount of RHI on it.

[TimberCutterDartmoor]

 

I am slightly worried about the number of times we've agreed on things in the past few days TCD! :

 

Haha I had the very same thought.

[ash_smith123]

I thought you might have gone the chip boiler route. We have a 999kw chip boiler and apart from routine maintenance it runs itself. Around 92% efficient when we feed it decent softwood chip. From memory up to 93% but Sod's law says when we book a chipper it rains. Just chipped some that should come in at about 20% so a reasonable couple of days there. We also get a crazy amount of RHI on it.

 

 

Funds unfortunately! Being quite a new company as we went LTD most finance companies wouldn't give us much so a chip boiler was out of the question. We didn't go through a biomass company for the second kiln and sourced the parts ourselves and got a local plumber to fit it so it costs just over £16k.

[Logsnstuff]

Why is he impacting anyone else?

 

He is selling his products stating what they are.

 

You should concern yourself with your own offering imo

 

you don't understand when he sells unseasoned wood as seasoned it impacts everyone, if he calls it anything it should be 30% mc kiln dried logs it's not rocket science. most of us have spent years trying to make people understand you can air dry to a suitable level to compete with kiln dried and this undermines all of that.