Just an idea......

[william petts]

Keep seeing people ask about importing kiln dried firewood and I had a little idea.

Would there not be a gap in the market for someone in this country to do a kiln dry service for other firewood suppliers who don't have a kiln but are in need of dry logs.

The idea being someone buys in either ready split firewood and then gets another person to dry for them or they take there own firewood to get it dried.

I know there will be the usual issues of transport etc but if they can ship a container full of wood half way around the world I'm sure there can be profit in transporting logs probably no more than 200 miles.

Any thoughts?

[SbTVF]

There's already quite a few wholesalers of kiln dry stuff. Not going to name any names because I wouldn't recommend them to anyone after the experience I've had.

 

Once our own kiln is up and running properly, I plan on offering such a service to a select few people.

 

What do you charge though if it's just drying and they supply the wood? It'll have to be crated up or moved into IBC's etc.

Do they cut it at home then have two lots of transport?

 

 

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[Vespasian]

Keep seeing people ask about importing kiln dried firewood and I had a little idea.

Would there not be a gap in the market for someone in this country to do a kiln dry service for other firewood suppliers who don't have a kiln but are in need of dry logs.

The idea being someone buys in either ready split firewood and then gets another person to dry for them or they take there own firewood to get it dried.

I know there will be the usual issues of transport etc but if they can ship a container full of wood half way around the world I'm sure there can be profit in transporting logs probably no more than 200 miles.

Any thoughts?

 

You'd have to research the price of goods shipped per kilo by ship, then find the stats for transporting by road...

 

I'd imagine the price difference to be pretty worrying... not to mention, given the overall cheaper costs in Eastern Europe, you'd be better off drying at the point of production...

 

 

Then again, this is me just speculating on the subject, and on that speculation maybe you can do something different...

Instead of people carrying wood to be dried to you, why not invent a mobile dryer and take your mobile kiln to them....

 

If the mountain wont come to Mohamed then Mohamed must go to the mountain sort of thing..

[SbTVF]

You'd have to research the price of goods shipped per kilo by ship, then find the stats for transporting by road...

 

 

 

I'd imagine the price difference to be pretty worrying... not to mention, given the overall cheaper costs in Eastern Europe, you'd be better off drying at the point of production...

 

 

 

 

 

Then again, this is me just speculating on the subject, and on that speculation maybe you can do something different...

 

Instead of people carrying wood to be dried to you, why not invent a mobile dryer and take your mobile kiln to them....

 

 

 

If the mountain wont come to Mohamed then Mohamed must go to the mountain sort of thing..

 

 

 

Absolutely, great idea. 40ft flatbed with a boiler in a 10ft container and 30ft insulated sideloading shipping container (kiln) on it. How commercially viable all that layout would be is another thing.

 

 

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[gdh]

I would have thought it would be better to cut wood yourself and sell wholesale since in theory that would be better value. I can see your idea working on a small scale for locals but larger businesses would probably be better with their own kiln.

 

There was a company that would give you a kiln for about 10k I think then they kept the rhi but that was was when the rhi rate was high and I didn't hear if it worked after they had some problems.

[Chalgravesteve]

I can't see how it would work to be honest. I have my own kiln (40' shipping container) with a RHI Boiler to heat it. If someone brings me 40m3 (which is roughly what I get in the kiln (20 x 2m3 cages on wheels) somehow, the supplied wood has to be loaded into the cages (which is done when we process/split our own stuff). Then the cages have to be loaded by machine into the kiln. They are dried over a period of 7/10 days, so I've got a fuel cost of the boiler for that period. Once dried, I've got to unload the kiln with a machine, then empty the cages into bags. The amount of manual labour involved is far to high, so the cost to me ,before I add a profit margin on doing the work, would mean that the person who supplied the firewood to be dried in the first place, would have such a high cost just on my element, before they add the transport to and from my site, then the transport to their customer! 40m3 at a time is just too small scale to get any economies of scale. The imported kiln dried is being done on a massive scale, with substantially lower labour costs and substantially lower timber costs.

 

In addition, the only time that I have spare capacity in my kiln, where I am drying wood faster than I'm selling it, is through the summer, so the person wanting the timber dried would have to be doing all of this out of season and paying for it to hold it in stock for later.

 

In short, the transport, handling, fuel and labour costs on a small scale don't make it viable.

 

If you took the suggestion to put the boiler/kiln onto a flatbed, and take it to the wood source rather than bring the wood to the kiln, either you have to offload the boiler and kiln at the destination, which then means it needs to be plumbed together and electric power attached, which is not a 5 minute job, or you try and manufacture the boiler/kiln to be permanently on the flatbed, so it is a complete and ready mobile unit. Now the kiln and boiler is about 1.2m off the ground and needs to be loaded unloaded and the boiler fuelled.

 

Apart from that, I can easily see this working!!! LOL

[ash_smith123]

You would be far better importing it. At £70 a loose cubic metre now (when the exchange rate is rubbish) no one can compete with that.

I asked a local farmer if I could buy some from him. He has capacity to dry about 100 cubic metres a week but only sells about 100 a year, his best price cash was £90 per cubic metre. From previous experience dry but it very poor quality firewood.

A container turns up, always decent looking dry stuff stacked in a crate. No one in the U.K. Will compete simple as.

Edited December 11, 2016 by ash_smith123

[AHPP]

Already happening in the UK. There's one in/near the Lake District that's been talked about on here.

[markieg31]

does seem a bit crazy that people are getting the RHI for drying wood.

[william petts]

I just find it amazing that we have to import kiln dried. Are there not any kiln dried suppliers in the UK where all the wood is cut processed and dried in this country. The mobile kiln sounds like a good idea, but what would they charge to dry?

Talking of which roughly how much does it cost to dry your logs per cubic meter?