Ready to Burn from HETAS

[Rough Hewn]

In my experience trying to get wood to dry below 20% mc, without a kiln takes forever!
Trying to dry 2" slabs outside under cover to 20ish then into a workshop.
Still goes warped I put it in a centrally heated building.
It takes 10 years plus in absolutely perfect conditions to air dry down to circa 8-10%.
Both my carpenter grandfathers hated each other. The only thing they agreed on was "you can't buy a decent air dried plank today, only kiln dried rubbish".
And they said that in 1980.

For firewood, poly tunnels are good IF you have the space.

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

9 hours ago, Mull said:

 

 

I can understand your distrust Kev, it goes along similar lines of farm subsidy, landowners benefitting from handouts, of course there are always a few ordinary folk who benefit also!
Makes it easier to swallow.

 

 

Agreed Mull me old mucker! I’m not averse to taking some free money! ?

 

Its a ? on top and I laugh every time the  email arrives to tell me about the ? for the solar PV, solar thermal and RHI payments. 

 

But they arrive in the in the bank account because (a) the early roll-out of solar PV payments was WAY too high (civil service ineptitude, albeit partially corrected for new applications by later revisions) and (b) I did EXACTLY what was being incentivised - ripped out an old oil burner and replaced with biomass. 

 

The point I’m trying to demonstrate, in a characteristically rambling and potentially illogical anecdotal presentation is, it appears to me that (almost) every time we have a “scheme” which involves money, someone will find a way to *exploit/benefit/avoid/extort/enhance etc (*delete as appropriate) it to their personal advantage in a way that way never forseen by those responsible for introducing said scheme. 

 

(Like a 3 legged man claiming disability benefit....  Whereas he actually has MORE ability than a 2 legged man ???

Edited May 27, 2018 by kevinjohnsonmbe

[difflock]

Rough Hewn,

There is however a significent difference in the surface area and therefore evaporative capacities of sawn timber vis-a-vis split timber.

Alyicdon,

I figger the 15%" for woodstoves is mostly a "get-out" clause by the manufacturer,

any issues, lets check the small-print,

sorry Sir, your timber was not dry enough.

cheers

marcus

[openspaceman]

9 hours ago, kevinjohnsonmbe said:

I appreciate, for volume, it can be represented as necessary.

 

Yes and it is straight forward to attribute costs if you know them, such as storage, opportunity cost of labour one season versus another, cost of cashflow, cost of fuel used, amortisation of drying plant etc. Even with solar drying on a large scale there will be an electricity cost for forced ventilation

9 hours ago, kevinjohnsonmbe said:

I’m only viewing from a self-sufficiency perspective and with the luxury of low volume, sufficient time and ample space for ‘natural’ processes.

Which is how most of us dry wood for our own consumption, that's not the marketplace

9 hours ago, kevinjohnsonmbe said:

 

  I can understand the situation of trying to achieve product, on time and to spec, in bulk, but it just doesn’t “sit” right with me. I struggle to believe there was ever the intent, when RHI was conceived, for it to be used in this fashion

Which is true of any distortion in the market, people will take advantage whether it's by smuggling, black market or in this case to maximise RHI.

[openspaceman]

12 hours ago, Alycidon said:

At the time the max MC acceptable was 25%,  that is far far to high,  yes they have brought that down to 20% but ALL stove manufacturers require a maximum of 15%, some 16%.     So 20% is still for me far to high,  they are being corralled by CW whose KD moisture warranty was last time I looked 20% - 22%.

 

Do you know how any of their figures are arrived at or justified, Is CW an abbreviation for the Snell bros operation in Hereford?

 

As I tried to demonstrate in a recent post about attributing efficiency it actually doesn't say a lot about how a stove in normal use heats the occupants of a room.

[openspaceman]

15 hours ago, difflock said:

Anyway bringing the firewood in to the house/beside the stove for at least 24 hrs before burning, makes a vast difference.

That would occupy a fair amount of space in my front room, at least an armchair's worth and that wouldn't have much circulation to make a change in 24 hours.

[openspaceman]

12 hours ago, Woodworks said:

I have said before but I think you need to check your moisture meter. Totally impossible to obtain the percentage level you are talking about here. Wooden furniture in centrally heated homes is rarely below 10%.

 

The billets in the pictures below are oak and douglas fir. Both 3 or 4 years old on pallets with a rain cover

 

Current temp here is 17C and RH is 89% so by this table the driest a log could be is 19% https://www.woodworkerssource.com/shop/mois.html

 

You say you are east midlands so if we take a weather station up there https://www.wunderground.com/personal-weather-station/dashboard?ID=IENGLAND1344  which had an average temp of 16.4C and average humidity of 86% today you end up with wood at 18.4%. Below 20% just but we are in a fabulous spell of summer like weather not exactly representative of winter. If you are all for kilned dried only then yes bang on about 10-15% wood for fires but if want air dried to be on the market please dont encourage unachievable targets. 

 

 

11 hours ago, gdh said:

That's my thoughts to, we've kiln dried to less than 10 and stored undercover it consistently goes back up to 17%.

This is my thinking also but again I'm a bit wary of meters as I think some measure moisture content on a dry weight basis.

 

On a similar theme; I have two pieces of wood, ash and spruce both about 200 grams, sitting indoors by my desk, which I dried in the oven on 5th of March, they are increasing in weight by about 1 gram a month and are around 7% mc wwb.

[ash_smith123]

I just don't get how they are going to police this "READY TO BURN" sh**e.
So they come and test your product, I show them a batch of crates that are all under 20% and I get the accreditation. The next week when they have left I knock out a load of firewood at 30% under the ready to burn scheme? The badge becomes pointless.
I've been going for 6 years selling thousands of cubic metres and not once been asked if I have any accreditation.
Just another tax and paperwork time cost that will have to be passed on to the end customer.

[richardwale]

How on earth can 20 % be far too high? ANY log at 20 - 25% will burn just fine. I think the problem is that so many new store owners are hopeless at lighting a fire. 2 bits of kindling and a big log at 20%  ain’t gonna work, we know that but they don’t. 

Stove retailers cover the stove manufacturers and their own backsides by pumping out ridiculous mc standards and negative softwood feedback.

Every year I hear the same, “ my installer said it had to be only hardwood and kiln dried”

?

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

7 hours ago, ash_smith123 said:

I just don't get how they are going to police this "READY TO BURN" sh**e.

They'll expect the person paying for the accreditation to do all the prep work, paperwork and record keeping, AND pay for the privilege!!  It's a good screw ?

 

Similar can be seen to have happened in the pellet side of biomass manufacture.  All the small scale operations were muscled out by the big boys, then last year when the factory in Wales flooded there was a national shortage!

Edited May 27, 2018 by kevinjohnsonmbe