Are air dried logs to be made illegal?

[swinny]

1 hour ago, brynseiri said:

I'm of the opinion that all of these biomass schemes are a great big white elephant, a few people are fortunate enough to have drying kilns etc built and grant aid assigned to them to be paid for burning wood chip, so the more chip you burn, the more taxpayers £'s you earn. That is their good luck, and hats off to them for their business acumen. Where am I going with this? Basically, these operations will be those that kiln dry logs, so proposed regulations as regards to log moisture limits will undoubtedly give rise to their income, and then the price of firewood. Will firewood remain a cheaper and sustainable alternative to coal after all of this? I'm fortunate, brought up on a small farm with a fair few acres of woodland, and 4 generations of us have managed woods and hedgerows, and fuelled the hearth fire with air dried logs. Now I've come to the conclusion that even making my own logs isn't financially viable. It's a time consuming task that requires more money spent than you'd first think. Saw chains, oil, fuel, labour, time away from earning a living. then they need to be stored for two years. I might as well buy coal and not wear out my chainsaw and not clock hours on my tractor, and do a few shifts overtime in my job. It just doesn't add up to me, burn more wood to produce wood to burn. in the days when wood was a primary fuel, my grandfather would have had an advantage over other farmers, his household heating costs would have been unnoticeable. However in the 21st century where the place no longer can sustain a family on its own, making firewood to me is a pain, it's just too expensive. Crazy, but true.

I get what your saying there...

 

I'm a contractor. We bring back plenty of wood. We do sell some but in fairness I don't really have the time to do it.

 

I've started to send a lot of wood and decent wood at that! Beech ash etc off for biomass. It pains me to do it and I always question if its the right thing to do..... financially and morally. 

 

At the end of the day it clears my yard to give me space to work.

 

Still pains me but its the way it is. Not worth having someone coming up and cutting all the lengths into rings then splitting or on the bigger diameter stuff..... ringing then quartering then splitting.

 

If this system does come in place, annual fee for joining them, on spot checks for moisture content, and then maybe a tonnage fee for how much you sell then I'll gladly give up and leave it to some other mug. I work hard enough for my money to give it away to someone for bugger all.

[Big J]

I'm sure I heard on Radio 4 the other day that they were starting to investigate the whole RHI system in the UK. I can't reference that though. 

 

Worth remembering that "cash for ash" brought down Stormont in Northern Ireland. The RHI scheme in the rest of the UK is no less corrupt. And I say that as someone who has repeatedly considered jumping on that bandwagon and don't hold it against anyone who has. I just think that in most cases, it's clearly bananas to burn good timber to produce heat and power.

[gdh]

2 hours ago, Big J said:

I'm sure I heard on Radio 4 the other day that they were starting to investigate the whole RHI system in the UK. I can't reference that though. 

 

Worth remembering that "cash for ash" brought down Stormont in Northern Ireland. The RHI scheme in the rest of the UK is no less corrupt. And I say that as someone who has repeatedly considered jumping on that bandwagon and don't hold it against anyone who has. I just think that in most cases, it's clearly bananas to burn good timber to produce heat and power.

The UK system is different to Northern Ireland in that they had the common sense to put a limit on the heat you get paid the full amount for.

 

There's still people taking advantage of the system by heating huge open sheds/factories but it's not limitless.  

[SbTVF]

The UK system is different to Northern Ireland in that they had the common sense to put a limit on the heat you get paid the full amount for.

 

There's still people taking advantage of the system by heating huge open sheds/factories but it's not limitless.  

 

The issue with the UK system though is that it was only intended to replace the use of fossil fuels so they shouldn’t have allowed log drying as a suitable use where it wasn’t already being undertaken by fossil fuels which the vast majority of kin dryers now definitely weren’t doing back then.

 

They’ve literally created an industry financed by RHI through their shoddy legislation and shitty implementation of it as per usual.

 

We kiln dry but the boiler was entirely financed by the farm and farm house. The log kiln is on the system but only uses maybe 15% of the output and it would still be cheaper to use (if they made us take it off the heat calculation) than putting up a great big shed on field space that we can’t afford to give up anyway.

 

When we applied, all they asked for pretty much was that we were a business that had been operating for the last 10 years or something. Didn’t check that the log kiln was existing and being fired off gas.

 

Then again, ofgem wouldn’t have hit their implementation targets if they’d said no to all those installations would they ?‍♂️

[difflock]

Typical Government attitude, needing a hi-vis instant result, rather than a sustainable slow grown product.

Unfortunately the Government, nor its servants care one hoot about the actual viability of these projects, or unforseen side effects, they will simply move on to another much publisized "wonder" project.

I experienced it at a smaller scale in local Government.

Absolutly no thought given to longivity, a "rip-out-and-replace" policy was always favoured, which was then conflated by the shoddy specifications and installation and maintenance  practises, but no one really cared, because they were always moving on to the next-new-thing.

For instance concrete paving was reckoned to only have an expected 10 year life, exceptionally 15, then pay for it to be replaced, this being architect/engineer specification 9 or 10" thick reinforced slabs, "poured" with pish-thin overwatered concrete for handiness/lazyness, never mind the haphazard reinforcement placement.

Wheras "farm" concrete would have been placed perhaps 4" thick, without reinforcement, and expected to last 30-40-50 years, from my direct experience.

marcus

Edited November 16, 2018 by difflock

[gdh]

4 hours ago, SbTVF said:

 

The issue with the UK system though is that it was only intended to replace the use of fossil fuels so they shouldn’t have allowed log drying as a suitable use where it wasn’t already being undertaken by fossil fuels which the vast majority of kin dryers now definitely weren’t doing back then.

 

They’ve literally created an industry financed by RHI through their shoddy legislation and shitty implementation of it as per usual.

 

We kiln dry but the boiler was entirely financed by the farm and farm house. The log kiln is on the system but only uses maybe 15% of the output and it would still be cheaper to use (if they made us take it off the heat calculation) than putting up a great big shed on field space that we can’t afford to give up anyway.

 

When we applied, all they asked for pretty much was that we were a business that had been operating for the last 10 years or something. Didn’t check that the log kiln was existing and being fired off gas.

 

Then again, ofgem wouldn’t have hit their implementation targets if they’d said no to all those installations would they ?‍♂️

That's why we started, it was either massively increase storage space and still struggle to dry below 20% or adapt a shed into a kiln. It cost a fair bit in insulation and piping but luckily RHI will pay off the boiler installation as opposed to going for oil or diesel. 

 

The strange thing is that they're encouraging kiln drying with legislation on dry logs but they've also removed RHI on log drying. As usual it's knee jerk reactions rather than a long term plan. 

[arboriculturist]

22 minutes ago, gdh said:

That's why we started, it was either massively increase storage space and still struggle to dry below 20% or adapt a shed into a kiln. It cost a fair bit in insulation and piping but luckily RHI will pay off the boiler installation as opposed to going for oil or diesel. 

 

The strange thing is that they're encouraging kiln drying with legislation on dry logs but they've also removed RHI on log drying. As usual it's knee jerk reactions rather than a long term plan. 

Has the RHI gone completely now on new installations now do you know G ?

[gdh]

5 hours ago, arboriculturist said:

Has the RHI gone completely now on new installations now do you know G ?

Yes, as far as I know it's gone apart from the last few that already applied who are allowed to complete. 

 

I'm not sure if there's still a grey area on replacing an existing installation. 

[Billhook]

On 15/11/2018 at 20:51, brynseiri said:

I'm of the opinion that all of these biomass schemes are a great big white elephant, a few people are fortunate enough to have drying kilns etc built and grant aid assigned to them to be paid for burning wood chip, so the more chip you burn, the more taxpayers £'s you earn. That is their good luck, and hats off to them for their business acumen. Where am I going with this? Basically, these operations will be those that kiln dry logs, so proposed regulations as regards to log moisture limits will undoubtedly give rise to their income, and then the price of firewood. Will firewood remain a cheaper and sustainable alternative to coal after all of this? I'm fortunate, brought up on a small farm with a fair few acres of woodland, and 4 generations of us have managed woods and hedgerows, and fuelled the hearth fire with air dried logs. Now I've come to the conclusion that even making my own logs isn't financially viable. It's a time consuming task that requires more money spent than you'd first think. Saw chains, oil, fuel, labour, time away from earning a living. then they need to be stored for two years. I might as well buy coal and not wear out my chainsaw and not clock hours on my tractor, and do a few shifts overtime in my job. It just doesn't add up to me, burn more wood to produce wood to burn. in the days when wood was a primary fuel, my grandfather would have had an advantage over other farmers, his household heating costs would have been unnoticeable. However in the 21st century where the place no longer can sustain a family on its own, making firewood to me is a pain, it's just too expensive. Crazy, but true.

Same as you here in having several acres of woodland on the farm which needs managing.  Just the clearing up of wind blown stuff and diseased trees is enough to keep the home fires burning

I enjoy processing firewood now I have the Teleporter and processor and one ton boxes to air dry the split timber

I never sell any firewood, use it all here but the woods would soon turn into a real mess if I did not do this work

 

For those that do and wish to avoid being fined, just set yourself up as a supplier of David Hockney inspired garden art in the form of a folly

Contemplating a beautiful pile of logs on your patio is both calming and soothing and also helps meditation combined with a glass of good malt!

At Hockney prices you could sell a pile for millions!

[Gardenscape]

Isn't most kiln dried wood imported? If so, then the huge carbon footprint of transporting it to the UK from abroad as well as running the fossil fuels kilns running all day.