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Log Drying Kiln


scott-1978
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If you're not on the RHI scheme I would stay way clear of the glen farrow, it will put you under trying to keep the thing going.
I've got an Attack 95kw boiler that's
very efficient. It burns very well and gives our good KW the other end.
Your probably looking at about £15k all in if you get all the bits yourself and get someone to fit it.
Our Eco Angus 130kw is ok but does eat wood, I would say around twice as quick as the attack but not doubling the KW outage that's why I would always recommend the Attack over the Eco Angus. Even still you want to be budgeting for about a cubic metre of 500mm chunky softwoods per 12 hours to keep it going.

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Thanks a lot Ash - Much appreciated. 

 

It looks like most people have the boilers set up with a large container. Is that the simplest way to do it? How many m3 could the attack deal with at any one time?

 

Lastly, are there any businesses out there that would deal with the fitting. I can't find any on-line 

 

thank you. 

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No problem!
The attack is plumbed into a 40ft container. Not the best in all.honesty! We rotate the tops in the winter as the bottoms don't dry properly in a week.
We have an insulated timber framed kiln inside the unit with 2 X 50kw fans bolted to the ceiling facing down. This seems to dry far better and we can fit 30 ibc cages in there.
We just used a tidy plumber for our second kiln. It's very basic stuff in all honesty. If they can fit a central heating system in a house they can fit a biomass boiler. The boiker manual will have all the specs and drawings of how it should be fitted so it should be a doddle! Anyone that "specialises in biomass boilers" will charge you a fortune and there's some real cowboys out there. I've only had the displeasure of dealing with 3 "renewable energy" companies over the last 5 years and they were all useless. The lack of knowledge was dangerous, but anyway that's another story! [emoji23]

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31 minutes ago, Luckyeleven said:

At the risk of a slight derail. Has anyone got any thoughts on a wind turbine directly powering a fan inside a polytunnel for the purpose of drying logs?

Seems an odd combination to me. When it's windy it's rarely very sunny so forcing what little warm air is in polytunnel out would seem counterproductive. Some PV, on the other hand, might work better. There used to be a chap on here that recommended setting your polytunnel up on a slope. He had both ends open and the idea is that as the air warms it rises to develop a throughput of air in the tunnel.

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57 minutes ago, Woodworks said:

Seems an odd combination to me. When it's windy it's rarely very sunny so forcing what little warm air is in polytunnel out would seem counterproductive. Some PV, on the other hand, might work better. There used to be a chap on here that recommended setting your polytunnel up on a slope. He had both ends open and the idea is that as the air warms it rises to develop a throughput of air in the tunnel.

It's a trade-off between relative humidity and increasing the air temperature to increase the moisture carrying capacity of air. 

 

On a hot still day, the ambient RH might only be 50% and you may well get the poly tunnel to 40c inside. However, the air in the polytunnel will quickly become saturated and frankly, it won't matter how hot it gets because air at 100% RH is incapable of stripping any moisture, irrespective of temperature. 


Contrast this to a blustery, overcast day. You might have an ambient RH of 75% and air temperature of 30c inside the polytunnel. The air movement within the polytunnel will ensure continuous moisture removal. 

 

It's important to remember that temperature merely increases the moisture carrying capacity of the air (it doubles every 9c). You have to have air movement to actually strip the moisture. 

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I imagine a sloping Polytunnel should be self regulating, because the air will only rise if warmer than the outside air, but the gradient is key, and Google should be your friend?

Anyway all I know is the experienced gardener I worked with for 20 odd years insisted that any polytunnel should be on sloping ground, for natural thermally induced ventilation, to prevent "damping off".

Other than that, here in Nth Co. Antrim, our best drying is from the dry cold biting wind from the East, generally in Feb or March, that strips moisture like one could not believe.

No heat needed.

So air movement is key.

Marcus

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4 hours ago, Luckyeleven said:

At the risk of a slight derail. Has anyone got any thoughts on a wind turbine directly powering a fan inside a polytunnel for the purpose of drying logs?

What do you expect the output of the turbine to be doing, heating, air circulation or both?

 

Do you intend to have a continuing throughput or will the logs also be stored in the polytunnel before use/sale?

 

Big J has pointed out the constraints

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Would a large solar powered fan be productive? It would couple maximum ventilation with the maximum air temperature. There isn't much point ventilating at night in a polytunnel as the air is usually cooler than the dew point (100% RH) so all you'd be doing is pushing fully saturated air through the kiln, potentially even increasing the MC of the timber.

 

Large industrial air movers do use a lot of power though. You'd need a decent solar array. 

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