How do you air dry your wood down to 20% ??

[HuntingHicap]

1 hour ago, Ian C said:

So glad I got out of the firewood market, all the faf involved for such little end profit!

Also known as the unprofitable for the ungrateful.

[Big J]

3 hours ago, trigger_andy said:

British or international hesitation? 

British I feel. We don't have the quality hardwood supplies that central and southern Europe enjoy and we don't adopt softwood universally as I understand they do in Scandinavia.

[Squaredy]

13 hours ago, openspaceman said:

power loss in the grid and distribution runs at about 7.7%

I remember reading a little while back that electricity generation efficiency from fossil fuels is typically around 66% and that distribution losses are similar, hence total efficiency only around 33%.  Which is the main reason electricity is so much more expensive than gas or oil.  Is this not the case?

[woody paul]

16 hours ago, Big J said:

, I really don't think that there is an justification for burning timber to dry firewood

But how do you dry the wood to use in kilm in the first place.

[trigger_andy]

British I feel. We don't have the quality hardwood supplies that central and southern Europe enjoy and we don't adopt softwood universally as I understand they do in Scandinavia.

From my experience Scandinavia, Norway at least, almost exclusively burns Birch. Not only because it’s so abundant over there but to keep up with demand they import huge quantities of it from a Eastern Europe. Soft wood is seen as a building material and as almost all houses are made from wood the demand for softwood as a building material is also very high.

In the Book Norwegian Wood Lars Mitting does not speak of soft wood in very favourable terms and also sings the praises of Birch. He describes the Norwegian attitude to softwood as “kitchen wood” no use in a stove and only fit for short, fast burns in the kitchen oven.

From my time in Texas and visiting a few folk I work with there Hardwood is the only thing they burn, they would not burn softwood. Of course this is just empirical evidence. Also viewing hours and hours of Milling videos based in the US the opinion I’ve gathered is they also burn mainly hardwood.

I don’t know much about Europe but they also seem to like Birch in the North and olive wood in the south.

[trigger_andy]

But how do you dry the wood to use in kilm in the first place.

Another kiln. ?

[Big J]

1 hour ago, woody paul said:

But how do you dry the wood to use in kilm in the first place.

 

Air drying.

[Squaredy]

5 hours ago, trigger_andy said:

 

From my experience Scandinavia, Norway at least, almost exclusively burns Birch. Not only because it’s so abundant over there but to keep up with demand they import huge quantities of it from a Eastern Europe. Soft wood is seen as a building material and as almost all houses are made from wood the demand for softwood as a building material is also very high.

In the Book Norwegian Wood Lars Mitting does not speak of soft wood in very favourable terms and also sings the praises of Birch. He describes the Norwegian attitude to softwood as “kitchen wood” no use in a stove and only fit for short, fast burns in the kitchen oven.

From my time in Texas and visiting a few folk I work with there Hardwood is the only thing they burn, they would not burn softwood. Of course this is just empirical evidence. Also viewing hours and hours of Milling videos based in the US the opinion I’ve gathered is they also burn mainly hardwood.

I don’t know much about Europe but they also seem to like Birch in the North and olive wood in the south.

 

I am not disputing what you say Andy but this is all culture, and local convenience etc.  The reality is how effective a firewood is has nothing to do with whether it is softwood or hardwood,  Well actually that is not quite true - softwood gives slightly more heat per kilo once dry.  But this is all irrelevant compared to the one thing that matters - how dry it is.  And this is why people think Ash is so good - because it dries so easily.  In fact it has half the water in that most woods do when freshly felled. 

 

But as we can't all have Ash what it really comes down to is moisture, and this is where the softwoods score - they dry really fast.  So from a commercial point of view I would rather sell softwood as it is much easier to process and dry.  I would happily argue with customers and tell them they would be daft to stick with hardwood.  I am currently converting my customers to briquettes as I have stopped firewood altogether.  There is a lot of resistance initially, but most people now are coming back for seconds and thirds.

[trigger_andy]

I am not disputing what you say Andy but this is all culture, and local convenience etc.  The reality is how effective a firewood is has nothing to do with whether it is softwood or hardwood,  Well actually that is not quite true - softwood gives slightly more heat per kilo once dry.  But this is all irrelevant compared to the one thing that matters - how dry it is.  And this is why people think Ash is so good - because it dries so easily.  In fact it has half the water in that most woods do when freshly felled. 
 
But as we can't all have Ash what it really comes down to is moisture, and this is where the softwoods score - they dry really fast.  So from a commercial point of view I would rather sell softwood as it is much easier to process and dry.  I would happily argue with customers and tell them they would be daft to stick with hardwood.  I am currently converting my customers to briquettes as I have stopped firewood altogether.  There is a lot of resistance initially, but most people now are coming back for seconds and thirds.

Big J was referring to what he believes is a mainly UK negative attitude to Softwood, I was just pointing out my own observations on that differ and from what I’ve seen the UK has a similar outlook on softwood as many other countries.

I’ll be logging up a lot of softwood from my plot this year and look forward to mixing it in with my hardwood.

I’ll also be installing my Ironheart in the kitchen so it will be nice to have some “kitchen wood” handy. ?

[Big J]

25 minutes ago, trigger_andy said:

 

 

Big J was referring to what he believes is a mainly UK negative attitude to Softwood, I was just pointing out my own observations on that differ and from what I’ve seen the UK has a similar outlook on softwood as many other countries.

I’ll be logging up a lot of softwood from my plot this year and look forward to mixing it in with my hardwood.

I’ll also be installing my Ironheart in the kitchen so it will be nice to have some “kitchen wood” handy. ?

 

 

 

I used to have a Jotul type stove at our last house in Scotland and it was my understanding that they were designed to work best with softwood. Given that that was most of what I burned, it worked very well. 

 

I produce some fairly tidy hardwood firewood. Several thousand tonnes a year. That being said, when I look at the stacks at roadside next to the softwood 2.5s (same price roadside), I can only see that it would take 4 times as long to process the hardwood, for a fuel that is only has a fractionally higher calorific value. 

 

Anyway, give us a few years and softwood/hardwood will almost be a moot point. We're planting 75 acres of new eucalyptus woodland in May, and it's in a class of it's own.