Which is better value for money - Air dried @25% MC or Kiln dried Firewood @ 20%MC ?

[ash_smith123]

Sorry but commercially air drying makes no sense in firewood. The same way you see harvesters and forwarders in the forest doing the same job as a chainsaw and a horse. Big sawmills pumping out cubic metres of timber on big saw lines instead of one lad sat on a woodmizer doing a cube a day. Unfortunately anything on a commercial scale has an environmental impact. The end user is the one that decides on how the whole supply chain operates. If the end user only wants air dried firewood everyone will be selling air dried firewood but they don't so we will carry on selling kiln dried firewood.
The industry has done this to itself. So many people have sold substandard firewood for years and the customers have finally over the last 5/7 years got used to buying quality kiln dried firewood. They will only buy it once and not go back to Dave the farmer that's scrapped a load of crap off the barn floor that he sold as "barn dried" that he cut 3 weeks ago.

[Big J]

7 hours ago, ash_smith123 said:

Sorry but commercially air drying makes no sense in firewood. The same way you see harvesters and forwarders in the forest doing the same job as a chainsaw and a horse. Big sawmills pumping out cubic metres of timber on big saw lines instead of one lad sat on a woodmizer doing a cube a day. Unfortunately anything on a commercial scale has an environmental impact. The end user is the one that decides on how the whole supply chain operates. If the end user only wants air dried firewood everyone will be selling air dried firewood but they don't so we will carry on selling kiln dried firewood.
The industry has done this to itself. So many people have sold substandard firewood for years and the customers have finally over the last 5/7 years got used to buying quality kiln dried firewood. They will only buy it once and not go back to Dave the farmer that's scrapped a load of crap off the barn floor that he sold as "barn dried" that he cut 3 weeks ago.

I agree entirely. 

 

Commercially drying firewood is not viable. This is why the customer needs to do it. 

 

The vast majority of people will have space to do so themselves, and those that don't will typically live in towns and cities and will have access to mains gas. 

 

Wood fuel is environmentally superb, but not if it's kiln dried. 

[trigger_andy]

9 hours ago, ash_smith123 said:

The end user is the one that decides on how the whole supply chain operates.

kind of. Id say legislation is the ultimate deciding factor on how a supply chain works. As kiln drying is clearly a colossal waste of energy and CO2 for firewood production then if the correct legislation and information was available to the customer as to why its no longer available then Air dried would return to being the norm. 

 

Seller who sell their logs as kiln Dried when in fact they are using a Solar Kiln or a Polytunnel are confusing the issue somewhat and I can see why they would want to jump on the Kiln dried bandwagon. Im my eyes they are just air drying but more efficiently. Something that could be legislated for if kiln dried, ie,real kiln drying was withdrawn for the obvious environmental impact. 

 

 

[openspaceman]

1 hour ago, trigger_andy said:

Id say legislation is the ultimate deciding factor on how a supply chain works. As kiln drying is clearly a colossal waste of energy and CO2 for firewood production then if the correct legislation and information was available to the customer as to why its no longer available then Air dried would return to being the norm. 

 

That's the centralised decision making  fork, are you turning pink in your old age?

 

The customers buying the stuff set the market, if educated to the environmental impact they may make their decision partly on pollution/carbon issues but mostly in a freeish economy price will rule. Regulation only cuts in when the choices of the few lead to the detriment of the many. In this case the common good is the air quality, so the issue is whether this will be better by regulating sales of wet wood or not. The issue of whether a fuel should be used to do this is only regulated by the pollution of that. If regulation is used to reduce the net pollution of drying then it would have to apply to all fuel use, if this were not done globally then  it makes it worse for home producers.

 

As has been pointed out much of the kiln dried wood is coming from poorly regulated regions and we can expect their pollution to exceed what we would accept here.

 

Therein lies a bigger issue of requiring high standards here making the production uncompetitive with places with lower wealth and poorer standards. It's good that some of our wealth is exported to these places to alleviate problems there but for the fact their environment deteriorates and their economy is more imbalance as a result.

 

In fact dominant economies demand free trade to the detriment of poorer developing  economies, UK has fallen foul of this since 1992  because  no one questions US protectionism of its economy whilst demanding free access to other, UK governments simply don't accept we are no longer a dominant economy and hence will not benefit from free trade. This is exacerbated by leaving a trading group which was on a par with US ( but whose leaders led it down a federalist path which was unacceptable to many of us).

 

Back in the early days of NFFO one of our quangos was trying to re purpose itself in order to keep all the former civil servants in their cosy jobs until taking their retirement packages. There was a very high incentive to burn wood for power, just as later for solar PV, wind turbines and RHI, to kick-start renewables. at the time dedicated biomass biomass burning power stations were too expensive to be long time viable but there were a few coal powered plant near end of life. They could not burn green wood, so in order to claim the subsidy  grain dryers were bought, additional oil burner added and the woodchip was dried with gasoil from 45% down to ~30% and fed to the boilers. This was massively inefficient in thermal input because the air was not saturated (typically grain is only dried fro 23ish% to 17%. These grain dryers are cheap and low cost because they are only used a few weeks a year, a more efficient dryer , such as were built for ARBRE, using waste heat has a high capital cost). That was indefensible but when converting wood I suspect 5-10% waste  is produced, what better than to use this for drying?

[trigger_andy]

1 hour ago, openspaceman said:

That's the centralised decision making  fork, are you turning pink in your old age?

We already have 'a centralised decision making fork.' We're being legislated against for what Stoves are allowed to be sold with restrictions getting ever tighter. Is this Customer driven? I certainly dont think so. Now we're getting told what MC wood needs to be set at. Is this something the customer is demanding? Yet again Id say no. This repeats in all walks of our lives, none of it Customer led.

 

The customer may well set the market but they do so within a given perimeter. Legislation sets that perimeter. 

 

If we're going down this Nanny State of rules and regulations for every facet of our lives and having the sale of firewood controlled to such a degree that Kiln Dried Firewood is to become the new norm and almost enforced, encouraged by the suppliers and then blindly demanded by the consumer then yes, I feel we need legislation put in place to halt and then reverse the farce we're now facing. 

 

Edited June 2, 2020 by trigger_andy

[openspaceman]

53 minutes ago, trigger_andy said:

We already have 'a centralised decision making fork.' We're being legislated against for what Stoves are allowed to be sold with restrictions getting ever tighter. Is this Customer driven? I certainly dont think so. Now we're getting told what MC wood needs to be set at. Is this something the customer is demanding? Yet again Id say no. This repeats in all walks of our lives, none of it Customer led.

No that is what you were suggesting. The current legislation is aimed at reducing the pollution which the government feels is caused by the burning of wet wood, hence they have intervened in the  trade by regulating the sale of wet wood and the sale of stoves which don't meet a standard.

Quote

 

The customer may well set the market but they do so within a given perimeter. Legislation sets that perimeter. 

I'm not sure you mean perimeter, possibly parameter or ring fence?? Either way the customer dictates the market and then regulation  seeks to control the bad effects it has on the common good. It's not ideal but its what we've got  because of businesses' psychopathic tendencies.

Quote

 

If we're going down this Nanny State of rules and regulations for every facet of our lives and having the sale of firewood controlled to such a degree that Kiln Dried Firewood is to become the new norm and almost enforced, encouraged by the suppliers and then blindly demanded by the consumer then yes, I feel we need legislation put in place to halt and then reverse the farce we're now facing. 

 

 

 

You wanted to Nanny by legislating against kiln dried wood , not me. As I suggested that's a bigger picture, there are many factors at play that have little to do with the way UK firewood producers dry their wood.

 

I have often pointed out wood can be air dried satisfactorily in a couple of summer months.

 

On the scale firewood producers in this country dry wood once you are into the realms of thousands of cubic metres a year air drying is not attractive, mainly from labour and cash flow considerations. I have never understood why a large non local producer could out compete little local producers but that is a fact of business life and a different matter.

Edited June 2, 2020 by openspaceman
clarification with "intervened in" rather than "entered"

[trigger_andy]

Just now, openspaceman said:

No that is what you were suggesting. The current legislation is aimed at reducing the pollution which the government feels is caused by the burning of wet wood, hence they have entered the  trade by regulating the sale of wet wood and the sale of stoves which don't meet a standard.

Yes, Im aware of why the current legislation is in force. This is not consumer led though is it? 

 

1 minute ago, openspaceman said:

I'm not sure you mean perimeter,

noun

1.

the continuous line forming the boundary of a closed geometric figure.

 

36 minutes ago, openspaceman said:

Either way the customer dictates the market and then regulation  seeks to control the bad effects it has on the common good.

Within the perimeter of the current legislation. I read countless facebook posts about folk worrying that they can no longer buy green wood. Yes, you can if its over 2m3 but 1, they generally dont know that and 2, they are not choosing these perimeters. The consumer is being dictated to as to what MC they can buy and that is getting to the point of Kiln Dried logs only. The customer is not dictating anything here.

 

40 minutes ago, openspaceman said:

You wanted to Nanny by legislating against kiln dried wood , not me.

We have a Nanny State. If i had my way then we'd do away with the legislation altogether and allow the customer to make their own decisions and then truly dictate the market. ring Fencing them then telling me they are making these decisions is baffling. 

 

42 minutes ago, openspaceman said:

I have often pointed out wood can be air dried satisfactorily in a couple of summer months.

Im certainly not saying it cant be. But then you're limiting your drying period significantly and the demand will outstrip the supply trying to reach some arbitrary MC content. 

 

 

[openspaceman]

19 minutes ago, trigger_andy said:

If i had my way then we'd do away with the legislation altogether

This is why it's not worthwhile debating with you, you belong in a period several hundred years past. I just hope no one pokes you in the eye as you would become totally blind.

[trigger_andy]

Just now, openspaceman said:

This is why it's not worthwhile debating with you, you belong in a period several hundred years past. I just hope no one pokes you in the eye as you would become totally blind.

Ok, let me clarify. Id do away with the current EU driven legislation as its all but enforcing Kiln Dried. What's to follow will be even more restrictive. 

 

And yes, as much you intend to insult me for not sharing your point of view I do feel in many ways Id be happier living a few hundred years ago.  

 

 

 

 

[Sutton]

32 minutes ago, trigger_andy said:

 Id be happier living a few hundred years ago.

Highland Clearances | Scottish history | Britannica

And where would u &yours be cleared off too?

Edited June 2, 2020 by Sutton