Charcoal kilns

[18 stoner]

Ok, just thinking out loud here about those semi-retirement jobs..........

 

Does anyone know much about charcoal, like is it easy to make or buy a kiln, is it easy enough to set up, what kinds of wood needed and obviously is it a commercially viable option instead of firewood................

[treediver]

I like the idea of charcoal burning even tho its labour intensive, take along time and takes some practice. we briefly looked into charcoal burning for some big coppicing contracts, but we never got them so that put an end to it.

Anyway save me ranting you can find really indepth detailed info on ring kiln construction in ...charcoal production 'a handbook' (amoungst loads of other complicated kilns/gasifiers- heavy reading!) got ours from treesource.co.uk. Its aimed at developing countries but covers the ring type kilns used here.

BTCV 'woodlands' also do some good info on charcoal production http://handbooks.btcv.org.uk/handbooks/content/section/3768

with some of the info sourced from the above book.

As for making a kiln If you know a good fabricator they could make you one from the diagrams or somewhere like 'traditional charcoal 01606 835243' sell em..i think. God know how much it will cost tho

[18 stoner]

Wow, certainly some goood info on that link treediver, not got it all read yet but found an answer to one of my thoughts in using tree surgery wood-;

 

Qoute;

Size, seasoning and stacking

Lengths of 600-900mm (2'6"-3'), with a minimum top diameter of 50mm (2") and maximum butt diameter of 150m (6") are best, in straight lengths without forks. For efficient conversion rates, the kiln must be packed tightly with the minimum of air space. Because of the extra work involved, it's not usually worth splitting larger diameter wood for charcoal making. A more profitable use for waste wood of this size is to split it and sell it for firewood.

 

Seems one of the very important parts is to leave as little air space as possible.

 

I shall read on, and thanks again

[treediver]

If I had the space i'd consider a kiln though as they creates so much smoke/vapour you gota have them sited somewhere remote.

[18 stoner]

Yeh cheers for the input mate, think ive come to the same conclusion as you, it would be a great thing to do if, you have little else to do, you wanted to live like a nomad, in the woods on your own, not have a care in the world, and most imprtantly not try to make a massive amount of money from it.

 

Hope i about got it right from what i have learned over the last few days, its more a way of life and should ideally be run along side another forestry based lifestyle.

 

Thanks again, it was a great read.

[Quickthorn]

I only know one person who really made a go of charcoal. He made a living, but he was putting so much effort into it, it burnt him out (scuse the pun..!). Part of the problem's marketing it, and getting a network of outlets established.

 

Here are a few figures, anyway..

 

I've read that, if you had 2 kilns on the go, one burning and one being loaded and unloaded, it's reckoned you could produce 4 tonnes a month or so. Once this is bagged up into 3 kg sacks, people here were selling it wholesale for £1/kg..so theoretically, that's £4,000/month. Whether that's feasible for 1 person to do, I'm not sure. I reckon you'd be at it 60 hours/week, and that would only cover loading from stacks near the kiln, burning, unloading, screening, weighing and packing. The conversion rate people get here is 6 tonnes seasoned cordwood producing 1 tonne charcoal, so for every month you intend to burn, you'd need 24 tonnes extracted stacked and seasoned for a year at the burn site. You still have to do all the admin stuff like buying bags, finding outlets, taking orders and making deliveries. Plus, you may have to move the kiln around to different woods several times a year. I'd say if you were producing that much, it would take 2 of you, so turning over £4,000, taking off all your overheads etc and dividing that by 2 doesn't leave you with much..I'd guess £250 a week.

 

The bloke I know who did this is based in South Yorks. I could find a number for him if you wanted to take it further. Also, I know of a few courses that may happen next year, based in North Notts. If you're interested in those, I'll pm you a contact number.

[Kingbillius]

http://www.repigfarm.com and http://www.carbon-synq.com