sawdust

[borderfirewood]

Hi everyone,

 

what can i do with all my sawdust waste, is there anyway i can press it into

a brick shape and burn on my own woodburner.

[RobRainford]

Can you get in a mesh sack and dry it in that? Would make great firefighter then when dry.

[borderfirewood]

Can you get in a mesh sack and dry it in that? Would make great firefighter then when dry.

 

Hi Rob,

Thats a thought, but I have tonnes of it and would love to find a way to brick it and burn them instead of my saleable logs.

 

Regards,

 

Doug.

[Alycidon]

WEIMA UK: Briquetters

 

Can see it being viable for own use, looks a nice neat machine that can be filled and left to its own devices. Max MC is 18% though, cutting firewood your sawdust is likely to be at least 25% as it comes off the machine.

 

There are a number of home made presses., search google.

 

A

[renewablejohn]

We have both a briquette press and a wood pellet press which will both handle sawdust but for briquettes it needs to be less than 15% MC and for wood pellets below 12%. There is a great difference in quality of product produced but even the cheapest will produce a product for your own fire for approx £10k for briquettes or £20k for wood pellets. For commercial quality its more like minimum £40k for briquettes and £60k for wood pellets.

[agrimog]

gather up your empty cardboard fruitjuice cartons, pack the sawdust into them, add some waste veggie oil(residue from proccesing wvo for the desiel engine in the mog) stand for a few days to let the oil soak through, add to fire......enjoy the heat......simples

[Alycidon]

We have both a briquette press and a wood pellet press which will both handle sawdust but for briquettes it needs to be less than 15% MC and for wood pellets below 12%. There is a great difference in quality of product produced but even the cheapest will produce a product for your own fire for approx £10k for briquettes or £20k for wood pellets. For commercial quality its more like minimum £40k for briquettes and £60k for wood pellets.

 

When I did quite a bit of research on making pellets a few years ago I visited a pellet plant near Grantham. They chipped willow coppice with a heavily modified John Deere Forage harvester, they stored it in heaps for 6/8 weeks when it was dry enough to grind put through an integral drier in the plant and pellet. From that I would guess that sawdust would be dry to 18% in a few weeks if kept as firewood, ie undercover with wind blowing through.

 

A

[renewablejohn]

When I did quite a bit of research on making pellets a few years ago I visited a pellet plant near Grantham. They chipped willow coppice with a heavily modified John Deere Forage harvester, they stored it in heaps for 6/8 weeks when it was dry enough to grind put through an integral drier in the plant and pellet. From that I would guess that sawdust would be dry to 18% in a few weeks if kept as firewood, ie undercover with wind blowing through.

 

A

 

Unfortunately you could not be more wrong. Sawdust does not dry out unless provided with forced air like a grain dryer. This is why we turn our timber into split logs and get the moisture content down to the correct level using a solar kiln before chipping and putting through a hammer mill. The alternative which they do with the willow you refer to is to artificially dry it which typically costs upto 30% of the sales price. We dont consider this practice to be economic.