kiln dryer

[Ambisawrous]

I'm looking to dry milled wood from my own woods as well as possibly offering it as a service and making it capable of drying firewood as well seems a sensible thing to do. I shouldn't have too much trouble keeping the temperature up as I have a 23000litre accumulator. Should be relatively cheap to install as accumulator is 300mm through the tin cladding separating the bays.

[Duffryn]

I'm looking to dry milled wood from my own woods as well as possibly offering it as a service and making it capable of drying firewood as well seems a sensible thing to do. I shouldn't have too much trouble keeping the temperature up as I have a 23000litre accumulator. Should be relatively cheap to install as accumulator is 300mm through the tin cladding separating the bays.

 

2,300 or 23,000 litre ? You would be surprised how quickly a kiln will cool down a 2,300 litre accumulator. Over night just turn the fans on the heat exchangers down but keep the boiler at the same temperature, this should maintain the temperature in the kiln and avoid wasting loads of time and energy heating the wood back up again in the morning.

[Ambisawrous]

23000!

[Duffryn]

Wow ! That's huge, should hold 1,000kwh + of energy. You wont have any issues re fueling over night with that !

[arboriculturist]

I think there is 10 times more people coming into the "buying firewood market" looking for kiln dried than people that are sceptical about kiln dried firewood. Most shops in the UK use the words "buy kiln dried firewood" not "buy wood of a moisture content of 15%" so people will just look and ask for kiln dried firewood.

My split of seasoned/kiln dried is 50/50 at the moment.

I was helping a guy that got shafted by a renewable energy company with a copy of my kiln design and he's been trading for 30 years only selling seasoned firewood. He Was sceptical with how much kiln dried he would sell but within 6 months he's also at a 50/50 split in sales and he can't believe it! It's not like the seasoned firewood sales have dropped for him they are just new customers that wouldn't have come to him because he hasn't offered kiln dried. That's a massive jump in for someone's sales thats been stagnant for 30 years!

 

Fair comments, however I think that at present the vast majority of the general public are unaware that the country's supplies of useable timber are declining and in addition they are subsidising businesses who burn wood to dry wood to make it saleable, when they buy ' kiln dried' firewood.

 

As we all appreciate 'kiln dried to 20% MC is no different than 'naturally air dried to 20% MC,. That said it is clear that the public are on occasion mis-informed when I read articles/editorials that claim that 'Kiln dried' is superior.

 

I was making the point, that to invest around 40K on a NEW kiln drying installation with a payback of around 9 years is a high risk strategy.

[Duffryn]

I really don't think the public are too concerned with the detail they just want logs be they "kiln dried" or " air seasoned".

 

I think the payback on a batch fed boiler / kiln system will be much less than 9 years, more like 5 (in real world use allowing for some fuel costs). That's a 20% ROI which still isn't bad.

[AHPP]

Interesting thread. Thank you, contributors.

[arboriculturist]

I really don't think the public are too concerned with the detail they just want logs be they "kiln dried" or " air seasoned".

 

I think the payback on a batch fed boiler / kiln system will be much less than 9 years, more like 5 (in real world use allowing for some fuel costs). That's a 20% ROI which still isn't bad.

 

Apologies - remembered your earlier post :

 

I'm a bit of touch with this and the costs. I think you would be looking at an 8 year payback, so IF the RHI was the main driver, and the boiler was used purely for drying logs it would be no where near as attractive as it was.

 

*** So payback for:

 

'Chip boiler' based installation - estimated 8 years?

 

'Batch boiler' based installation - estimated 5 years?

[Duffryn]

Apologies - remembered your earlier post :

 

I'm a bit of touch with this and the costs. I think you would be looking at an 8 year payback, so IF the RHI was the main driver, and the boiler was used purely for drying logs it would be no where near as attractive as it was.

 

*** So payback for:

 

'Chip boiler' based installation - estimated 8 years?

 

'Batch boiler' based installation - estimated 5 years?

 

In very rough terms yes, so much depends on the application and if the boiler is just being used to dry logs. If the boiler is also being used to heat houses then you can factor in the savings over gas / oil etc which increases the payback period.

[arboriculturist]

So given that it appears that the general public has no interest in how and why their Firewood is produced, they just want dry wood, it seems that a batch boiler on the > 200kWh 3.76p tariff can still be a low risk viable proposition.

 

Do you dry Firewood to retail, as that HM chip boiler and installation is a little luxurious for personal use? !