Kiln Drying Firewood - Yourself

[arboriculturist]

Anyone on the Forum with experience - good or bad of Kiln Drying their own Firewood to sell.

 

The purveyors of the 'plonk it down and turn the key' Kilns argue that you are making a huge saving on tying up capital buying in roundwood and seasoning it yourself. There is of course possible RHI payments to consider when crunching the numbers.

 

However when some of their setups are anywhere between £40 and £100K, buying a few arctic loads of roundwood to season isn't looking so bad after all!

[BARNSLEY BOB]

depends,

are you selling logs like every have a go harry ,cheap/expensive wet shite,

or

ready to burn dry logs.

[ash_smith123]

Unless your selling 800/1000 cubic metres a year i dont think a kiln would be the best way.

[openspaceman]

Anyone on the Forum with experience - good or bad of Kiln Drying their own Firewood to sell.

 

The purveyors of the 'plonk it down and turn the key' Kilns argue that you are making a huge saving on tying up capital buying in roundwood and seasoning it yourself. There is of course possible RHI payments to consider when crunching the numbers.

 

However when some of their setups are anywhere between £40 and £100K, buying a few arctic loads of roundwood to season isn't looking so bad after all!

 

Easy enough to do the sums. I always saw it as a cashflow enhancer but if you have access to a barn that can store a years supply and you can forgo the labour costs of converting for a season then it probably isn't worth it.

[Duffryn]

Easy enough to do the sums. I always saw it as a cashflow enhancer but if you have access to a barn that can store a years supply and you can forgo the labour costs of converting for a season then it probably isn't worth it.

 

Get it right and it will earn you £650K in RHI over 20 years, be cash neutral in 18 months and transform your log business.

[arboriculturist]

depends,

are you selling logs like every have a go harry ,cheap/expensive wet shite,

or

ready to burn dry logs.

 

Only smallish scale 500M3 nothing like the pro's.

[BARNSLEY BOB]

Only smallish scale 500M3 nothing like the pro's.

 

unless iam totally out of touch ,you are not smallish on here.

 

oneman band, nice profit margin,glen farrow plug and play, and away you go.

[arboriculturist]

unless iam totally out of touch ,you are not smallish on here.

 

oneman band, nice profit margin,glen farrow plug and play, and away you go.

 

Looks like G.Farrow about the only setup in the country with a Log burning kiln that will meet the new September emissions criteria.

 

Do you know the Sept 2014 criteria for where the timber to fuel the kiln now has to be sourced? Thanks

[Duffryn]

Looks like G.Farrow about the only setup in the country with a Log burning kiln that will meet the new September emissions criteria.

 

Do you know the Sept 2014 criteria for where the timber to fuel the kiln now has to be sourced? Thanks

 

The Glen farrow boiler passed its emission test using a VERY small load of fuel. Yes the boiler passed the test but if you were to use a realistic fuel load (one that required refueling 3-4 times day) and the boiler were tested it would not pass the RHI emissions test. If you are claiming the RHI you would need to be happy with this.

 

It would be worth speaking to an owner of one of these systems and ask them :-

 

1) How many Mw a day does the boiler produce ( A 175kwh boiler should produce 3.5-4 mw a day in realistic use)

 

2) How much fuel do they use ? ( An 85% efficient 175kwh boiler should use circa 1 ton of 20% fuel a day)

 

3) How long do the logs take to dry in 20 degrees outside temperature ? Then you will need to factor in drying times when the weather is much colder. Also consider the fuel cost of these drying times.

 

As for the BSL sustainability question, this is largely a paper work / box ticking exercise and registering as a suppler producer is straight forward .

[Woodworks]

Posted by Duffryn

 

"2) How much fuel do they use ? ( An 85% efficient 175kwh boiler should use circa 1 ton of 20% fuel a day)"

 

Must say I am shocked by this figure. So that's nearly 3m3 of dry logs a day just to run a kiln. Not quite sure how many days it takes to dry a load but I have seen talk of 5-7 days on here. So 15-21 m3 of logs are needed per cycle?

 

Clear this up for me Duffryn what is the conversion rate of fuel to finished product?