Wood chip drying and business

[Tomatin Firewood]

Hi Everyone

 

There are a number of large estate houses up my glen all guzzling oil and I know that at least one is planning on changing to woodchip.

 

As I already do the firewood I thought I could expand into this area if I spoke with estates and they showed interest.

 

The only thing is costs! I would need another tractor and timber trailer, a decent chipper. I would of course need somewhere to keep and dry chips.

 

Are the sea containers which blow hot air through any good at drying chips? I could install a log boiler to dry the chips?

 

Has anyone experience on this?

 

I realise there is a big investment on all this new machinery and one of my biggest concerns would be the cost of building a number of large stores, which might make the whole thing unfeasible?

 

Be grateful for thoughts?

 

James

[Big J]

I got the impression that all the big houses up there had either switched to biomass or were in the process of doing so. I guess I only deal with the ones that are organised enough to sell their timber to sawmills, so they tend to have the biomass side of things nailed as well.

 

The closest estate to you that I know does biomass in a fairly big way is Alvie. If memory serves, they chip and dry (using an RHI accredited kiln) about 2000 tonnes of chip annually. Given the profusion of demand up there, it might well be worth speaking to them about their experiences. If you approach them the right way, they might be happy to show you what they do. Competitors can sometimes work quite cooperatively

[County 764]

Demand might drop if they lower the feed in tariff in January and you'd be getting less for drying if you choose to dry using biomass

[ben_inthewoods]

Altyre sawmill also have a biomass grade chipper that is hired out in the area, plus Harper. Big investment.

[briquette_seller]

I could hire you a chipper. 2 hours down the road, deal to be done.

[cornish wood burner]

Why don't you air dry your wood first and then chip it. Presumably you do this with firewood

[Tom D]

Buying a big chipper for biomass is a risky business, I bought my heizo for site clearance and other big chipping jobs. The few biomass jobs that I have had with it have been welcome, but to be honest the have barely covered the finance let alone the running costs. Unless you have a lot of other work for it I wouldn't bother.

[skyhuck]

Why don't you air dry your wood first and then chip it. Presumably you do this with firewood

 

This is common practice, but it is tough on chippers, also I do wonder what affect it has on the volume of "fines" in the chip?? I bet it makes a fair old difference.

[cornish wood burner]

This is common practice, but it is tough on chippers, also I do wonder what affect it has on the volume of "fines" in the chip?? I bet it makes a fair old difference.

 

I agree that wet wood is easier to chip than dry but if you hire a chipper it will almost certainly be a decent machine so it will not be bothered by dry wood. Normally we get a few hundred tonnes before the blades need sharpening. Certainly if you try and chip with blunt blades then you will get excess fines.

[Tom D]

Dry spruce does make a lot of fines, especially with a 30mm screen, but the knives last for ages, I am still on the first set, having chipped around 200 ton so far.