anyone ever write a rebuttal to kiln drying

[Stubby]

Surely dry wood is dry wood weather its kiln dried or air dried . Air dried is free drying the other is not .

[skyhuck]

I quite agree with the benefits to large scale producers. What does miff me is the numerous adverts stating that kiln dried is in some way superior to my air dried product. Yesterday I took out air dried birch at 18%, hemlock and pine reading 17% tested on a fresh split face. The firewood market is full of enough hot air and guff without something else confusing an already confused customer.

 

The problem you have is that a great many log merchants sell pretty much green timber, those selling properly seasoned, air dried logs need to concentrate on informing their potential customers about the difference between their logs and unseasoned logs, rather than worrying about kiln dried, IMO.

 

If someone has had wet timber sold to them as seasoned and it sat there hissing with water bubbling out the end of the logs, they may not understand that they have been conned.

 

We have all been in a pub where there is sopping wet wood only burning because its sat on a bed of red hot coal.

Edited October 18, 2015 by skyhuck

[Jim B]

Customers of mine who have tried it have always complained that it burns too fast, is there any truth in this and that kiln drying chemically changes the wood so burns faster?

[skyhuck]

Customers of mine who have tried it have always complained that it burns too fast, is there any truth in this and that kiln drying chemically changes the wood so burns faster?

 

It burns fast because its dry, possibly a waste on an open fire, but on a stove you simply turn it down and save wood

 

One option for open fires is kiln drying larger logs.

[mendiplogs]

It burns fast because its dry, possibly a waste on an open fire, but on a stove you simply turn it down and save wood

 

One option for open fires is kiln drying larger logs.

 

Hi JIM)SKY some customer just like to moan about any think 😀😀😀thanks Jon

[Big J]

A huge proportion of people are burning wet wood, this means a fair bit of the wood they burn is simply boiling off the water rather than heating their home.

 

So a log merchant commercialising this process to enable the end user to have a better produce and not need to store and use as much timber is no bad thing, IMO.

 

I don't dispute this, and I infact agree.

 

I'm just saying that strictly speaking, and objectively speaking, using heat from burning wood to dry wood for burning (speeding up a process that would occur naturally given time) is silly. It's the fact that people need to make money that causes it to make sense sometimes.

 

For me (about to embark on kiln drying logs) it makes sense because I produce a lot of sawmill offcuts that people don't want as firewood. It makes sense for me to burn those offcuts to dry commercially viable firewood. This of course makes no sense, but it is dictated by market forces.

 

In an ideal world, we would have a customer base where the majority of them actually understood the process of drying timber and would elect to do it themselves (like they do elsewhere around the world), instead of us having to take on the burden of sitting on tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of pounds of stock for months (if not years).

[mendiplogs]

Surely dry wood is dry wood weather its kiln dried or air dried . Air dried is free drying the other is not .

 

Hi STUBBY that depends whether you have in the good subsidy Off it stubby air dry logs are good thanks Jon

[arboriculturist]

The problem you have is that a great many log merchants sell pretty much green timber, those selling properly seasoned, air dried logs need to concentrate on informing their potential customers about the difference between their logs and unseasoned logs, rather than worrying about kiln dried, IMO.

 

That is what we do - however if the public is being mis-led about kiln dried timber I'll put the record straight.

[skyhuck]

The problem you have is that a great many log merchants sell pretty much green timber, those selling properly seasoned, air dried logs need to concentrate on informing their potential customers about the difference between their logs and unseasoned logs, rather than worrying about kiln dried, IMO.

 

That is what we do - however if the public is being mis-led about kiln dried timber I'll put the record straight.

 

 

Good luck :lol:

[arboriculturist]

Customers of mine who have tried it have always complained that it burns too fast, is there any truth in this and that kiln drying chemically changes the wood so burns faster?

 

This has been discussed previously.

 

Excessively dry wood does loose certain volatiles contained within the wood tissue and a larger proportion of the remaining volatile components typically escape with the flue gases largely unburnt.