arboriculturist

Don't do that ! Stick to £4 a bag - it will go slowly but it always goes. It's great however, that you a one of the few who are retailing Firewood at a sensible price and not undervaluing a quality product!

People need to be educated that they do want logs dumped look on their driveway as it will give them at least a little much needed exercise. We supply a lot of Firewood delivered just that way and have no issues.

Your overloaded !!!

Previous posts on Arbtalk have discussed the costs of drying in detail. A realistic cost appears to be circa. £ 10/ m3 buying in Softwood to dry then burning as boiler fuel without RHI as I don't think everyone factored in the true amount of labour involved, purchase and replacement of equipment and all associated running costs. If you are in a rare situation where Tree Surgeons bring you free Arb arisings, which you can keep for a long time to be dry enough to burn of course this estimate would be reduced. Rings can however take up to 2 years even in stillages to reach even 25% MC.

Some run chip others gassification. 25% MC most of them. RHI yes. RHI is a non starter now of course.

I am amazed you have enough waste to run those numbers, but I have no knowledge of the scale of your Arb. business. The £ 10 came from large producers who buy in the Softwood to run their boilers. The boiler etc. will of course need replacing after 10 years approx. running at low return temperatures.

Another way of looking at things - It costs approx £10,000 to dry 1000m3 using forced air. If you have the space / infastructure / suitable conditions you can air dry that amount in a season.

VAT can be backdated - Period !

That seems par for the course here also. Have you thought about upgrading to a S - 360 Turbo, you've had the 350 for a time now?

Never lost a tooth - too carefull for that, but there are 96 teeth / 900mm blade.

After processing 500m3 of hard / softwood the blade is seriously dull. There never ever seems to be chips out of blades, TCT cutters just loose there originally razor sharp edge and corners. We have 3 blades so can easily rotate usage. I am thinking it should be changed after 400m3. I am interested to hear what others with TCT blade processors find and what they get charged for sharpening.

Do you by any chance know of / use alternative suppliers from time to time to minimise the risk of having all your eggs in one basket? - a bit like KFC have !

Are you struggling to get timber due to weather, shooting season restrictions and landowners not wanting forwarders etc. on their land?

Started processing for 2018 last month - problems with surface mould issues processing very early in the year if you are not careful with the horrendous weather we have been having.

That's exactly what I expected - ties in with us. Thanks

GDH I recall you keep your Larch/Douglas for 12 months before chipping - what average do you get that down to if you don't mind me asking?

Crosscut using grip tallon or rotator on excavator - onto pallets - take loaded pallets to fast cycle time splitter with huge table - slid from pallet to table - split into crates. Monsters lift onto table with grab. We have tried pretty much everything else and this is the best it gets.

You signed up in good faith but the powers that be know that they are 100% in the driving seat. Any Barrister who agreed to consider legal action against a major league player will be looking for at least 5k deposited from your account into their's before they lift a finger, so that avenue will only ever lead you to a cliff edge. It will be harsh on you if they are able to side-step what appeared to be signed and sealed. In your position I would certainly be disecting those T&C's, just so you know exactly where you stand.

Here is the full article for those of you who are interested: Waste and some wood drying dropped from RHI 30 January 2018 by Luke Walsh , Be the First to Comment UK: Government now "urgently" needs to pass delayed RHI legislation, say trade associations The UK government has published a long-awaited response to its consultation into overhauling the non-domestic renewable heat incentive (RHI). The response says the government will take away funding for drying of certain wood-fuels and of waste. The response, published yesterday, comes from the consultation originally launched in December 2016. But the work was put on hold, following last year’s General Election, prompting the biogas and biomass sectors to both say delays were hitting businesses. According to the response, there are "few benefits" to allowing waste to be dried by RHI supported installations and it will no longer support this practice. The government said it also wanted to avoid applicants claiming they are not drying waste but cleaning or processing it. The government will also remove wood-fuel drying as an eligible heat use other than where the renewable heat installation is replacing a fossil fuel heat source. A transition period will be included to allow a wood-fuel drying plant that are in development to be accredited, according to the reponse. But the response also stated the government was "content" to retain the drying of "other, non-woody" biomass as an eligible heat use. The majority of these change will apply to new and to existing RHI-supported facilities, which add capacity on or after the date the reforms come into effect. This is currently "anticipated" to be spring 2018, according to the reponse. Two respondents to the consultation also said wood-fuel production was subject to the economic rule of supply and demand and sector will only grow where there is demand for the product. However, a number of respondents also expressed concern that as long as RHI payments are made to participants drying wood-fuel, the market will grow to "beyond the point of demand," according to the reponse. Around 80% of respondents also agreed there should be "some tightening" of evidence requirements. A number of suggestions proposed including a requirement for applicants to submit a business case to Ofgem and also that Ofgem develop a set of minimum industry standards for different drying processes. But other respondents expressed concerns introducing an "economic justification test" could "inadvertently lead" to legitimate projects being refused accreditation. According to trade body the Renewable Energy Association (REA) the response will "strengthen industry safeguards", but it still needs to "ensure innovative companies aren’t punished". REA and Wood Heat Association policy analyst, Frank Aaskov, said: "We welcome the principle of limiting eligible heat uses to ensure the scheme is used responsibly. The central goal of the RHI is to drive down emissions from the heating sector in a cost effective manner, and we must not be lost sight of that. The RHI is a complex scheme and the new rules will need to be tested and be open to change to ensure innovative companies aren’t being punished." Anaerobic Digestion & Bioresources Association chief executive, Charlotte Morton, was "pleased" that not all drying practices would be be removed as eligible heat uses. She added: "This avoids the imposition of a blanket rule which, in our view, would have been a knee-jerk overreaction to what are important issues around drying practices. "The evidence and case studies of fossil-fuel replacement that ADBA submitted to the consultation will have been instrumental in shaping the approach that is being taken forward, and we are grateful to our members in the AD industry for their input into our response." Morton also said the government now "urgently" needs to pass the delayed RHI legislation that will guarantee higher tariff levels for renewable heat generation and restore confidence to the AD industry, allowing it to make a vital contribution to a range of policy goals." The government also asked for evidence on removing aquaculture as an eligible heat use. Around 22% of respondents supported this position. However, "strong evidence" for removing it was not provided, according to the response. It was also revealed last year, by Dr Oliver Quast head of market intelligence at the UK’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) that "biomass projects exploited a loophole by adding a small amount of power, to gain the [better] CHP tariff" under the RHI.

Agreed it's difficult to guage the quality of a boiler just from the marketing and there are few people with varying brands on the forums. price is generally a very good indicator of quality. Did you originally avoid a Hertz chip boiler like Duffryn due to the very high initial costing and having to get a contractor in to chip combined with stacking soft roundwood up outside for 12 mths + and the huge space for chip required to make the contractor cost effective. Looks like you split at 20 " then dry ready to feed the ECO - straighforward low cost.

Those ECO Angus are nice compact units, whereas the GF is a lumbering inefficient beast. Unfortunately not everyone realises until they have shelled out their hard earnt cash.

So it appears that some serious producers like gdh and Ash plan to continue drying after their 20 year term expires. Long before this happens they probably know their boilers will fail due to internal corrosion, but I expect they except that overhead. The cost of a large scale naturally air dried operation is prohibitive, even though a Kiln Drying installation with the infrastructure is well over 50K using a gasification log boiler, nearer 100K using chip. The single most financially deciding factor is not having to buy stock in advance.

The debate on kiln and air drying has been raging on here for years and most of us can see both sides. A lot depends on where your current setup / investment lies. But the cost of buying AND filling 2000 + IBC's is prohibitive except for the very few. Agreed even 100m3 needs a footprint of 6m x 7 m. Fortunately we have space here, but there is a limit. We dry a significant amount outside and provided it gets covered before the rains arrive there is no problem at all. Valley bottom site may differ of course. Enjoying the debate, even though drifted off thread as happens.

It looks like production runs like a well oiled machine, we have far more vibration here but honing the process. Moving towards 100% air dried is the distant way forward, as rising costs of labour, electricity and softwood make it far more attractive if you have plenty of space, plus it ticks all the environmental boxes.