Big J

You've got to love tax. You earn a wage, you get taxed (income tax) You buy a house, you get taxed (stamp duty) You improve your house, you get taxed (VAT) You die and your family inherit your house, they get taxed (inheritance tax) Booooooo!

Nice! For some reason Roald Dahl and Fantastic Mr Fox sprung to mind.

Not sure if the link will work, but I created a fictitious 28 year old single mum with 8 kids on an online benefits calcuator site, claiming for moderate disability and two moderately disabled kids. The result was £43,196.35 per annum. That's £62500 before tax. https://www.turn2us.entitledto.co.uk/calcresults.aspx?sid=13&cid=01722398-5be0-402f-b214-cf2dd3e52658 Jonathan

I think whether it's worth selling or not is entirely dependent on the state of the butt once it's cut from the root plate. If the rot isn't too bad, might be worth selling. If it is bad, firewood it!

£26000 tax free is just a smidgen under £35000 before tax for those paid a salary. I agree with benefits to help those in need, but that kind of figure takes the piss really. It's a vast amount of money, often rewarding the recipient's tightness in the purchasing contraceptives department. On the flip side, countries such as Sweden demonstrate that a good and generous welfare system creates a fairer and happier society, so who knows who's right?! Jonathan

We have the opportunity to bid to clear a large, flat blown Sitka spruce stand near to us. It's as follows: Around 1 hectare, perhaps a touch more. All trees overly mature, averaging 18 inches DBH, many over two foot, 80-90ft height. All flat blown to the deck, less than 5% still standing to any degree. Completely flat site, a little soft in places but mostly fine. Short extraction route. If you were to hand cut it (ie, no harvester), what would be your approach? My ideas so far include the use of a large tractor and winch, a reasonable sized forwarder (not sure the Alstor will cut it) and three to four folk on the ground on the saws snedding and cross cutting. I know that a harvester would be an easier option, but with handcutting being our gig, we should be able to make it profitable. Additionally, I think that two foot plus stems are pushing it a bit for most cutting heads on harvesters. Any ideas and advice would be greatly appreciated. Jonathan

Could you please post the link to that particular heat pump? 1200 days is a long payback period but environmental credentials are important, so it might be worth it from that point of view. Jonathan

Your humidity is dropping too quickly I think. It should be at around 83% for the first two weeks or so, and it will then start to drop towards 30% when it should be ready to open. Mine's opening on Wednesday and it's currently 35 celcius and 30% RH in there. Looking at air source heat pumps, I think they are too much for my application. Considering the heat requirement when utilising a heat exchanger is only 180w, it's unnecessary. I'm setting up a new kiln at the new yard next month and will be using this kind of fan: Industrial Extractor Fan 450mm, 18 inch, 240V, 900 rpm | eBay instead of the centrifugal fan. Same air movement for a fifth of the power consumption. Spending about £700 on a heat exchanger and fan will reduce my electricity bill per cycle from £560 to £66 (or about 25 pence a cubic foot). Jonathan

Hmmm, very interesting. *Opens google......*

It will be interesting to see what the recent gales will do to the price of cordwood up here. The neighbouring estate had Smiths Gore tot up what they reckoned they had in blown timber and they very conservatively estimated 1700 tonnes. More likely to be close to 3000 - for instance there is a hectare of completely blown spruce with average 18inch DBH/80-90ft tall. Jonathan

It is yes, but I need something with a slightly larger capacity (buying two could be an option). Additionally, I didn't see many of smaller units with high efficiency rates. The difference between 70% and 94% is £145 and £29 for the heating of the kiln over one cycle (£696 a year). Speaking to a chap yesterday about heat exchangers is that you just have to be careful to get a wet room heat exchanger (bathroom/kitchen etc) that has a condensation pipe and plastic membranes rather than paper. Jonathan

I've not had too much success with drying smaller loads in the kiln. Mine needs to be full otherwise there isn't enough moisture in the air to maintain a high humidity to stop premature drying. I think that the heat exchanger is a real winner though. There are bathroom specific models on Ebay for a couple of hundred quid that would suit a smaller kiln (up to approx 150 cubic foot I think). They have tiny running costs and I could see such kilns being run for about £50-100 a cycle. That's not much compared to a dehumidifier. I've no experience with Polytunnels, but I think the length of time required to dry (and the space they require) would be prohibitive for me. Jonathan

Useful moisture carried in air figures (for working out moisture extraction rates via an extractor fan): Moisture carried per cubic metre: 0 celsius: 4.7ml 5 celsius: 6.24ml 10 celsius: 9.05ml 15 celcius: 12.5ml 20 celcius: 16.9ml 25 celcius: 22.2ml 30 celsius: 31.3ml 35 celcius: 40.7ml So if outdoor ambient temperature is 5 celcius and 80% RH, and inside the kiln is 35 celcius and 80%, you will be extracting 27ml of water for every cubic metre extracted. Assuming you have a 100 cubic metre/hour extractor, you extract 2.7l hour/64.8l a day.

I'm always very interested to hear how others on here are kilning their timbers. I would like to propose a discussion of ideas and theories for mutual benefit and to try to get more people drying their timber to the point of maximum value. I've so far run 6 kilns. The most recent kiln is opening on Wednesday and is entirely consisting of Elm. It's also completely presold (circa 300 cubic foot). I'm at the point where I am pretty happy with the way things turn out, but acknowledge that there are improvements that can be made (more air drying - the start of which I'm at now) and that my system has it's limitations. I run a 300 cubic foot capacity 18ft lorry back. I run a combined heat vent and dehumidification system, but am moving away from dehumidifiers. I have a stack 18ft long, 6ft wide and 6ft high in the kiln. A large circulation fan sits in the middle on one side blasting air over the top of the stack. Adjacent to it are several heaters amounting to 2.5kw. At one end of the box is a vent and the other an extractor. The extractor draws cold dry air across the heaters and then the stack, being extracted when warm and wet. The system works well and is quite reliable. The heaters are on a 35 centigrade thermostat and the extractor is on a timer (could be improved). Right at the end of the cycle I put the dehumidifer on as the vents can be a touch gentle for getting the last dregs out of the timber. It will dry up to 2 inch green elm/ash/beech etc (though not Oak) in 8 weeks. 3 inch takes 12-15 weeks but I avoid such thick timber if I can. Talking to an electrician/heating engineer today, he suggested a heat exchanger to reduce the cost of running the kiln. I had always thought that they wouldn't be suitable due to the high temperature/humidity (especially at the start - 35 celcius and 83% RH) but they can come with drains for condensation. A suitable unit would be like this: Heat Recovery Unit/Whole House Ventilation-Airflow-D71 | eBay I honestly don't know why I didn't get one before - I worked out that on a full schedule of kilning (6 kilns a year) it will save me just over £2200 a year. It quarters my electricity bill. So, who else kilns, and what do you do and do differently!?!

With an estimated 268 hoppus foot in the log it's going to take someone about a week to mill it with an Alaskan! These guys have an Autotrek that could well handle it and aren't too far away. Mobile Sawmilling in Hampshire : Timber Resources International Ltd Jonathan

What's half of nothing though?!

We were milling a big pile of fencing and literally on the very last post added to the stack, it came toppling down (from about 4ft). Unfortunately, I think Kathryn must have tried to catch it and she got a bit squashed. She says it's amazing what a girl will do to get out of unloading a kiln!

I'm expecting to be contacted by Accident Lawyers for You in due course!

This could be a golden opportunity for some lucky lass, but we have a position vacant for Arb Wife. Must be able to make sandwiches, lug timber and know when to jump out of the way of falling fencing stacks. The last position holder had to be let go due to short notice request for 6 weeks leave: Please post your application complete with CV to the regular address

Always a fan of monster trees - pictures please!

I wish that I had taken photos last week of a huge lime we made safe near to South Queensferry. I kid you not, it was 6ft DBH. I think we are back next week to somehow deal with the timber - no idea how we are going to shift it!

Stunning!

I don't usually use climbers, but for forestry work I pay £90-140 a day depending on whether it's scrub clearance/pruning/tonnage work. On the occasions I have used climbers I sometimes pay a bit more.

Fair point regarding milling inaccessible logs. It just pains me to see lovely big oak logs chopped up into wee little planks.

The Lucas mills have always seemed to be very wasteful to me (according to the hoppus measure 5 logs 24inch x 7ft should yield 85 cubic foot). Good for dimensioned timber for construction, but not ideal for furniture making. The maximum board width of 8-10 inches is quite prohibitive for the more characterful timbers, where you have to allow for wastage when drying. Not being funny, but can someone please explain to me why you would buy a Lucas over a bandmill?