Chalgravesteve

Like everyone else, I hadn't really given it any thought. Clearly, with pellets, there is a substantial surface area exposed, whereas with logs, its tiny by comparison. The build up of CO also requires an airtight room, where the kiln is venting air all the time. There appear to be absolutely no instances reported where logs are involved, its entirely based around pellets and their storage and the heat that they are stored at. Just for my own peace of mind, I'll be putting a sensor in there, just to see if it kicks off or not.

OK, in the course of a visit from the local water authority, checking on our mains connections and backflow valves to the boiler, the commercial plumber I'm dealing with has suggested that drying wood using hot air through a kiln will warm the wood and it will release Carbon Dioxide in the same way that it would when its burnt in a stove. This seems a reasonable hypothesis. He suggested that we have a warning sensor in the kiln to show the levels, as the doors are closed most of the time. I am of the opinion that any levels that might exist will quickly dissipate when we open the main doors to move stuff about, so the risk is almost non existent. I'm quite happy to put a sensor in there anyway, so that's not an issue, I just wondered if anyone else had considered this before or had any issues with Carbon Dioxide emissions in a kiln?

Yup there is nothing stopping anyone from doing that. Tree surgeon cuts a tree down today, puts salt and pepper on it and calls it seasoned..... still not lying. Wet wood at 40%, split and stacked for a day. Well its been seasoned for a day and there is nothing to stop anyone saying its seasoned. We have an entirely unregulated industry, so the only effective regulation is ourselves. I sell my stuff as stovemix, a random mix of hard and softwood of all species. There is one consistency. Its all dry. 85% of my customers buy from me again. The other 15% might try someone else but over time, about 50% of the 15% will come back to me as well. I don't need HETAS/Ready to Burn to help/hinder me.

Yup!! And they are only policing the people who PAY them to be policed......

That's taking my comment out of context. I agree with Woodworks in his calculations as to what can be achieved in MC for seasoned wood. If a benchmark of sub 20% is established, I can't see how any seasoned wood supplier can guarantee to be under that ALL OF THE TIME because the humidity levels change through the year and simply don't make it possible unless you can introduce another factor into drying it (such as polytunnels which increase the heat for example). Kiln drying does not defy logic in itself. We have plenty of "scrap" wood which is either surplus or really difficult to split and process, so we save ourselves a heap of time and chuck it in the boiler and burn it. The easy stuff, we process into firewood and dry it in the kiln. So we maximise the use of the wood that we have to create the best return for the business. Kiln drying means I don't need vast amounts of storage space to store stock for sale in 2 years time in barn A, stock for sale in 1 years time in Barn B and stock I'm currently splitting in Barn C. I don't have stuff that has lichen and creepy crawlies on it from 2 years outside. I just have the processors out, split the stuff, put it into the kiln, dry it in 7/10 days and store it for a short period (6 month max - but usually closer to 1 month in the season) before selling it, clean and dry and clean smart bags. You do not have a successful business because you have loads of stock. Stock is money tied up doing nothing. The faster you can turn over your stock and replace it with new and sell that, the more you will make. Yes, I would still do this if I didn't get RHI income from my boiler. I accept that that's just a nice bonus really and I'm not embarrassed to say that I saw an opportunity to expand my business and took the chance and had a go. I had to come up with £50,000 worth of investment first before I got the RHI but ultimately, the business would stand on its own two feet without it anyway. If burning wood to dry wood defies logic, from a self sufficiency or environmental perspective, then presumably there are no diesel lorries/transits delivering wood to customers, its all done with a pony and trap. RHI is always going to polarise opinions and I think the HETAS/Ready to Burn stuff does the seasoned log suppliers absolutely no favours at all. Somebody, in humour, mentioned it earlier. We can establish our own standard. I already use "ready to burn" as a phrase in promoting my wood in our local social media advertising and our website and will continue to do so. I've got no worries, I know I will have plenty of customers who want clean and dry wood at a sensible price.

Yes to 20%. We kiln dry ours! ??? can’t see how seasoned stuff can be consistently below this. So they will bias the market towards kiln dried which is good for me but defies logic really

Has anybody got involved with this yet? Its supposedly a new industry standard the "ready to Burn" logo to certify that your wood is under 20% MC. You have to pay about £450 in annual fees, plus a point of sale "commission" on everything you sell, if you want to have the ready to burn logo on your product. The fees include independent audit and testing of your product to verify its under 20%. I have spoken to them about this and I think its far too expensive for a small business. I only deliver/sell within a 20 mile radius max, and my customers are on a 85% retention rate, ie if they buy from me once 85% buy more after that. My reputation for only sellign dry wood is as good as the ready to burn logo I think, so I don't see the point of adding more overhead and admin for someone else to tell me my stuff is good! I'd be interested to hear other peoples views on this?

There's a reason why its two hand operated.......if you modify it so its one hand operated, then one day you might need it to be one hand operated! It never ceases to amaze me how people seem to imagine that 10/20/30 tonne of hydraulic pressure can be stopped from damaging a human being by hope alone. Same with PTO's There's a reason why they have guards and chains.

I've got some Sainsbury's biodegradeable carrier bags at 5p each. They also hold a tonne.....

But unless the incinerator is at every port, then the issue remains the same. Its here and it has to be transported to an incinerator.

So, the power stations do a deal with the FC to take any softwood with bark on to incinerate it for them? Now that would be absolutely too simple wouldn't it..........

No problem. The point of a newsletter is to continue to engage with your customers. In my view, especially if you are selling in bulk, then there can be a longer period between them reordering? So, to maintain a communication with them also maintains your name in their minds so they are more likely to think of you as they need to reorder or you prompt the thought that they need to. If you dont don’t talk to your customer, someone else might. It’s just a simple mechanism to keep you in their minds.

I agree, we have 2 different markets. I cater for the people who can’t/won’t store firewood in volume. I’m way cheaper than buying nets from the garage and more expensive than loose bulk suppliers. I’m selling mine at around £150 per m3 and it’s a mix of hard and softwood. I’ve got 250+ local customers, I data capture and I’m going to be starting a newsletter for my customers next season, same as I do for my golf business members. I think the same principles apply to both sectors. Claiming it’s better for the customers health, them shifting the logs themselves, is pushing it though! ?? So the elderly, disabled, etc etc are all better off by shifting it themselves? ??

A website people can order from, a facebook site that people can see that links to the website/online shop is essential. All that will happen over the next decade is that online purchasing/searching will increase. High quality product and SERVICE is what people want. I laugh when I read stuff on here. All people are interested in is how they can do it for the least amount of hassle themselves. Turn up, tip it on someone's drive and go. Excellent service. We deliver everything in barrow bags and put them where the customer wants them. 85% of my customers buy again. They ask what about the bags? I say I collect them when I deliver the next lot. Simples....

I don’t have an arb business. I’ve got 8 tree surgeons who bring me their arb waste and chip foc. They don’t have yards and need empty trucks every day. I don’t want to do surgery. Mutually beneficial relationship. Boiler heats an accumulator tank which runs the kiln. I’ve no idea how long it will last but I look after my kit. It seems pretty solid after 3 years running so far.

£10k? You are doing it wrong! Electrics cost me about £2k per annum. We burn seasoned arb waste that is difficult to split in the boiler. If I didn’t have to jump through hoops to get the RHI accreditation I could have built the boiler and kiln for substantially less. As it is the whole thing is paid for now so the cost of operating the kiln for a year is about £2.5k and we could in theory get 40m2 a week through it so 2000 M2 i reckon it costs me about £4 a cube if I ignore the rhi

Yup that’s about right. No bad debt. It’s paid for in advance. We rarely do COD. It’s as much about service, delivering the bags to the customers log store not just dumping it on the drive. We even taken them through or into some houses!

Main business is my golf club. I do the firewood as a winter business for my greenstaff. So I already have most of the overheads covered and it’s just additional revenue/profit and keeps everyone busy. I now want to expand it and employ someone full time which means we need to double our output to about 1800/2000 bags to justify the additional staff cost. We dont advertise as hard as we could so it’s entirely feasible to do it in my opinion.

We sell almost exclusively in barrow bags. Hand packed so they are solid. We sell a bag between £39.50 - £49.50 each depending on how many are ordered together. 4 or more for the £39.50 rate. We sold virtually bang on 900 bags this year. I reckon they are about 100kg a bag on average so that would be 90 tonnes. Website is quite tidy, thanks!

That's exactly the problem with seasoning wood against kiln drying it. The sheer volume of space required to properly season firewood is enormous, and certainly in the London/Home Counties/south East England area, you can find many other uses for such large covered areas that produce more/same income for less work. Stock is simply money tied up. If someone holds £100,000 worth of stock for two years to season it, whilst I hold £5,000 worth of stock and keep replenishing it, and I turnover my stock once a week for a 26 week season, then I actually sell £130,000 worth but only tied up £5,000 at any one time......Its not how much stock you hold, its how fast you sell it and replace it and sell it again that counts.

I'm fairly small scale (about £40K sales a year) We serve the local market within 15 miles radius. Own kiln, so we split, dry it in kiln for a week and sell it. Repeat as often as necessary. Was going quiet (for a week) and its gone nuts again. We create stock in the summer and by this stage of the season we can keep up with demand.

Waste of time as a wheel barrow. What you want is one of these.... carries 500Kg easily. Manual tipping of the rear body. 48V rechargeable batteries, they cost me £850 each. Absolute bargain!

Thanks. I had already told him about those as well!

Probably sorted it...looking like a stovax riva large.....

Hi All My brother has just moved into a new place which has a stovax stove installed. He says it can be connected to the radiators as well, although I've not seen it up close to see if it does have a back boiler or not? I'm working on the basis that the two front flaps under the doors are the main air vents, and that the lever on the right side will move the internal grates to drop ash into the bottom of the stove to clear it out? I'd be grateful if anyone can identify what stove it is and where any other vents might be for airwash/secondary burn? I will be telling him to shift those logs leaning up against it pronto!! Cheers