who Kiln dries firewood?

Firewolf

I run a small Firewood Kiln operation works great , and I was interested to see if there were anyone else that kiln dries.
mine is run by my Outdoor Boiler / wood is cooked in a 48ft insulated trailer
placed in 1/3 cord baskets-- which I want to change to 1 cord trailers making it easier to load.. My bob cat has a hard time lifting those baskets..
people love the wood.. after the regular seasoned has gone every body wants dry wood.. I sell it for a prime price and nobody barks... the only problem is I can't do enough..This year has been Crap. No LOgs---No orders --- everbody is waiting till the last kick of the cat... If it don't soon pick up I will have to join the real wold again.. Sorry I got off topic.. Just a little depressing..

Petre

Hi Firewolf,your set up sounds interesting any chance of some more info on how it works or maybe some pics .I know what you mean it dosnt seem to matter how much I have dry, I run out towards the end of winter this year has been a goodin for sales nice and cold .This summer I`m gunna cut twice as much.

Eric Frei

Kiln dried would have to be real primo stuff, get that moisture content right down, less smoke, more heat.

I think ya on a winner there.

You need to have lots of dry storage I suppose.

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Bruce Hopf

What part of Ontario are you from? I'm in the Stratford area. I'm just curious, because a lot of Counties, don't allow Ash to be transported in, because of the Ash Bore.
I know that no fire wood can be brought into Perth County (where I'm located) from the County south of me. Could that be a hindrance to you.
I have to agree with the others. By the sounds of it you have a pretty good system.
Mine I have a lean too on the back of one of my driving sheds. It is about 9' to 10' deep, 12' high at the back, 6 or 7 feet at the front, and is 30' wide. I"m just finishing up with cutting my fire wood.
My bush was logged will be two winters ago, this coming winter. I skidded out a whole bunch of tree tops (over 100) and wind fell trees during the winter, loaded them onto wagons, and I hauled them, and dumped them off the wagons, around my barn. for cutting up later.
Once I get finished with the cutting, I'll be piling it into the lean too, for over a month.
It will dry pretty good in there (since the tops are not green), will dry in a hurry. There is good air flow, and the building is all steel covered, so the heat from the Sun on the steel building will help a lot to dry it out too.
Then around Thanks Giving weekend, or when the Soy Beans are off the field, mid October, I'll be throwing, and piling it into the basement, to heat my house with.
Hope you can find some logs soon. Bruce.

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2.0's, 1- Mac 1-10
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Firewolf

No Ash Border here yet.. I am in eastern Ontario, Belleville,kingston area The Ash Border is all around us parts of Toronto - up in the ottawa valley.

hddnis

This is an interesting thread to me.

I set up a stall in the barn to run as a dehumidification kiln of sorts. I lined the ground with rubber sheets and the walls with 4mil plastic, the top of the stacked wood is covered with a plastic tarp.

I have a small dehumidifier that I put in there and a smaller fan to circulate air. It holds seven cords and takes wood from green to very dry in about eight weeks.

I have not tried it in winter yet. In the summer the sun warms the barn up nice and that helps a lot. For winter I will need to add some source of heat to make it work. I have a small pellet stove that would burn a month on half a ton, which would cost me $115.00 for pellets to dry the seven cords.

A regular kiln would be nice because I could get all the winter storm clean-up wood ready to sell that winter and not leave it piled up collecting dirt and bugs.


Mr. HE

windthrown

I was thinking of running the OWB with an exhaust fan into a firewood dryer when I was living on the ex's sheep ranch. We had an OWB for house heating there, and often times by late February we had to burn green or wet wood (depending on the year there). She has since built a large outdoor shed for keeping about 10 cords of wood in, and removed my cheap one cord storage racks with roofs on them. They were simple though; 8x4 plywood floor and roof, 2x4 framing 4 feet high, modular and one cord each.

Most kiln dried wood here is for dimentional lumber. They get a premium for kiln dried lumber becasue it will not shrink or twist as much when it is used in stick built framing as compared to using typical green fir. That is where I got my idea for drying firewood. Or rather, for drying and pre-warming it for burning. Toss a frozen iced over log into an OWB and it takes a lot of heat and energy just to thaw out and warm up before it can burn. Never mind if it is green or wet; that reduces the energy more. I figured the exhaust heat to pre-heat the firewood would be "free". My kiln plan also included a smoker. We burned a lot of alder, and the OWB smoke from that would be used for smoking meat and fish.

Natural gas is going way down in price here now though, and firewood is falling in price with it. The guys staying alive falling, splitting and selling firewood just waiting for the logging and mills to ramp up again are not going to survive. They will be flipping burgers pretty soon.

Bruce Hopf

Right now, in my fire wood room, I have three of those Micro Furnaces, and two Dehumidifiers going. I also have it enclosed, and the furnace also has a register inside the fire wood room, so it won't take a lot to finish drying out my fire wood.
I also enclosed my wood shed with tarps along the front of the building. I have doors at both ends, so that the air can blow through the building, and the tarps keep the air inside, so that it just goes right through the building, and helps the fire wood to dry as well. Bruce.

Attached Thumbnails

     

__________________
McCulloch chain saws
1- Pro Mac 60, 1- Pro Mac 700, 2- Mac 10-10 Automatic's, 2- Mini Mac 30's, 2- Mac 110's,
2- Mini Mac 35's, 1- Mac 140 with Automatic Chain Sharpener,
1- Pro Mac 10-10, 1- Mac Cat, 2- Eager Beaver
2.0's, 1- Mac 1-10
Stihl chain saws
2- 044's, 2- 034's, 2- 024's, 1- 064, 1- 084,
Strunk chain saws
1- Busy Beaver, 1- SpeeDemon Special
Stand Back, I Have A Very Extreme Case of CAD (Chain Saw Addiction Disorder).

Firewolf

here is a pic inside the kiln

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billsfirewood

We have a smail one . It will do 7 cords in 6 days.