Firewood Kiln

[Ductape]

I'd be afraid the wood would pick up an odor from a turkey incinerator.

I can just imagine folks bringing in some wood from the rain when it's damp and have eau de turkey in their house...not good.

You'd also be pumping in a decent amount of moisture from the turkey bodies.

If there was some sort of heat exchanger I could see it being a very good idea.

Or better yet........ every time they light a fire they fall asleep from all the triptophan coming off the firewood !

 

[HARRY BARKER]

I'd be afraid the wood would pick up an odor from a turkey incinerator.

I can just imagine folks bringing in some wood from the rain when it's damp and have eau de turkey in their house...not good.

You'd also be pumping in a decent amount of moisture from the turkey bodies.

If there was some sort of heat exchanger I could see it being a very good idea.

mmmmmmmm....turkey wood.....smells like Thanksgiving every day!...maybe some other scents could be done too?

 

[blackdiesel]

Lol, I don't see the wood soaking up the smell. It really isn't that bad. Or maybe I'm just used to it. But since you would be primarily burning wood scraps I don't see the wood smelling like smoked turkey.

I still don't see a need in my operation to have a kiln though. Might be the ticket for some guys but I can't justify it right now

 

[Moss Man]

Lol, I don't see the wood soaking up the smell. It really isn't that bad. Or maybe I'm just used to it. But since you would be primarily burning wood scraps I don't see the wood smelling like smoked turkey.

I still don't see a need in my operation to have a kiln though. Might be the ticket for some guys but I can't justify it right now

I'm not sure I need one either, just looking into it after seeing some popping up around here. It seems like more work than it might be worth. You need to load the kiln and then you'd need a pretty decent place to store the wood after it comes out. If you plan ahead, piling it somewhere dry in the first place might be less hassle. It doesn't make sense to dry it and then toss it on the ground somewhere.......does it? And what is the definition of dry wood? How do you stockplie wood at 17% moisture and keep it marketable as "dry"?

 

[Dalmatian90]

It really isn't that bad. Or maybe I'm just used to it.

I don't remember the incinerators, though I may have been young enough to not know what the smell was if I smelled it. In the later days of big poultry in my area they had switched over to using a tank of acid to dissolve the birds due to air quality regulations on incinerators. When full they'd neutralize it and add it to the manure pit.

Last year I passed a dairy farm in spring and stopped my truck on the side of the road -- it was the first time in 10+ years I had smelled chicken manure freshly spread on a field. Weird as it was, I got a little nostalgic That had been the smell of spring growing up.

 

[STLfirewood]

I'm not sure I need one either, just looking into it after seeing some popping up around here. It seems like more work than it might be worth. You need to load the kiln and then you'd need a pretty decent place to store the wood after it comes out. If you plan ahead, piling it somewhere dry in the first place might be less hassle. It doesn't make sense to dry it and then toss it on the ground somewhere.......does it? And what is the definition of dry wood? How do you stockplie wood at 17% moisture and keep it marketable as "dry"?

I think I could market it around here. I also think it would benefit my restaurant contracts. They more they burn the more I sell. I have thought about getting one up and going because of the EAB. There is bound to be a quarantine sooner or later.

Scott

 

[Curlycherry1]

There was a guy running a kiln for firewood North of Baldwinsville, NY for several years. I am not sure what he used as his fuel source but he did not stick with it for long. I heard he lasted 3-4 years and then went back to conventional air drying.

Wood dries really fast if you put tarpaper or plastic on top of the piles such that it hangs over the wood by 1" or so. That keeps the rain out and once the sun gets onto it the wood dries to 15-20% moisture in just a few months depending on species. Oak can take longer. That is equilibrium for wood outside in most areas.

 

[leon]

wood kilns

The problem is handling rehandling and rehandling the fire wood,


the problem with using either a short shipping container or a 30 or 40 or 53 footer or a standard wood kiln is complicated due to several factors.

The standard kiln design for drying lumber.
kilns usually have bad logs for fire wood, fire wood is secondary market for a lumber kiln business
The gentleman I chatted with at Nyle dry kilns told me that it is pound foolish to buy lumber kiln when a forced air furnace will do the job.

The firewood is dumped in to baskets then moved into the kiln and then the kiln is heated to the certified temperature for the required time then removed and set a side to be delivered or bagged in a sealed bag.

If you have a large wood lot you harvest the fire wood, buck it to length
or use a processor and then dump it in a bin or on the ground to pile it in the crate for drying later.


Thw air flow in a kiln is blocked by the fire wood as it is simply dumped in a basket to be dried, the air has to go around and around and around to dry it, where witha wood kiln the lumber is separated by stickers to allow air flow for drying quickly and evenly.


The only way you will gain any efficiency is to have an I beam trolley set up in the kiln-


The trolley would carry a firewood basket with built as a cylinder the diameter being smaller than the the cross sectional area of the shipping container and shorter than the length of the shipping container due to the steel ibeams supporting the trolley and the load of firewood.

The cylinder is built with angle iron as a hexagon with bracing to support the length of the cylinder.


The one section of the cylinder-hexagon is the full length door that is used to fill and empty the cylinder by rotating it and dumping it in a trailer or truck under neath it.

the trolley carries and consists of two triangular steel end weldments that support the cylinder with bearings mounted on the base of the triangle supporting the drum. there additional angle iron pieces connecting both of the triangular frames supprting the bearings that allow free movement of the drum,

The door could be modified and made larger into two doors using two panels of the six sided hexagon.

The cylinder could be fed processed fire wood right out of the processor with a conveyor or hand dumped into a conveyor filling the cylinder.

The cylinder is filled with firewood, the door or doors is locked and it is rolled back into the kiln.

A siimple electric motor v belt drive or a right angle gearbox and elelctric motor is used to rotate the cylinder on the trolley frame using ball bearings supporting the drive shaft that spins the drum at low rpm.


The furnace would simply have a long tubular or rectangular air duct along the floor under the drum and the air heated and reheated by the furnace would simply be blown into the drum of fire wood as it is rotating pushing air by force into the versus passive air movement in a standard kiln.

the design is slightly modified for the packaged kilns by having two sets of i beams supporting the ends of the drum to carry the drum in and out of the kiln
for loading and dumping dried firewood.


:deadhorse:

 

[Firewolf]

Anyone have any information on drying firewood in a kiln? I met a guy today that was doing it in an old railroad car on a small scale, but he wasn't real excited about showing me the set up. I need to contact the state forestry department, I believe they are working with a man on kilns in the southern region of the state. In the article, they said he is getting over $300. a cord for the dry wood. The gentleman today said he gets his down to 18% moisture content.

Yep over $300 per cord is what I am getting for Kiln dried Firewood..
I don't get it down to 18% maybe 20 - 25 it still burns great and my customers love the wood.. Now the only problem is I can't dry enough wood fast enough.
I do aprox 4 cord per run and it takes --- 4- 5 days .. Now I am already 20 cord behind .. Customers who used to burn seasoned wood only what the Kiln stuff now and order 4-5 cord at a time . Yes it takes so much extra work to load and unload .. but I can tell you this when you deliver your first load and they crank up the wood stove they are loving You!
I won't stop Kiln drying until late Feb.. I would love to put in a second kiln but I don't have the extra $ anything you need Moss man just ask I have no secrets .:hmm3grin2orange:

 

[biggenius29]

we just bought a 700 lbs incinerator just like the on in the middle in the pic below:

We use it to burn our dead turkeys out of our houses daily. its set up to burn diesel @ a rate of 2 gallons per hour. however we only burn it ~15 minutes a day on diesel.

There is a bunch of slivers and small pieces of wood that comes out of my processor, so i throw it in the incinerator daily and that dramatically cuts down on the fuel consumption.

The end of this unit unbolts..... so all you'd have to do is set up a semi trailer box @ the end of it, run a little bit of duct work from the incinerator to the trailer, and you could put around 16 cords in it fairly easily on pallets. maybe even 20.

since we have to burn it every day reguardless, seems like a very cost effective way to kiln dry firewood.... however i can sell all the green wood i can cut to my contracted business. besides, i never had much luck selling to individuals, they are too picky and only want a rick or two at a time

Yuck, we used to incinerate our hogs. That was about 10 years ago. Still to this day when I go to a hog roast it brings back memories of that incinerater.

The last thing I would want would be the smell going into a trailer and hanging in there. That smell will never go away.

 

[blackdiesel]

I still don't see a need in my operation to have a kiln though. Might be the ticket for some guys but I can't justify it right now

seems i spoke too soon. had another lodge contact me the other day requesting 300+ cords of seasoned wood. which would be no problem, if he didnt need it in a couple months. which would put me cutting north of 500 cords a year. what kind of kiln could handle this much firewood? all i need is 300 seasoned cords, the rest could be green.

im thinking a shipping container plus a forced air furnace or dad's incenerator (heat exchanger, or just leave the dead animals out of it)

seems like A LOT of work to kiln a load of firewood. not sure if its worth it. which leads me to the biggest problem, finding that much wood.

 

[Moss Man]

Firewood is a ton of work no matter how you cut it. If you are like me though and enjoy working alone, you can't beat it.

 

[blackdiesel]

Firewood is a ton of work no matter how you cut it. If you are like me though and enjoy working alone, you can't beat it.

i try not to get to much time wrapped up into a cord. trying to kiln dry it would at least double or tripple my time into it. but it comes down to securing this contract or not, so a little more work is better than none at all.

 

[elmoleaf]

You may want to check out Colton in Pittsfield, VT. They have quite a setup and have been kiln drying for many years. There's a bit of info on their website, http://coltonenterprises.com/

 

[STLfirewood]

Black diesel Is it a local contract or an out of town contract. If it's out of town let me know if you don;t want it I might be interested.

Thanks Scott

 

[blackdiesel]

Stl, its a long ways from St Louis lol. Its only about 15 miles from me. If I don't pick it up ill let you know, but they have a Guy already. I'm just trying to make them a better deal lol

 

[willsaw4beer]

I could see doing it on a small scale if you could sell the little $10 bundles of campwood like gas stations do...

 

[blackdiesel]

I could see doing it on a small scale if you could sell the little $10 bundles of campwood like gas stations do...

i cant make that pencil out. to much handling and hauling