An idea for drying slabs

How does this sound as an idea for a drying shed for slabs?

A used seatainer resting on a steel frame about a foot above the ground.
Cut a series of 4" diameter holes in the bottom/sides and fit a couple of whirly bird (rain proof wind driven) fans on the top? Seatainers get pretty hot just sitting in the sun and especially where I live where it gets into the 90's and 100's (F) during the day?

The reason we are looking at a seatainer instead of a fixed shed is that even though the site is classified as light industrial, a shed will require a planning permit and the full scrutiny of the (difficult) local city council whereas apparently a seatainer does not.

Any feedback about this would be welcome.
Thanks

BobL said:

How does this sound as an idea for a drying shed for slabs?

A used seatainer resting on a steel frame about a foot above the ground.
Cut a series of 4" diameter holes in the bottom/sides and fit a couple of whirly bird (rain proof wind driven) fans on the top? Seatainers get pretty hot just sitting in the sun and especially where I live where it gets into the 90's and 100's (F) during the day?

The reason we are looking at a seatainer instead of a fixed shed is that even though the site is classified as light insutrial, a shed will require a planning permit and the full scrutiny of the (difficult) local city council whereas apparently a seatainer does not.

Any feedback about this would be welcome.
Thanks

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Sounds like a pretty good idea. The ones that we use for construction storage get extremely hot in the summer months.

another posibility

I have been looking at various ideas, and am leaning toward a slightly different type of container you may want to consider . I recently contacted a company that sells trucks like you see delivering fish, furniture, etc. The box on the back is normally about 20-28 feet long, and when some guys buy a truck, they want a different setup on the truck frame so the 'box' is removed and they sell them for $1000-$1500 last I checked. These boxes are aluminum instead of steel so they won't rust, they look better than the cargo containers, and often times they are insulated with a plywood interior. Just a thought.

banannabiker said:

I have been looking at various ideas, and am leaning toward a slightly different type of container you may want to consider . I recently contacted a company that sells trucks like you see delivering fish, furniture, etc. The box on the back is normally about 20-28 feet long, and when some guys buy a truck, they want a different setup on the truck frame so the 'box' is removed and they sell them for $1000-$1500 last I checked. These boxes are aluminum instead of steel so they won't rust, they look better than the cargo containers, and often times they are insulated with a plywood interior. Just a thought.

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Thanks - I know exactly what you mean so I'll have to look into it. The key thing for us will be what the city council says about them.

Cheers

Great idea

Hi Bob sounds like a great idea , should get a realy great air flow through the stack and free solar heating what a marvelous idea Bob

Listen to Henry Ford and the Rolling Stones....paint it black (Although I guess the Ford quote is bogus, I always liked it..."You can have it in any color you want, as long as it is black.") or some other dark color. If you really want to impress them, you could probably hook up some ABS pipe in a box under a sheet of plexiglass as a solar "pre-heater", and make them feel guilty that you are using renewable power and are environmentally concious. Although, your idea is cleaner looking.

Mark

Hi BobL,
How thick are your slabs? I have a tarp garage(metal frame with tarp stretched over, top and sides) and I couldn't slow down the drying fast enough to keep my 2" stuff from cracking alot... Most of the 1" was Ok. This was White Oak, which I hear is very hard to dry but I was surprised at the difference.
You have the advantage of a sealed container so I would make sure you can slow the airflow enough that you don't cause alot of checking.

IndyIan brought up a good point. I have personally had better results with thick slabs when they were dried slowly. If you search around on Google you will find several sites that detail building kilns from con-ex boxes and reefer trucks. There a little more to it than tossing your lumber in them and letting it cook but it's not rocket science.

Thanks for the feedback folks.

Talking to a guy at work today and he said he has built a number of humidity chambers whereby he can control the rate of change of humidity over time. Looks like I'll be having a longer chat to this guy real soon. He says it shouldn't be too hard to rig up a couple of humidity sensors to control a couple of relays to open/close vents when the humidity inside the seatainer gets above/below a specific level. That way I can slow down the humidity loss on really dry days. I can see this is going to be a fun project.

Cheers

Seatainer Kiln - Project update

I asked around about seatainers and with very little effort I found myself with a choice of 3! After some "to-in and fro-in" am now in possession of a used 20' seatainer in a dull medium- blue/rust colour.

At the same time a mate has given me two ceiling fans for internal circulation and BIL says he will cut out the openings for the whirlybirds.

Will post pictures once all is set up.

Cheers

Very cool, keep us updated.

You may want to bolt a piece of sheetmetal under the whirlybirds to allow you to shut them down to slow drying. Just something simple that can pivot over to cover the hole.

You will want to put some vents down on the bottom too. Some of the screen backed vents that are used for sheds and attics. Put them along one side, then attach a tarp along one long wall to direct the airflow. You will need air movement (dry air in, moist air out) or you will have problems.

Mark

oldsaw said:

You may want to bolt a piece of sheetmetal under the whirlybirds to allow you to shut them down to slow drying. Just something simple that can pivot over to cover the hole.

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Thanks Mark, yeah I was planing to do something like that. When the easterlies blow off the desert here in summer and the max temps reach 110F, a soaking wet towel in the shade dries in a couple of hours. Combined with a high direct solar input and it's going to get very hot inside the container. I have access to some portable temp/humidity loggers so I can monitor what's going - I need to find some info on optimal temp/humidty differentials for drying Aussie timbers.

oldsaw said:

You will want to put some vents down on the bottom too. Some of the screen backed vents that are used for sheds and attics. Put them along one side, then attach a tarp along one long wall to direct the airflow. You will need air movement (dry air in, moist air out) or you will have problems.

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Good point. This container has a thick ply floor and I need to investigate the directions the floor joists run in. If I could cut some holes in the sides of the container below the internal ply floor level and then cut some holes in the ply floor that could distribute the input air more evenly amoungst the slabs. Then I was also thinking about installing the ceiling fans in the middle of the ceilings and setting then to pull rather than push the air to create a circulation inside the container.

Humidity controller.

http://www.bghydro.com/BGH/itemdesc.asp?ic=AACTHC1&eq=&Tp=

Most hydroponics stores have a big variety. This is one of the best hydro stores on the net.

one of my neighbors with a band mill uses discarded 6 foot culvert pipes. He builds a platform on the bottom to make it flat, and loads it with lumber. It gets warm in the summer, but with the 2 six foot openings things don't dry too fast

Seatainer has landed.

No milling this weekend. Spent the time clearing a space for the seatainer in the yard and organizing its delivery.

The door was almost rusted on and need some convincing to open fully. I cut the holes for and installed the whirlybird fans and bottom vents. Sorry no pics - forgot the camera again. I will have to throw some anti rust paint at it next weekend so hopefully I will have something to show you then.

As a fire preventative measure I was thinking of adding a couple of sprinklers that are activated by fire - anyone have any experience with these? Maybe smoke detection might be better than temp as it will get pretty hot inside the seatainer. It's not because I actually think it might catch fire but even though it's in a fenced yard, the local yobs have a nasty habit of piling up rubbish next to seatainers and starting fires :greenchainsaw:

Sprinkler's

BobL said:

No milling this weekend. Spent the time clearing a space for the seatainer in the yard and organizing its delivery.

The door was almost rusted on and need some convincing to open fully. I cut the holes for and installed the whirlybird fans and bottom vents. Sorry no pics - forgot the camera again. I will have to throw some anti rust paint at it next weekend so hopefully I will have something to show you then.

As a fire preventative measure I was thinking of adding a couple of sprinklers that are activated by fire - anyone have any experience with these? Maybe smoke detection might be better than temp as it will get pretty hot inside the seatainer. It's not because I actually think it might catch fire but even though it's in a fenced yard, the local yobs have a nasty habit of piling up rubbish next to seatainers and starting fires :greenchainsaw:

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Hi Bob No real experience with sprinkler's , a part from bashing my head on one in the Eucy pulpmill and setting it off , they have a glass vial that breaks when temp get's extreme , no idea what they call extreme , obviously temp must be high enough to make glass vial expand and break to set it off . Done some milling over the last few day's , just a bit of pine , trying to get enough timber together to build a Henry house , that's one of our pet pig's , weigh's about 200kg's now , meet Henry everyone . Cheer's MM

BobL said:

It's not because I actually think it might catch fire but even though it's in a fenced yard, the local yobs have a nasty habit of piling up rubbish next to seatainers and starting fires :greenchainsaw:

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...that's a pretty nasty habit there... they do this why? ...just for kicks?

I'm far from an expert on the matter.Having said that though I've found that using a good end sealer such as anchor seal or that stuff sold by Baileys will tend to keep the end splits to a minimum.

I've known people to get fairly good results by just tarping a pile with plastic and using a common household dehumidifier although I've never tried so myself.

woodshop said:

...that's a pretty nasty habit there... they do this why? ...just for kicks?

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Yep - a trash dumpster, seatainer or anything locked seems like fair game to these mongrels. The problem is that anyone driving on a nearby major road will easily see the container and might want to come noseying around. Its not a big risk and if the contents of the container were easily replaceable I would be less concerned, but given the effort required to produce the contents I though adding a couple of sprinklers would be a simple precaution.

Sea container's

BobL said:

Yep - a trash dumpster, seatainer or anything locked seems like fair game to these mongrels. The problem is that anyone driving on a nearby major road will easily see the container and might want to come noseying around. Its not a big risk and if the contents of the container were easily replaceable I would be less concerned, but given the effort required to produce the contents I though adding a couple of sprinklers would be a simple precaution.

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Hi Bob What's the average price for a container and did you need a crane to unload it , just wondering what it cost's roughly , to buy one delivered and unloaded . Cheer's MM