Small Ebac, any good?

[Don P]

I am planning on looking at a small Ebac unit tomorrow. The fellow that is selling it is the 3rd owner but it has not been used by the past 2 owners and the original owner dried 2 loads with it. It supposedly runs and will pull moisture out of the air and send it out the discharge. That's about all I would know to look for. He described it as an LD82. On the website I found their smallest is an LD800 so I'm assuming it is that one or a predecessor, about a 500-1000 bf unit by the looks of it. The price seems reasonable at $850. Anyone know anything about them and what I should be looking for?

[jph]

I have a LD82, bought it on ebay 6 months ago,it had had very little use and seems to work well. I have only dried 2 loads so far and have much to learn. My chamber size is 9ft *4ft * 4ft. I don't have room at the moment to build it any bigger.

Shoud have a control unit like this.

[Larry]

My LD800 is high quality and well made.  Little on the slow side...takes a long time for green wood so I always air dry a little first.  Parts can be expensive and hard to get...service is their weak point.  Overall I have been happy with my unit.  Only dry hardwoods...mostly oak and walnut.  Paid $500 for a used one but had to build my own chamber.  Had to add Freon once in about 5 years.  Dried a lot of wood for not to much of an investment.  My compressor is a 134A Freon unit...seems like that is an advantage but can’t remember for sure.

This is the checkout for proper operation on my unit.

• Turn timer to continuous or 100%
• Temperature to max
• Plug in unit
• Fan runs
• Heating element is switched on
• You should see frost or condensation on the copper coils in 5 to 10 minutes

Testing two stage overheat system.

• Turn timer to continuous or 100%
• Temperature to max
• Reduce temperature control slowly until less than the ambient temperature
• Heater shuts off
• Reduce temperature another 5 degrees C and the compressor shuts down

[Don P]

Thanks for the replies guys. If you hear about a new lumber tycoon in town ...  .

[oakiemac]

I have an Ebac and haven't had the luck that Larry has. It is extremely slow-not quite 1%/day mc loss. I have had multible problems with it including new compressor and leaks from faulty work at factory. I bought mine new and this work was covered under warranty but the down time almost killed me.
I have since bought a Nyle L200 off ebay and have been very pleased with it. Night and day difference. But if you have found a good price on a used Ebac then it might be a good deal.
As Larry said, don't expect much help from the factory. There is one guy (Jack forest) that knows technical stuff about their dryers but he is arrogant and hard to deal with. Good luck!

[Don P]

That's the route I want to go, well, less the headaches. This is certainly a wimpy little thing but I got him down some and I have an immediate need so it seemed like a good time to get my feet dry  . If it holds together long enough to prove itself it'll be eventually replaced by an L200 or a couple of small units. I don't really intend to dry for the market so much as drying stock to use in construction projects. Last weekend I installed 3-1/2" stair treads that a homeowner had purchased green. I had him sticker them in the loft all summer and wait. Not big quantity but a pretty demanding end use. I'm pretty regularly having a need for small amounts of nice wood to do built ins or trimwork, that kind of stuff is often hard to source or expensive. I need about 500' of white pine for trim in a few weeks and have some 90 day AD stock that I would like to use. It also earns me brownie points with customers when I can do stuff like that instead of shopping it out, it makes their project special and unique. Clients tell their friends about things like that,  .  I'm debating about mounting a "chamber" on a trailer that I can drop the unit into so I have a climate controlled storage place on the job for finish trim, flooring, etc. Who knows maybe I could then rent that out to other contractor's when I'm not using it.