Firewood Kiln from Shipping Container

[RSteiner]

There is a firewood dealer just northwest of Keene, NH that is kiln drying firewood in what looks shipping containers.  They are burning saw dust to produce heat for the drying process.  They also debark all the wood that goes into the kiln.

I talked to the owner last fall about the process asking if it was worth the extra labor necessary to load the kiln.  The owner said the quality of the product was greatly increased and allowed them to charge a higher price.  I believe it took three weeks to dry a load to around 12% - 15% moisture content.  After running through the kiln the processed wood was stored under a large carport type structure to keep the rain off.

With all the bark off the wood dried better and was much cleaner for the people who purchased it.  Prior to this method of drying they purchased log lengths let them season for a year in log form then processed them.  The cut and split chunks were stock piled outside.  The wood on the outside of the pile was good and dry but the inside was always a little wet.

There is a bit more labor in the kiln dried wood but the finished product is much better.

Randy

[kilndirect]

I believe the company mentioned in the previous post is a customer of ours.

Timberline magazine wrote an article about their firewood drying operation in December of 2010.
link to Timberline article: http://www.timberlinemag.com/articledatabase/view.asp?articleID=3295

The article does not have any pictures of the kiln.
Some of the pictures on this web-page is of this kiln setup: http://www.kiln-direct.com/miniquickfirewoodkiln

Niels


PS: I know this is a dormant thread, but I think anyone seeking information will learn from the article.

[jim king]

If you do a search for ----container kiln----- there are a lot of photos and ideas.  1,140,000 pages.

As degrade is not a problem I would think using barrel stove and blowing the hot air directly in there would be simple and work well.  All you would need is a used kiln fan inside and some vents on top.