Author Topic: How much should I be charging for Kiln Service (Read 2630 times)

VA-Sawyer · « **on:** January 24, 2004, 06:14:48 pm »

I believe that most bandmill sawyers are getting $.25 per bf ( give or take a nickle ) for sawing. What are you charging for kiln service? Does the charged rate depend on the type of kiln ?
VA-Sawyer

Frank_Pender · « **Reply #1 on:** January 25, 2004, 05:21:56 am »

Out here Va-Sawyer, I get $.50 a board foot. I use a Taylor hotwater furnace with a heat exchanger and a Ebac 800 inside of a 24' refer trailer, that I converted to kiln use. With the cost of electricity always on a constant rise, I may have to raise my rates in the not to distant future.

the cost for a month runs about $100 + or -.

VA-Sawyer · « **Reply #2 on:** January 25, 2004, 05:46:26 pm »

Frank,
For comparing purposes what are you getting per bf for sawing ? What I'm really trying to determine is are you actually charging twice as much to dry as you are to cut ?
VA-Sawyer

Frank_Pender · « **Reply #3 on:** January 26, 2004, 05:49:37 am »

Yes, VA. Mostst hardwoods run from $00.235 to .245 a board foot.

oakiemac · « **Reply #4 on:** January 29, 2004, 08:29:14 am »

Hey Frank, as a side note to this post, how do you load your reefer kiln? Cart, forklift, or by hand? I'm in the process of designing my kiln but want one that is easy to load. The reefer truck is a great idea but how easy is it to load and unload?

Frank_Pender · « **Reply #5 on:** January 29, 2004, 01:52:54 pm »

Oakimac, I designed and build two 9' dollies to load the lumber onto, outside the kiln. The dollies roll onto a portable platform outside and I load with a set of forks with a quick disconnect on my John Deere 5300 loader. the lumber is all pre stickered befor the loading process bwegins. I sticker all umber to be kiln dried at the time of sawing and let air dry for at least 30 to 60 days before going into the kiln.

For putting the dollies back into the trailer, I bolted an single 4" block at the head of the trailer and runa 1/4" cable through and back to the dollie. I thenn pull the other end with the tractor and whoosh the dollie is inside and ready to place the second inside, after loading.

ronwood · « **Reply #6 on:** January 29, 2004, 02:44:00 pm »

Frank_Pender,

What do you do with lumber that is longer than your dollies?

Thanks
Ron

karl · « **Reply #7 on:** January 29, 2004, 04:31:50 pm »

Frank- how did you determine the size/type of your heat exchanger inside the kiln? I have an outside boiler to hook up to mine- just need (cheap) exchanger.
I'm almost embarassed to tell what I've been getting to dry-
$155/1000 for 4/4 pine to $270/1000 for 8/4 maple - hope some others chime in- love to raise the rates!
Nyle 150 w/ oil heater to reach temp.

Paul_H · « **Reply #8 on:** January 29, 2004, 05:30:43 pm »

Karl,
I charge $300 cdn per mbf.We don't have the dolly setup yet so the wood is all hand bombed in the kiln.It is a slow way of doing things :-/

I just went and checked the exchange rate and $300 cdn is $224 US

Frank_Pender · « **Reply #9 on:** January 29, 2004, 05:45:43 pm »

Ronwood, if I have lumber longer than the dollie, it may only be up to 1 1/2' over each end (12' material). That will tell me how long the material can be on the second dollie. The second dollie may only contain material no onger than 10'.

Paul, as to the determination for the size of exchanger, that came about due to the fella from whom I purchased my Taylors. When I bought the first furnace I was also adding onto the house with two rooms, one on tope of the other, 24' x 24'. We had to have something to help keep that part warm as we were working and befor the radiant system was attatched for the cement, lower floor. At that time I told the dealing to just add it onto the price of the furnace and leave it here.

I had decided to install it in the kiln trailer upon first view. It is in a package that is 8" thick and 30" square.

Paul, with that kind of time involved etc and your electric costs I sure would raise you fees, unless you wish to work for free.

Paul_H · « **Reply #10 on:** January 29, 2004, 05:55:13 pm »

Frank,
Unfortunatly that is all the market will bear around here.The electrical costs are around $50 a load on average(1500-2000 bf)

The cart will be setup once I move the kiln over to our property in the Spring.

Frank_Pender · « **Reply #11 on:** January 29, 2004, 07:08:43 pm »

Paul, what sort of timeline you you running for your Fir loads as well as what is the board footage per load?

Frank_Pender · « **Reply #12 on:** January 29, 2004, 07:16:01 pm »

This sunday will be two weeks on this load of 250 bdft of Grand Fir. The fee is $.50 a bdft and will be $125 for the two week run. I have also run some 3 x 7s (about 175 bdft) with the load. Two different customers. That makes for a total of $232.50 for the two weeks and my costs for electricity will run about $45.00, not counting the value ofthe wood, which would amount to about $25.00 at the most becausethe majority was small scrap and dry cleanup. I often burn just sawdus during the day and solid wood during the evening and night hours.

With this load, my profits are really low du to the species and the total amount of board footage.

Paul_H · « **Reply #13 on:** January 29, 2004, 08:02:50 pm »

A load of 1" usually takes a full week including setting the pitch.Most loads have been around 1500 bf and are sitting at 18-23% when they go in.The first load I ran was 8 days before setting pitch but I realized afterward that I was misreading the moisture meter, and the MC ended up at 5-6 % instead of 7-8%

I ran 1800 bf of 2" lumber and I was surprised that it didn't take much longer than the 1". I turned out fine but I would think it should take at least twice as long???

One thing else about that load Frank was,I threw in a 3x8 x18' on top of the load of 2" and it did check on one side a little bit.Now I'm afraid to mix different thicknesses because it seems that the RH dropped too fast for the thicker piece,and there was still moisture inside the board.

Does anyone know if this makes sense?

Frank_Pender · « **Reply #14 on:** January 30, 2004, 06:51:18 am »

Paul, that could well be the case. What I do with those sizes place them a bit lower in the pile if at all possible, when you have only one or two pieces, to deal with in the load.

oakiemac · « **Reply #15 on:** January 30, 2004, 07:00:47 am »

Frank,

Can you post a pic. of your dollie setup? I'm having a hard time visulizing it. The way i'm looking at things is your reefer is setup off the ground by 2-3' ,(or is reefer at ground level) so how does the dollies get up onto the reefer? Are they on tracks or wheels? Also do load the reefer so that the lumber is length wise going with the axis of the reefer?
Thanks

Frank_Pender · « **Reply #16 on:** January 31, 2004, 03:39:35 pm »

Oakimac
What I did was make the dollies out of 4 x 6 Oak for across the ends and two across the middle. The rails along the sides consist of 5/4 x 6 Oak with one row down the middle; two nailed on the top and two nailed together on the bottom of the 4 x 6's. At each place there is a 4 x 6, I took some railroad tack type wheels I acquired from some prune dryer dollies. These wheel have a 3/4" hole in them into which I placed a solid cold roll shaft. Each shaft has four wheel; one on each side and two in the middle, with the two in the middle being only about 8' apart. Each dollie then, has 4 wheels with a total of 16 wheels.

The deck for the inside of the trailer is 3/8" steel hence the steel wheels. I had started out wanting to useing 2" mine track for the dollies to ride on. It got to be tooooo much of a problems laying out the track and welding it to be in line with the outside moveable ramps.

I hope this helps in your imagination.

oakiemac · « **Reply #17 on:** February 01, 2004, 09:46:15 am »

Thank you Frank.

BBTom · « **Reply #18 on:** February 01, 2004, 03:14:03 pm »

I built my kiln, but have often thought that it would have been nice to get ahold of a refer container, would be a bunch easier. I built my own kiln cart, which can be seen at http://www.maplewood-farm.com/kilncart.htm. I like Franks cable idea, think I might just borrow that one, Hey Frank, are you charging royalties for using your idea??

I am charging .30 for drying, same as I charge for sawing. That price includes the stickering. I have found that I cannot trust the customer to sticker right, and if it doesn't dry right it is my fault. So I charge enough to pay for stickering too.

Frank_Pender · « **Reply #19 on:** February 02, 2004, 06:04:01 am »

As I beleive I have mentioned before, I sticker the lumber as it comes off the mil. It makes it so much easier for me at that time. Less handling. I place the lumber on large pallets and locate it where it will air dry for a certain amount of time, usually about 60 days in the summer months and hopefully 90 in the winter months.

Speaking of air drying, a friend and I spent part of last Saturday going through Gary Goby's Walnut operation, lumber and nursry. He lets his Walnut air dry for at least a year per inch before it see the kiln. He indicated that he get to wood down to approximately 18-19%. Mayby I have been doing some things incorrrectly? I will have to spend some individual time disucssing his methodology and mine?

As to the royalities, you can have all the knowledge you are able to extract from this old retired educator.

oakiemac · « **Reply #20 on:** February 02, 2004, 01:33:41 pm »

Frank,
Just out of curiousity, what did you teach before retirement?

Frank_Pender · « **Reply #21 on:** February 02, 2004, 09:44:17 pm »

Oakiemac, I was the meanest and toughest teacher in the county for 30 years.

I tought 7th Grade: Social Studies (Western Civ.), English and Literature.

My oldest students are now pushing the 47th year of their existance and the youngest are Juniors in high school. :-/

oakiemac · « **Reply #22 on:** February 03, 2004, 07:48:06 pm »

Frank,
You're a man of great patience if you taught school for 30 years

Frank_Pender · « **Reply #23 on:** February 03, 2004, 09:03:53 pm »

Thank you Oakiemac. The children were a piece of cake

(German Chocolat). It was the bureaucratic "stuff" that was the real challenge for most of those 30 years.

Oakiemac

How are coming in making a decision on what to charge for drying?

Mike_Doolittle · « **Reply #24 on:** May 11, 2004, 11:43:36 pm »

Hi frank!
I realize this is an old thread but I thought I would bring it back up to the surface. Hope all is going well for you. I have just started up a DH kiln and was wondering how you account for drying time on a BD FT price? I have heard of some charging $35 per day to be fair going from say white oak to fir.
Let me know your thoughts.
Mike

Kedwards · « **Reply #25 on:** May 12, 2004, 11:26:47 am »

To put it simple..You must make $30.00 a day profit (full kiln) over costs to be profitable for most kilns. Dr Wengert emailed me with the detailed analysis, but I have found he was right. Right now I am running a job for a customer all wide Red Oak 1x12x8.5 800 BF and I am charging 150.00+ tax + handling fee of 30.00 It was air dried and will take about 4 days to dry to 6%. He wants me to sell it for him too, but I didn't promise anything and he said that I could have 10% on top of the kiln fee if I find a buyer.. but thats a different story

Frank_Pender · « **Reply #26 on:** May 12, 2004, 12:49:45 pm »

Mike, I charge by the board foot. $.50 on a 30 day cycle. When the lumber leaves my kiln it may range from 6 to 8 percent. I have a load of Oregon Oak in the kiln at this time. I will shut down the kiln on Sunday have had the temp at 165* for the previous 4 days.

Den Socling · « **Reply #27 on:** May 12, 2004, 03:10:36 pm »

I run a little vac kiln which is different but, for the record, I charge $2.25 per hour. It holds less than a 1000 boardfeet. Drying time can take anywhere from 2 days for Red Oak to 7 days for White Oak. It cost me about $0.63 per hour for electricity and kerosene so it makes about $39 per day. It hasn't been down a full day since I got it running BUT the drying includes companies who want me to 'try their stuff' in a vac kiln.

Frank_Pender · « **Reply #28 on:** May 12, 2004, 07:35:42 pm »

Den, just curious, what is the general moisture content of you lumber upon entry into the kiln? I let all of my Oregon Oak set at least 90 to 120 days before it enters the kiln. I simply place the lumber in the dark of the forest and put a lid on the top. I use 1" x 1" stickers for all of my pre and final drying.

Den Socling · « **Reply #29 on:** May 12, 2004, 08:35:52 pm »

Oak normally starts at 70%. The fresher the better.

Don_Lewis · « **Reply #30 on:** May 13, 2004, 06:53:12 am »

It is better to charge by time rather than board feet. DH or conventional kilns might not get away with charging by the hour like Den does, but a daily rate makes more sense than a BF rate. For example, if you have a kiln that can dry 4000 BF of Oak and someone gives you 3000BF, the kiln will be tied up the same amount of time and the ownership costs will be the same though you will use some less energy. If people bring you less than a full load, I know a lot of people charge $0.35-50 per BF. I know one customer who charges a buck a bf and sometimes gets it but he mainly does it to discourage people or make it worthwhile when he has to deal with them.

Frank_Pender · « **Reply #31 on:** May 13, 2004, 07:22:27 am »

I have thought of the same sort of idea, Don. :-/ I am about to raise all of my fees for processing logs.

The overall costs of doing business are beginning to cause me to break less than even.

Energy is the biggest bugaboo in the equation.

News:

Author Topic: How much should I be charging for Kiln Service (Read 2630 times)