iDRY Vacuum Kilns

Sponsors:

How Do Amish Kilns Circulate Air?

Started by Brad_S., July 27, 2005, 05:24:42 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Brad_S.

While reading a post on another site, I got to wondering, how do the Amish get good air circulation when they can't use electric fans?

Just one of those things that made me go "hmmmmm". ???
"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." J. Lennon

Fla._Deadheader

All truth passes through three stages:
   First, it is ridiculed;
   Second, it is violently opposed; and
   Third, it is accepted as self-evident.

-- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

Don_Lewis

Amish can usually use fans. The difference from commuinity to community is how they drive them.  There is no standard among Amish but rather rules set by each community

Den Socling

An Amish man was here on Monday. He really wants a vac kiln. He has a conventional kiln. He was talking about driving the vac pump and heating water pump hydraulically. I asked him what powered the fans in his conventional kiln and he said hydraulics driven from a diesel.

A couple weeks ago we installed another vac kiln at another Amish mill to dry baseball bat billets. His solution is that everything is owned by a non-Amish guy.

Still another Amish mill is considering a vac kiln. I could never find this guy in his office when I stopped by (he's local) and then I found him in a little building behind his office. That building is crammed full of phones with caller ID, computers, cell phones and radios.

I told the guy that was here on Monday that I didn't understand the 'Amish way'. I got the idea that he wasn't positive of the Amish way himself.

I really like working with the Amish. Those guys are not afraid of work and I don't know where they get their education but they have some smarts.

Daren

They use generators around here. I do not know alot about their beliefs, but I think they just don't want to be "on the grid" with the power company, telephone... They are not agianst electricity, just don't want ours, they make thier own. I live within 5 miles and deal (pick up a frying rabbit, a couple bales of straw) with some Amish and respect those I have dealt with .I would love that simple life, but no modern comforts  :( (a/c, t.v. , computers, fast cars...) nothing but work and church, I have avoided both of those for a good while.
Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

Don P

The Amish near here were running a solar kiln near a spring...the falling water turned a waterwheel on a shaft, that turned the fanshaft.

Rockn H

The Amish have fascinated me for quite a while.  I used to haul vans out of Elkhart IN.  Their was an amish guy there that made buggies.  He lived in a mobile home with light fixtures, central air, the works.  They just didn't use any of it cause there wasn't any electricity hooked to the trailer.  We hit it off so I started asking questions that I had wanted answered for years.  He bought the mobile home because it was cheaper and quicker than building a house at the time would have been ,and his sect approved it, some would not have.  His shop was ultra modern the only difference was it ran off a diesel generator out back.  When I asked about the amish south of him that ran briggs and straton eng on their farm equipment ,which is pulled by horses, he said it was the same reason he used power equipment himself.  To be competitive.  They are to try and live a plain life or a humble life, but it seems like the rules are getting bent a little.  Like they can't have cars, but they can use a car for transportation.  From what I've read, at one point they couldn't have buggies but because there was a man in one community that was to heavy to ride a horse they made a concession.  They really seem to walk a complicted line between their beliefs and trying to be competitve.

Roxie

The Amish in Southeastern Pennsylvania are granted permission from the elders to use "convenience" items, based on NECESSITY.  For example, they are permitted to use electric for barn fans, and milk tanks, but the lights in the barn are still gas lanterns and the milkers are manual.  They use generators rather than hook to power lines.  If they reside in a rented home, the electric wires may be left intact but not used.  If they purchase a home, the wires must be cut throughout the entire house.  Some are permitted a phone, but it is not to be installed in the house or barn.   
They are pretty strict in this area, and I think if they had a kiln they would find a way around electricity. 
Say when

Brad_S.

Thanks all for the informative replies. They're interesting people, that's for sure.
"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." J. Lennon

UNCLEBUCK

Showing up with a fresh box of swisher sweets will put you in like flynn !  ;D
UNCLEBUCK    bridge burner/bridge mender

Roxie

THAT sure is the truth, Uncle Buck!!   :D  It's funny to think their love of a good 'little' cigar is so universal.  Cowboy Bob keeps the truck stocked with those, and Tootsie Roll Pops for the kids.  We call the Tootsie Roll Pops, "Lady Pops" because that's what one of the little girls called them instead of lolly pops.  When his truck pulls into their driveway, the kids come flying!  They never ask....that would be wrong to them....but they sure do give ya a smile when they get them pops.  Here's a tip for ya, if ya get to treat Amish kids, be sure to start with the very youngest first, because they will ALWAYS pass to the youngest before they will take anything.  It's easier to cut to the chase and just start with the baby and work your way up.   :)
Say when

karl

Quote from: Roxie on July 29, 2005, 09:11:59 AM
They never ask....that would be wrong to them....but they sure do give ya a smile when they get them pops.  Here's a tip for ya, if ya get to treat Amish kids, be sure to start with the very youngest first, because they will ALWAYS pass to the youngest before they will take anything.  It's easier to cut to the chase and just start with the baby and work your way up.   :)

Kids with manners- what will they think of next? ;)
"I ask for wisdom and strength, Not to be superior to my brothers, but to be able to fight my greatest enemy, myself"  - from Ojibwa Prayer.

Camp Run Farm

The Amish are defintely an interesting lot.  We have a lot of them here in Armstrong Co and right in our area.   The post about the kids with manners is right on!  Maybe it is the fact that the parents don't use the TV to babysit their children, no game boy video games, MTV and rap music.  We have an Amish farmer butcher our chickens, when we pull in his driveway all of the kids come out to help, the parents aren't screaming at them and trying to negotiate a deal with them to get them to work.  Hmmmmmm

Curlywoods

I know an Amish sawyer in northern Missouri and he uses air powered fans in his solar kilns.  He has used those very large agriculrural fertilizer tanks as large air chambers and he pumps air into them trough a diesel powerd compressor system.  The air from the storage tanks is then piped to his air powered fans in the kiln.  Unique way to get around the grid I guess.
All the best,

Michael Mastin
McKinney Hardwood Lumber
McKinney, TX

Ron Scott

Shipshewanna Hardwoods Sawmill. A sawmill in Amish country with a diversity of wood products


~Ron

Thank You Sponsors!