Solar Kiln - Roof?

[tyb525]

Hello all, I've been gathering materials to build a solar kiln. It's 13x5, and should hold around 1000 bdft.

I have everything I need except for the roofing. I can't decide if I want to go with corrugated clear panels, or with some sort of black-painted covering?

I have heard of solar kilns using a black roof instead of clear, but do they work as well? It seems that they would be cheaper than getting the clear roof panels.

Thanks!
Ty

[Dan_Shade]

I built a solar kiln with a friend of mine a few years ago, when we first did it, we used the clear plastic panels from lowes, but they turned black, and got very brittle after a few years.  After that, he bought plastic greenhouse panels (not cheap), but they work very well. 

If your budget can support it, get the greenhouse panels.

[pineywoods]

re--black metal or clear roof...If you want that kiln to really work right, do both. Put the clear plastic on top of the rafters and black metal on the bottom of the rafters. It will get much hotter and hold the heat in better. You still one or more fans to blow the hot air through the stack of lumber. Then if you really, really want it to do a first class job, buy a small room de-humidifier and put that inside. I've built 2 like that, dry oak dry enough to make tongue and groove flooring, dry cypress down to under 10 %.. There's some posts on here with pics...

[tyb525]

I have the fans, just wasn't sure about the roof Thanks! I plan to go with the clear over black setup. I'll post pictures once I get started!

[Radar67]

Ty, check my gallery out. I have pictures of the kilns Pineywoods is talking about. They are in the folder labeled "Pineywoods". You can click on one to find the posts about it and read up on how he built them.