the opportunity i fell into

[nativewolf]

Alternatively buy a used insulated shipping container that fell off the boat in the Panama Canal  ,  lots of good threads on conversations to kilns.  

[Satamax]

Glad you were able to score some nice things. Those little forklifts don't look like much when you walk up to them but man can they lift some weight.

it's a 2.5 ton, way stronger than my old 1.5 to allis.
it's a 2016 but with 36k hours! that thing worked 15h/7days for the last 6 years. now it will have a easy and good life with me.
yesterday i unloaded a truck, men what a difference, and now i have a side movement lever    

Teakwood, is it French made? Or manitou outsources the small forklifts for foreign markets ? 
I don't even know if manitou is still french owned anymore. Might be Terex/poclain now. 

[teakwood]

Yes it is french made, it's a pretty new model, 2016.

I think it will still heat and aid drying.  I would encourage you to try a well built one.  You have the best wood possible for lumber, use off cuts etc.  you know more than the 15 year younger self.  Buy good fans and insulate so that your heat is captured and kept.  Pinewoods assisted his kiln with a moderate amount of added heat.  In the dry season your issue would be not drying too fast .  The advantages for you vs us in VA here is the high avg temperature, I think if you carefully examine the solar kiln threads you would find some ideas that would work.  Then you could build 2 more and have a set of kilns slowly and carefully drying.  In a worst case you would have a need to rush and add heat.  

Man, you guys really have me thinking, the solar kiln is growing on me. instead of spending 20k on a electrical kiln i think i can made a solar for under 3k. do i still need a computer assisted system with inserted lecture reading pins? or is it just all manual?  can i ad an outside furnace and direct the heat/smoke true the kiln with a stainless pipe and out of the other side of the kiln so it adds heat? maybe above the fans, so they suck up the heat of the pipe

[YellowHammer]

A solar kiln is just a box that raises the local temperature above ambient, which can be done with any heat source.  As the temperature goes up, the moisture carrying capacity of the air goes up also.  The heat drives the moisture out of the wood in to the air, moisture laden air goes out the vents and the replacement air is heated and the cycle continues.  It doesn't take much heat to greatly increase the carrying capacity of air.

The biggest issue, as you've already surmised, is that without sun, solar kilns go very slow.  We put a load in ours one time in November and got it out in February.

I would not base my business income on the reliability of a solar kiln. So then you add auxiliary heat to the kiln, which you also have already concluded.  At that point the solar is redundant.  Just use the aux heat to run the kiln 24/7/365 and get a more reliable, higher volume load and faster turn round times.

By far the fastest and most production style way to dry wood is using an external heat source to heat the incoming air.  If you google "direct fire" kilns or even "steam kilns" there is lots of information out there, and with a direct fire kiln and wood that has a high allowable moisture removal rate (I assume teak does?), then drying can be done exceptionally fast with only the cost or effort of the fuel energy being the limiting factor.  In the past, I looked at one unit that used a direct fire propane burner, several using oil fired wood boilers, and of course, the cheapest is a boiler fired with wood waste.

Personally, after owning a solar kiln and relegating it to what it's really good for, which is drying wood slowly, I would be building a wood fired kiln in a heartbeat, and the amount of wood it would dry could be in the tens of thousands of bdft feet per month.  All it takes is lots of waste wood and a heat exchanger.  Typically, the exhaust air from the combustion process needs to go through a heat exchanger, such as a OWB or similar, to get the heat exchange rate up though fins and not just pipe, unless a lot of loops are used.  

You'd need to find the maximum allowable drying rate of teak and stay under it.  Computer controls are not necessary.  You'll need a good moisture meter.  Constant heat into the kiln, 24/7 with fans running.  Set the vents to maintain a moderate temperature dependent on you max allowable moisture removal rate, then dial back the temp or manually adjust the vents, not different than an old style kiln.    

You'd need an insulted building or a box, an OWB would be preferable, some fans and some vents and the allowable moisture removal rate of teak.  We have good old country boys out here in Alabama that dry 15 to 20 Mbf at a time with old school OWB waste wood fired lumber kilns.  One even uses temperature controlled attic fans to maintain his temp.    

[Dom]

Do you fellows think a mini split/heat pump would work ok for a small kiln? It doesn't produce huge heat, but relatively cheap to buy and to run on electric. I know they are popular around here for green houses that need a bit of heat in winter.

[Claybraker]

 i think i can made a solar for under 3k. do i still need a computer assisted system with inserted lecture reading pins? or is it just all manual?  can i ad an outside furnace and direct the heat/smoke true the kiln with a stainless pipe and out of the other side of the kiln so it adds heat? maybe above the fans, so they suck up the heat of the pipe

Just a thought in addition to the equipment available have you considered any of the human capital? 150 people out of work maybe one of them has experience operating those kilns.

[caveman]

It doesn't take much heat to greatly increase the carrying capacity of air.

Even on cloudy days, our solar kiln gets 15-20 degrees above outside temperature.  When it was new, with clear roof panels, it would get 60 degrees above outside on sunny days.  We used to run a household dehumidifier at night to pull more moisture, but we get flatter wood, especially hardwoods, without the dehumidifier.
Ours has 3" of foam insulation in the walls and 1.5" of foam under the plywood floor.  We usually air dry our wood to 20% mc and then put it in the kiln for a week or so to finish it off.  1" pine or cypress straight off the mill into the kiln may take a month or more to dry depending on the weather.

 

The probe that reads outside is actually inside the kiln.  With the cheap thermometer and humidity meter, the humidity will be low inside the kiln (like it is here) when the wood is dry.  Our daytime humidity is often above 90% in the summer.

[Ianab]

i think i can made a solar for under 3k. do i still need a computer assisted system with inserted lecture reading pins? or is it just all manual?

Because a solar kiln dries slower and reconditions the wood each night as the kiln cools off the control isn't as critical. So you can manually adjust the vents. or cover part of the collector, if you need to slow the drying rate. 

The fancy electronic controls are needed when you are forcing heat into the kiln 24/7 to get the best safe drying speed. Then you need more precise control of the temp and RH. 

[Satamax]

I wonder if a mixture of solar and rocket mass heater kiln could function. 

[teakwood]

 Set the vents to maintain a moderate temperature dependent on you max allowable moisture removal rate, then dial back the temp or manually adjust the vents, not different than an old style kiln.    

How do i know the max allowable moisture removal rate of teak, not much info around about teak drying. what i know it is an extreme easy wood to dry, doesn't bow, warp, cup or crack even at a high water removal rate. they dry 1" in the kilns in 14 days and i didn't see much more cracks as when i air dry the wood.

a question about the vents: if my outside air has 100% at 27 degrees and the solar kiln isn't a design that can heat air fast and efficient why would i want to let outside air in? isn't it way more efficient to extract with a dehumidifier? i could put two in there or a more industrial one if they can't keep up 

[Satamax]

Ramon, do you have much wood waste?   You could do a rocket  stove kiln. 

[teakwood]

Yes yes, lots of waste. i was thinking of some sort of stove. what's a rocket stove kiln?

[kanoak]

I recommend seriously looking at solar and/or thermal kiln options available and the economics of each.

I just landed an old Solar Dry Australia SG22 box; 6k bdft capacity in a 40' container profile. Ill get around to posting the build in the drying and processing board. I am off grid with a serious wet season too; a boiler is in my future. Quite impressed with their design which uses a solar drain-down system with heat exchangers and auxiliary propane. I am going to change this around a bit. I am going to have some learning, and building to do.

I calculate that at my site, I will to need 20kw of solar pv generating capacity to power the two circulation fans and brains continuously. Heat has to come from somewhere in these designs, and a boiler can kill two birds with one stone. If you are doing a water system hydronics is real. I grew up with home-made solar hot water. Lots of gotchas.

I started using slabs to edge around the yard and along fences. Might be a market, or at least an upcycle around the hacienda.

Never kiln dried any yet, but Teak has been one of the most forgiving woods I have worked with.

[teakwood]

Nice score! I have a self made solar hot water system since 15years.

a 20kw solar system here would set you back 10k 

[kanoak]

If I can get this pv system in for 10k Ill be tickled!
I grew up with home made solar hot water; still using the system although I had to replace the panels dad made after about 25 years when the ferns growing out of the 2x4 frames started to make too much shade. People look at me like I am talking black magic when I tell them I get a free hot shower most of the time and start explaining the physics of a thermosiphon.

[YellowHammer]

a question about the vents: if my outside air has 100% at 27 degrees and the solar kiln isn't a design that can heat air fast and efficient why would i want to let outside air in? isn't it way more efficient to extract with a dehumidifier? i could put two in there or a more industrial one if they can't keep up

The most efficient way, money wise is to vent the hot air and moisture it contains.  That's free, and since a solar kiln is a slow, basically passive system anyway, wasting heat and reheating isn't generally an issue because if there is a lot of sun, it will heat up fast so venting works fine because it's making more heat than is need.  If there is no sun, then venting doesn't matter because there isn't any heat to waste, its just a shed with a clear roof.

Dehumidifiers work fine, I used a Wal Mart 30 qt on in mine in the winter.  However, hp is cost of electricity, whether it is a Nyle DH unit or a Walmart dehumidifier.  Hp per Hp electricity usually cost the same.  Generally, the best rule of thumb is 1/2 hp compresser per thousand bdft for a dehumidifier.

So whether you're running a Nyle, and Ebac, or a couple Discount Special dehumidifiers, the cost to run will be about the same.  Unfortuanlty, home and even commercial units are not designed for the continuous activity and sometimes slightly corrosive environment in a kiln, so will rot out.  I generally had to replace my homeowner dehumidifiers every year or so, where the Nyle and similar units are built with corrosion proof or resistant parts so will last much longer.

The most economical way to kiln dry lumber, by far, except for labor, is to stick build a small kiln and use a heat exchanger with waste wood to heat the air, and cheap electric fans to vent the hot air outside.  So the only electric used is what's needed to run the fan deck fans which blow the hot air through the wood.  Both a solar kiln and a conventional DH kiln can be "assisted" or run this way.  Some people who buy DH kilns will slowly convert them to waste wood boiler style kilns and almost never use the dehumidifier, except in emergencies.

All you need is heat and venting for a kiln.  The more long term heat you can get into it, the more venting of moist air you can do, and the faster the wood will dry.  Boilers are better than rocket stoves because a kiln is more like a smokehouse (with no smoke) than and oven  Slow and steady heat over a couple weeks does the trick, not just a blast of hot air.  Temperatures of 120 to 180 can be used.

Put in a load of teak, get the air temperature to 120F or so, generate enough excess heat to have the vents slightly open (not much) and still maintain temperature for couple weeks until the wood dries out, and that's a kiln.

[teakwood]

Taking bets on teakwood keeping the tablesaw.  


 

 


Sold!   but I did it barge style, with a tremendous profit. Could get used to the easy money work

[barbender]

Well as long as there was a huge profit, I think I can understand😊

[teakwood]

Lets just say that after the deal with the table saw the Manitou was free 

But i didn't rip the guy off, he was darn happy and told me that his business is growing crazy and he was looking for a sliding table saw since quiet a while. i would bet that there are not more than 30 sliding table saws in Costa Rica and none of the used once for sale is as good as this one. the price was still cheaper than import one.

[bigblockyeti]

So there might be an import opportunity for quality used european sliding table saws into Costa Rica?