I'm going to put a load of fresh sawn syp in the solar kiln in the morning and run the fans on it for a few days with the doors open. Should fans run 24 hrs a day or daytime only? I also have the ability to schedule the fans for intermittent operation on any schedule I want. Any input is welcome. Thanks.
To clarify my question: if you're running fans on a stack of syp in your drying shed, do you run them 24 hours a day?
It is best to run the fans when the RH is under 90% RH...maybe even 85%RH as the Wood gets drier. The humidity outside at night and also in the kiln at night will come close to 100% RH, so running the fans at night does not help drying. Maybe you will turn fans on around 8AM and off about 9 PM in the summer.
Your approach of using the kiln as a fan dryer the first few days is great.
Although drying is reduced at night, as relative humidities go high, yes I run my fans on drying stacks 24/7 for pine.
Good info. Thanks.
Trying to avoid the green mold. High temps and rh for then next few days. Or weeks. Or months.
Like Yellowhammer, I run my air drying fans 24/7 as well. It is easier for me to just let them run. Right now I have fans on maple, pine, and pecan.
Loaded up with a short load. Started picking up just a little mold overnight (before it went into the kiln), plus this was from logs that I let sit around a little too long.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/39962/SYP_Kiln_load.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1530549904)
What you see on the edge is some blue stain from letting the logs sit before I sawed them.
Very well prepared load.
You do quality work, Sir.....
Intrested to know how this load turned out for you! :P
It turned out ok. I went a little too low on the mc when I ran the temp up at the end to sterilize, but still ok.
The rest of the tale went into this other thread:
SYP kiln drying dilemma - (question for the experts) in Drying and Processing (http://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?topic=102167.msg1590893#new)
I put the data for the whole run here:
Kiln temp and humidity logger using the Raspberry Pi platform in Drying and Processing (http://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?topic=99386.msg1588897#msg1588897)