The Forestry Forum
General Forestry => Drying and Processing => Topic started by: Fairhope,AL on December 30, 2018, 10:19:33 AM
I have a Virginia Tech solar powered kiln. I need to build another solar powered kiln that's a littler bigger, maybe 20' long (Virginia Tech design) or another option is I own self storage buildings and was thinking of taking 2, 10' x 10' units removing the divider out of the center and turn it into some type of kiln. They would have two roll up doors. The roof is insulated. I would insulate the side walls and figure out some type of removable insulated wall to go behind the roll up doors when they were rolled down. Any suggestions? Build another Virginia Tech kiln a little bigger or try to turn the storage units into some type of kiln?
I built some 20' wide VT design based solar kilns and have been very pleased with them. I think that they would be a better solution than your other proposal.
A VT kiln will will work without "putzing" around and doing other things to get the storage buildings to work right. The next option after solar is a DH kiln.
When increasing the size of the VT solar kiln, longer is best and not higher or wider. Keep the ratio of 10 BF per square foot of roof surface. Two 20' units are better than a 40'.