The Forestry Forum
General Forestry => Drying and Processing => Topic started by: Qweaver on March 18, 2008, 09:19:52 PM
Has anyone come up with a way to use a wood stove to provide the heat for a kiln? I'm sure that an outdoor boiler could be used but the cost would be prohibitive for me. I have lots of fire wood that I'd rather use than use an electric heater.
I had a friend that dried oak for flooring. He would load a building about the size of a garage in the fall with maybe 20 mbf of oak and start the wood stove. Checked the wet bulb and dry bulb each morning. Sometimes he would throw a bucket of water on the concrete floor to slow things down. Come spring he had nuff dry oak to do maybe four to ten houses. Unfortunately I didn't pay much attention to the details and my buddy has a berth up above right now.
On a more personal scale we have been living in our shop/office building this year which is heated with a wood stove. The humidity drops quite quickly to 30 percent and lower with the stove in operation. I've ran a humidifier all winter to maintain the level at 60 percent to prevent excessive drying of our wood furniture.
Quinton, Mark Strickland (GA_Boy on FF) had this setup and as I recall he was very pleased with it. So a search on some of his posts to find out more.
Scott