hello out there im new to this so bear with me . i bought a sawmill 4 yrs ago. im thinking of puting it to work full time this summer. sooo anyway theres more money in dry lumber than there is in green. my queston is, can lumber be dried in a home made kiln heated by a wood stove? i plan to use my slabs for fuel. fans for circulation, and vents to get rid of the moisture.
laffs
Welcome to the forum.
The answer would be yes, and the question would be "do you understand how to dry lumber, keeping the balance between humidity and heat at the levels to not destroy the wood being dried?"
It is not just about heat.
also, do a google search Solar Kiln Virginia Tech, Gets a nice set of plans and some info about drying..
I think If I was going to go the wood fired route I would get an outdoor wood boiler and configure the controls through thermo stast and fans through humidistats..or use a commercial dehumidifier...
On the whole though, as slow as they tend to be, I'd just as soon have a solar kiln...the rise and fall of the temp and humidity seems to give a more resilient end product...guess it depends on your production volume.
i spent 15 years in production mill never did anything with the drying end of it. i did talk to one of the kiln operators a while back and he told me air circulation is the biggest part of drying. i hope 10,000 a month production. i do have an old wood boiler but i dont think it would hold enough wood to do what i want it to do. ya think i could convert a 275 oil drum into a boiler? run some pipe through the inards with a circulator to pex in the slab? ive looked at the solar kilns and they seem slow
also i live in maine winters are cold and i dont think the solar would cut it . kind of like to do something low budgett to see how it works
laffs,
i love your red green thinking but, unless you want to burn the place down don't proceed with plan "a". using wood heat to dry wood needs to happen through hot water heat running into a heat exchanger. there is no real low budget when it comes to drying wood properly. you need good air flow(fans) a controlable way of removing moisture (dehumidifier) and constant heat supply(hotwater heat exchanger).spend some time going through some other threads in the drying and processing site. you'll find that the topic of heating kilns with owb has been talked about, some real good reading.
don't give up on your plan, just need some revisions.
I don't recommend building a boiler...boilers are bloody dangerous if you don't know what you are doing...also, in commercial enterprise, i'm pretty sure that an engineers ticket is required to operate anything bigger than a home boiler...
laffs i was thinking of building i beam setup with a corragated top painted flat black and then band the lumber and then set the top on it so it will dry not sure if it will work do you think it will
i dont know jonny.....i have an old wood boiler just sitting around and a shed i can use ... what i want to do is use up my slabs they aint worth nothing ...ilhave to go look up the boiler operators i used to work with and pick their brain some..the boiler i have is a closed system boiler so il have to make it an open system so it wont make steam(maybe just let the x feed the boiler) .then use modines learn about wet bulbs and dry bulbs and i was told i need a controller in there some where and figure how im gonna condition.. baileys whos a sponser had a dehumidifier kiln for around 5k.. theres solar blankets too..most the small guys around here just air dry..i dont have the layout for solar here..il have to research this some more
Johnny,
Banded wood won't dry. You need a supply of air flowing through it.
laffs,
If you only want to dry slabs, you don't need to go very fancy. A thermostat could avoid burning your shed down and hand operated vents could let the humidity out.
Den
den im useing the slabs to fire the boiler..jonny you at least need to stick the lumber ifin ya dont itl stain pine anywaay will start to coffe stain at 78 degrees i think then goes to blue after that ..stain is a defect as far as grade goes. stain comes from from sap that then turns to mold which makes the stain which is one of the reason why ya have to use the stickers .you can just air dry that way. isnt there a lot of humidity in florida? you might wanna use a dehumidifier in a shed in that case
den thats what i was gettin at in the first question. wasnt gonna use a wood stove in the shed . was gonna build a doghouse for the wood stove and then force hot air through the kiln during the day and vent/condition at night?
maybe i was misunderstood?
sorry laffs, i thought you wanted to have the stove in the kiln chamber with the wood.
nope red..was just wondering about wood stove because i wouldnt have to worry about freezups in winter and i have the slabs to burn. i give away slabs now, most times it costs me money and time to give them away.just thinking low budget(red green would tumble dry) for now.
force hot air through the kiln during the day and vent/condition at night?
same as solar but my land isnt made for solar
brent
thanks everyone your notes gives me a little better under standing of what i need to do i'm almost done with my mill i have a homemade bandsaw mill i built i built out of a walk behind mower i'm starting out by building my own house always dreamed of that now it's kinda coming true thanks for everybodys coments
Check woodwebs sawing and drying forum www.woodweb.com
Dr Wengert is very helpful and I'm sure there is info there in their archives
Pete
If the wood stove is big enough you can run water pipe through it to create hot water.
You can also build a exhaust heat exchanger and create hot water. For that I like a simple "box of straws" exhaust exchanger.
Rectangular box with 3" or 4" DOA pipe.
Exhaust gas is in the pipe, the box is filled with water.
Rtn water in the bottom,, pumped feed water out the top (a few inches above the very top as you need a little room for water expansion/contraction) , also you need an air vent in the top, and a way to add water, and an anode to the earth. I don't like the anode in the water because they cause sludge,, I use one designed to be the anode for underground gas pipe they are 2ea. 10lb chunks of magnesium .
Longer/larger box or more pipe = more heat exchange = more hot water (up to a certain point).
A salvaged electric hot water heater is a good source to make one of these since they already have threaded fittings on them. Some of the tanks have a leaking hole where the sides meet the bottom . Just cut off the bottom and weld back on a flat bottom with the holes in it for the chimney tubes.
If you want to up size it use a 500gl propane tank to make a water heater or a box of straws type exhaust exchanger over another burn box. Could be block with fire brick lining especially if you go to chips with an auto auger feeder. Slabs are easy to pre dry and chip. Maybe run some copper pipe in the chip bin to further dry it for better efficiency.
Then put a door on the side with a baking slab inside and you have:
A -- autowoodchipfedhotwaterheaterpizza/breadoven.
Put a smiley on that ;)
jim
Welcome johnnythetireman ! :D
You will have to introduce yourself and post some pics of your homebuilt sawmill in a new post. We are always looking to see what people are up to!