Sawmill

Kiln Building: The Floor

After spraying the foam insulation, next up on the kiln was putting in a wood floor. Oh, we are getting so close to finishing. We started with coating the floor joists with a roofing tar to seal up all remaining cracks.

kiln bldg, building,firwood,kindling,Antigonish County,Nova Scotia, kiln drying wood
Tar to seal the floor joists

The closed cell spray foam is its own vapour barrier so there is no need to lay down a sheet of poly plastic. Once the tar had dried it was on to laying the boards. We decided to use what we had on hand for the floor and since we are almost out of poplar boards we decided to use pine.

pine flooring,kiln building, firewoood sales,Antigonish County,Nova Scotia
Installing a rough sawn pine floor in the kiln

The boards are not nailed in place. We did this because the boards are still wet, having only been milled from fresh cut trees about six months ago. They were milled and air drying outdoor in racks which started the drying process but after the first run of the kiln, the boards will dry and shrink. When that occurs, I’ll push the boards together to remove the gaps and then add more rows of pine boards as needed.

solid wood flooring, Antigonish County, Nova Scotia, kiln service
floor completed, for now

With the floor installed, it was on to installing the drape/tarp that will cover the top of the stack of wood. First up, we needed to complete the installation of the fan baffles. Basically we had to close up the empty space of the fan support wall so that all the air flow travels through the fan openings only. We had to cut away any excess spray foam first.

kiln, wood drying, Loch Katrine, Nova Scotia, Antigonish County
Preparing the kiln’s fan baffle area.

Then we closed up the areas between the fans with tarps.

wood drying, kiln, Nova Scotia, kiln dried lumber, Loch Katrine, Antigonish County
Installation air flow baffles in the kiln.

Opposite to the fans I installed a 45º baffle to assist in directing the air down that wall and in behind where the lumber racks will be placed.

wood drying, Nova Scotia, Loch Katrine, drying driftwood, air flow, Antigonish County
Installing a directional wall for air flow.

We move onto the installation of the tarp that will drape over the stacks of wood. I basically am recycling a tarp that was used to wrap 16ft long skid of lumber. A few holes are easily fixed with tuck tape.

building a kiln, kiln dried wood, Loch Katrine, Nova Scotia, Antigonish County
Recycling lumber wraps for the tarp.
building a kiln, kiln dried wood, Loch Katrine, Nova Scotia, Antigonish County
Recycling lumber wraps for the tarp.

We will need a way to put the tarp away when not in use. The simplest method is to be able to roll it up and to achieve that I took some 1×1 spruce lumber sticks and secured the tarp to it. At nearly 19ft long it can be rolled by one person if they were standing in the middle, but with two people its easier.

building a kiln, kiln dried lumber, Loch Katrine, Antigonish County, Nova Scotia
Rolling up the tarp.
wood kiln, Nova Scotia, kiln dried lumber, Loch Katrine, Antigonish County
Tied up and ready to use.

The final part of this process will be figuring out a way to control the opening and closing of the kiln loading door. It is very heavy and the tension hinges help but are not enough.

wood drying kiln, Loch Katrine, Nova Scotia,
A view of the kiln door from the inside.

More on that later.

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