Kiln drying firewood Feb 04 2020

Today is the inaugural run of firewood through the kiln. Surely to be a learning experience along the way.

We start with situating the firewood in the kiln and preparing the kiln for running the fans and dehumidifier. That involves a bit of climbing over the stack to insert moisture content probes and inserting the necessary baffles to efficiently control the air flow.

kiln controller Nyle Ln200M — Initial setup of the kiln controller at 8:15 am.

Next we start up the kiln controller. This computer monitors the heat and humidity in the kiln shed, and automatically adjusts the process to remove moisture from inside the kiln. The picture above shows the 4 probes are reading an average moisture content of the wood to be 36.8 (MC). Which is pretty good for hardwood that was split last summer and has been sitting outdoors air drying since then. As well, it being buried in snow the last couple weeks. The temperature inside the kiln is shown on the dry bulb temp reading, it is now 30.8ºF.

Part of this monitoring process will be to see the electrical consumption. It won’t be cheap, but at this point, this is all an experiment. Here’s a video of the start up process.

9:20 am – 1 hr has passed and the reading show a slight increase.

Hour 1 – controller reading a 3.9ºF increase inside the kiln.

10:20 am – 2nd hour passed and the reading shows another slight increase.

Hour 2 – controller reading a 1ºF increase inside the kiln.

11:20 am – 3rd hour passed and the temp is slowly climbing.

Hour 3 – controller reading a 1.1ºF increase inside the kiln.

12:20 pm – 4th hour passed

Hour 4 – controller reading a 1.8ºF increase inside the kiln.

2:10 pm – 6th hour passed

Hour 6 – controller reading a 3.3ºF increase inside the kiln.

3:25 pm – 6.5 hours passed

Hour 6.5 – controller reading a 3.4ºF increase inside the kiln.

4:30 pm – 7.5 hours passed

Hour 7.5 – controller reading a 3.2ºF increase inside the kiln.

9:20 pm – 13 hours have passed.

Hour 13 – controller reading a 15.8ºF increase inside the kiln since the last reading 4.5hr ago.

Feb 05

06:20 am – 22 hours have passed. Closing in on the end of the first 24 hour period, its now 6:20 am Feb 05. I took a step inside the kiln just to check on things and wow…its like a sauna in there!