renewablejohn
Member
- Location
- lancs
Should not be a problem with a Glenfarrow as the maximum moisture content on the emissions certificate is 23% so you should not be burning wet wood in the first place.
Moisture content of wood chip?
- Thread starter Pilatus
- Start date
20 tons of timber, one pile (10 tons) is @20% and the other pile (10 tons) is at 30%. Thats one ton of water extra in the 30% pile. So it has to also mean less timber, but how much less I dont know. It is not hard to dry timber, so I dont understand why timber is burnt at higher moisture levels. But I would imagine that there is 10% more timber in 20% pile. Then when it comes to burning, the lower % has to be more efficient. I know in our log boiler, if timber is at 30% or more it just doesn't perform, whereas if the timber is seasoned. it works really well. I know its hard to get timber to 20% and keep it there especially in winter; and maybe thats the reason high output boilers work up to 30%? But I am sure the efficiency will be well down.
Having an exhuast temp of 350 degrees (thats going up the chimney and not recvered) seems counter intuitive.
I measure it just as it enters the flue.
Doing it for the kids
Member
We burn 2-300 tons of wood a year.
The boiler is certified to 25% but it’s hard work burning it.
Get it to 20% and it’s a different animal, 15% is even better.
But, it’s harder getting our wood down to that level and the cost to get it there is higher so we burn it 25 and below.
The boiler is certified to 25% but it’s hard work burning it.
Get it to 20% and it’s a different animal, 15% is even better.
But, it’s harder getting our wood down to that level and the cost to get it there is higher so we burn it 25 and below.
renewablejohn
Member
- Location
- lancs
Get yourself a solar kiln and below 20% will be the norm.
Doing it for the kids
Member
Need to be a big kiln! Not sure how easy it would be with logistics to do this using arb waste?
renewablejohn
Member
- Location
- lancs
Our 20 mtr solar kilns hold 120 IBC cages so thats 144 m3 per kiln.
Fat hen
Member
How do to get the MC%?
- Location
- North Norfolk
Weigh a sample (in a foil tray - measure empty weight first), put in oven at 105°C overnight and weigh again. Better to do 2 or 3 samples in the oven while doing it, and put the samples back for a few hours to check that they have not lost any more weight.
rusty
Member
- Location
- Buxton Derbyshire
I use on old microwave that I use to check silage drymatter. Put it in for 3 minutes and re weigh a 100g. Sample. Keep going until it doesn’t drop any more.
Fat hen
Member
I’ll look out for an old micro
- Location
- cheshire
Do you have any pictures of your kiln, a quick Google just shows small ones for lumber
Doing it for the kids
Member
Drier the better but you need the RH to be sub 70% really to much good. Easy to scrub of MC to about 18 but after that it takes a bit more effort
- Location
- America's dairyland
You can look up a wood moisture equilibrium chart, but I can't believe it would ever pay to use electricity to dry wood chip.
- Location
- Burton on trent
in my experience, you need to get the drying floor as hot as possible...
so avoid blowing the fan really hard and reducing the air temp.
use a lower fan blow speed in order to get the temperature up nice and high.
In our woodtek drier I aim for the air going through the chip to be around 70c if I can get it.
renewablejohn
Member
- Location
- lancs
Nothing to see its just a polytunnel covered in clear plastic rather than opaque plastic with concrete bog mats to allow use of a fork lift inside the tunnel and the critical aspect is the top ridge is not horizontal but has a 1 in 10 gradient so hot moist air is naturally vented out of the polytunnel. ie ridge height 1 mtr higher at one end then the other end in every 10 mtrs of length.
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Gerbert
Member
- Location
- Dutch biblebelt
I just store my woodchip outside under "toptex". It's a special tarp ment for potatoes. Make the heap pointy, throw the toptex on, water runs off but the moisture can breathe out.
Not cheap tarps but works out well.
Not cheap tarps but works out well.
But ideal of course in a shed, with the likes of Yorkshire/hit and miss boarding around .
Infact come to think of it , many yrs ago i worked on /converted Noel Edmunds Helicopter shed into a woodchip store .
Infact come to think of it , many yrs ago i worked on /converted Noel Edmunds Helicopter shed into a woodchip store .
hinchy
Member
- Location
- Derbyshire
Really considering a small drying floor using heat from the biomass to dry our own chip down further. (We’re self supplier woodsure certified etc.)
Have read up and unfortunately we’d need to have this heat ‘unmetered’ so that we aren’t claiming the RHI on it, due to the shenanigans of certain practices carried out in the early days.
But it still feels like a goer. I’ve heard from one person the ratio is about 1:7 for amount of fuel required to burn against amount of fuel you can dry. So 1m^3 produces the heat to dry 7m^3.
Thought would then be in the future post RHI you’d be able to take surgeons’ chip tipped then dried off and the only work required is a bit of shovelling. With a screener in there too.
Anyone doing something similar?
Have read up and unfortunately we’d need to have this heat ‘unmetered’ so that we aren’t claiming the RHI on it, due to the shenanigans of certain practices carried out in the early days.
But it still feels like a goer. I’ve heard from one person the ratio is about 1:7 for amount of fuel required to burn against amount of fuel you can dry. So 1m^3 produces the heat to dry 7m^3.
Thought would then be in the future post RHI you’d be able to take surgeons’ chip tipped then dried off and the only work required is a bit of shovelling. With a screener in there too.
Anyone doing something similar?