Having the facility to dry logs in a matter of days, not years, has completely revolutionised their process.
Walwyn Court has a log fuelled biomass boiler that requires 12 tonnes of fuel a year, to heat and supply domestic hot water to the house, two apartments and an office block.
To save on fuel costs, whole tree trunks are delivered to site and processed into 3 foot long split logs, which are stored in potato boxes and left to air dry naturally.
To speed up the natural seasoning process of drying wood which can take two years. A wood drying kiln was installed, which consists of a wood fuelled, 64kW F55CV, hot air blower and an insulated, 20ft ISO container, plus a sophisticated computerised monitoring system, that measures the temperature of the air leaving the heater plus the air temperature and the humidity in the container. The container can accommodate eight potato boxes, each 1828 x 1193 x 965mm.
How it works
The Wood Heater sucks air from inside the drying chamber, heats it and blows it into the top of the chamber.
Recirculation system
The heated air is blown into the drying chamber, circulated, then returned to the Zero Wood Heater creating a closed loop, reheating the air and forcing the temperature higher and higher.
Automatic Control (Zero Kiln Control)
As air returns to the heater it is monitored for moisture content and when it reaches a given saturation point the wet air is redirected to outside of the container. The heater draws drier air from outside, when the sensor detects that the air in the container is dry enough it closes the vent and the air is circulated in a closed loop until it again reaches saturation point and the process starts again. The system also includes an overheat sensor so if system gets too hot the system dumps heat until back within set points.
This process of heating and venting the moisture at the optimum time makes the process as efficient as possible.
Key Features
- The system comprises of a wood fuelled F55CV (64kW) hot air blower forcing air into an insulated, 20ft, ISO container which can accommodate 8 potato crates full of loose logs.
