A History of "Our Wood Drying Kiln"

Well, once upon at time there was a city boy that grew up in the city.  Then he moved to Mount Ida, Arkansas and began the long process of building a homestead for he and his wife.  Its another long story, still in progress, but along the way I needed to clear a building site on the top of our hill.  Not wanting all the lumber, both Oak and Pine, to end up in a burn pile it was hauled to the sawer.  I started my search for a company or person that would dry my lumber.  I did internet searches, talked with everyone that would listen, and them more searches on internet boards.  I found lots of places that would saw up my lumber but no one or place that I could find could kiln dry it.

This started the "Wood Kiln Building Project".  If I was to use the lumber that was taken while clearing my building site I was going to need to kiln dry it myself.  That generated a whole new list of "issues".  Which type of kiln to build?  Sun dried, heat, dehumidification , the list went on.  After several weeks of research I decided on a Nyle L200 dehumidification kiln.  I purchased the kiln, fans, controls, exhaust fan and a set of plans.  Oh good, yet another building project to be implemented during the hot Arkansas summer.

Well it was a slow start.  The first task was to clear and level off enough ground for the kiln.  Rail Road ties, fill dirt, insulation and then the concrete slab.  Then the building frame, more insulation, lots of it.  Running underground power and installation of the dehumidification unit and its controls, fans and vents.  Then building the larger than life wooden door and mounting it.  Operational at last!

The kiln was ready for its first drying run.  2,000 BF of Red Oak loaded and stickered waiting for the controls to be set and the power applied.  "Click" went the switch, controls set as required for the first phase of the drying process.  At long last, with much effort and money my "free" lumber was being kiln dried.

After drying several kiln loads of lumber, the word about the wood kiln spread through the county.  People out of the blue, people that I did not know kept calling and asking me to kiln dry their lumber. At first I kept turning them all away, as I had all the lumber I needed to keep my wood kiln busy.  As my stack of wet lumber dwindled, the phone calls increased.  I finally gave in and dried a load for a neighbor and that opened the flood gates.

I found that there were others, like myself, that had taken hardwood trees down, had them sawed and now needed someone to dry it.  And from there the wood kiln business grew.  Not big by most standards, but for the most part the kiln is kept running.  There is always a trailer parked somewhere needing to be unloaded or loaded back with dry lumber.

Along the way I found the famous wood web site and found the time and money to attended the "Basics of Drying Hardwood Lumber" course as offered by the National Hardwood Lumber Association©.

The Nyle L200 is a great wood kiln for my uses.  The only problem so far was a control module failure caused by one of the many thunder storms passing through the area this year.  Now when thunder storms and lighting are moving this way, the circuit switch to the kiln is switched off.

Building the klin

Clearing the land, burning out the tree stumps.

 

Lots of hard manual work just to get this far on the project.