Spent the weekend building and filling a #SolarKiln ... which is a thing for rapidly drying firewood without any additional fuel.
In Scotland, it can take a year or more to season wood. The idea here is to accelerate that process by increasing the temperature.
I knackered my back about a month ago loading pallets into our car. They were sodden, and weighed about 30kg each.
Anyway, I reckon the temperature in there will get up to ~35-40ºC this week, given our weather forecast.
I'll measure actual temperatures over the coming days and record them here.
Meanwhile, here's what the contraption looks like (trigger warning: it looks like a £30 Lidl greenhouse, 3 pallets, and half a tonne of wood.)
It's a #prototype, I suppose.We'll see how it goes.
The frame is tethered to the pallets and half a tonne of wood, and also guyed to the fence behind.
So it should withstand anything but the worst winter storm.
Worst thing that can happen is I have half a tonne of damp wood ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Day 1. Observed temperatures peaked at 22°C here.
Inside the woodstack the peak was 28°. That’s measured in the middle of the pile, 2 or 3 layers from the top. So well out of direct sunlight.
On the surface the temperature peaked at 39°C. Again I chose a spot out of direct sunlight.
Here's a graph of the data so far for today.
I am, obviously, not going to update this 24/7.
I *could* force the temperature higher by keeping the vents and door closed. But I need some ventilation to maintain airflow and give the moisture somewhere to go.
So the vents at the side are partially open, and the zippers either side of the door opened to the height of the pallets to draw air up and through it.
I'm measuring the temperature using one of these: https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/fantast-meat-thermometer-timer-digital-black-20103016/
Means I can stick the probe into the stack but keep the readout visible simply by opening the south vent.
So I don't lose too much heat making observations.
23 º at 11pm. Dark now, sun has long gone.
That's a result. It's actually quite chilly now in the garden, mostly because of the breeze.
But we are still cooking wood.
At this rate, a couple of months will be enough. Don't want it to be too dry or it will just be kindling.
I'm going to bed now, and have no desire to hack an IKEA thermometer to send me data over SMS or whatever overnight.
We'll just have to infer what's going on between now and then.
No power. It needs to do the job itself.
David O'Brien
Craig Mcgee