If you want to be a good woodworking designer or do some business in the wood fields, there is always a concern for you, that is wood drying, the nature wood is with a high moisture content (hereafter use MC for short), and it need be treated before getting ready for the applications.
We have already talked about some ideas about the MC required for different usages like for outdoor fences and floor it is about 15%, while house furniture or decorations need a MC lower than 10%, you could refer the passages before for more ideas, After all, what we want to clarify i s wood drying is a must processing.
We have many different ways to dry the wood, in fact to better and efficiently dry wood, technicians have developed many technologies for wood kilns including conventional kilns, solar kilns, dehumidifier kilns, vacuum kilns etc. They are used in factories of different scales and regions.
All these are the background for the topic today which is the cost of wood drying, as end users or someone who is willing to join the wood drying field , we are more curious about this. As per this need we have done a questionnaire for someone who is doing in the wood drying filed, and now let’s look into some typical answers.
Scott Smith from USA with a dehumidifier Kiln : Lots of variables can go into the answer. A large conventional kiln is extremely efficient at drying 35MBF of the same species / thickness / MC% economically. So if you’re a large volume hardwood customer utilizing large capacity conventional kilns, the price of .20 – .30 per bd ft is reasonable. However, us little guys running small kilns do not have the efficiencies of scale that the high volume dryers do. Years ago when I started kiln drying, Professor Gene Wengert suggested that a good value to use was $25.00 per day per 1MBF. Based on kiln design for 4MBF and a 40 day run for green 4/4 oak, that works out to be $1.00 per board foot. Factoring in labor costs, energy, maintenance and inflation on top of that; I charge $1.30 per bd ft for 4/4 oak. Fast drying species such as pine and poplar may be less.
Bob Kleinhans From Poland with a conventional kilns : I’m charging 200€/ CBM for lumber that has been air dried below 20% , Taking wood from green ( est. 40-50% MC) to 7% MC takes around 40-45 days. hardwood can’t loose more than 2-3% a day, if it goes faster than that it will damage the wood.
David Zhushma From New Zealand with a vacuum dryer : $.10 a board ft a day. Vacuum Kiln.That way the customer is incentivized to let the wood air-dry first. If they bring it green, it costs more. The thicker the lumber, the more it costs. This also allows me to better gauge profits from the kiln.
In this research, We collected answers from 40 more countries,and below is the conculsions.
1 、wood drying is a costly process, it makes up nearly 30% of the ready wood value the charge range is from 100USD-400 USD/ CBM, even some developing country like Nigeria, this charge is above 100USD.
2 、The price is related to the drying speed and MC, to avoid this question, some kiln owners prefer to charge by drying days, In other wards, the faster drying the lower cost.
3 、Vacuum wood drying are more and more preferred in the small wood drying for the speed and quality, for these owners their labor payment is much lower than the traditional one, Meanwhile for large wood drying factory, the conventional kilns are better for mass wood drying.
Welcome to contact Shuowei for a customized wood drying kiln solutions, and feel free to leave your drying cost here, we would like to exchange ideas with any friends.
