Found A Kiln

[The WoodButcher]

Hi Everybody, it's been awhile. All this time I've been gonna build a solor kiln. I just went for a little ride just to get away from the house and wasn't gone 3 minutes and I spotted something in a field accross the street, looked like a solor kiln . Well I drove up to it and sure enough it's a kiln :eusa_danc. I found a house about an 1/8 of a mile away, went and knocked on the door and talked to the owner. Just so happens he has been looking for a nearby sawmill to get his logs milled. Ain't it funny how things work out sometimes:icon_chee. He said he would dry my lumber for a 70/30 split on the lumber. Does this sound fair to you all? I think it's a reasonable deal. Anyway, I'm gonna try it and see how the kiln works, if it does a good job I may have to build my own.

 

[Gotcha6]

I'd let him dry it & avoid building my own unless you have the time to tend it. Not sure about the 70/30 thing. Someone else may have ideas about that. There are several guys with kilns on this site that should be able to give you advice on that deal. Sounds like you have a good setup, though, if you two can work it out. :icon_thum

 

[thesource]

I recently had some 5/4 cherry dried. 3500 BF, and was charged $130.00 per thousand BF. Crunch a few numbers to see if 70/30 works close to this price. Smaller quantities would probably cost a little more. The convenience of "across the street" is huge though, regardless of cost.

 

[Gotcha6]

At that price for drying, and a 70/30 split, you'd have to get $186 per thousand more for your dried lumber to sell it at a break even on the drying. You'd net back 700 bd. ft. of what you sent to dry for the cost of drying ($130.00/0.7 mbdft.). Allowing for drying waste, can you do it? Who gets the culls & splits?