Thread: mini wood kiln from Logosol, anyone?

Have no knowledge of this one, but check out the timber sub-forum, there have been heaps of home made kilns built over the years and details posted.

Originally Posted by Albert

I have always wanted a kiln in my workshop so I have more freedom of buying what wood I like and dry them myself, yes it will consume lots of power but hey, when you can dry your own timber, its kinda neat.

Logosol from Sweden sells this kind of kiln for 1300 Euro for a 4kw unit, insulation box for 500 Euro,

In Oz the insulated box costs $909 (E631) which buys a considerably larger amount of insulation panel, and the 4kW drier costs ($2500)

4kw makes it $1 an hour to run here in WA.
The claim is it will dry a kiln full of timber like spruce in a week but the higher density of Aussie hardwoods means it will take probably twice as long.
Given the price of the unit, the small volume of wood and the running costs of $24/day, $168/week this means the wood has to be VERY valuable to warrant spending that sort of money.
I expect the unit will be relatively smart and take ambient temps into account so it won't run continuously @ 4kW but the capital cost is still very high,

In WA and most of Australia, while a insulated box helps it's not essential (the June average high for Perth was 21º and our average low was 10º) so it makes more sense to use solar power for heating.

Solar kilns still need electrical power for fans and ~1.5kW of fan power can dry a 20ft shipping container volume worth of timber in about two weeks.
OK not everyone has room for a container in their back yard but small fast kilns can be made for very little money.