Why buy and burn ‘kiln dried’ logs?

 

'Kiln dried' meaning:  dried in a kiln, usually with forced hot air which is either electrically powered heater or dehumidifier or a big log burning hot air heater and controlled ventilation.  The logs produced will have a moisture content of less than 20%.

 

Our logs are air dried first and then placed in our bespoke solar powered drying kilns. They are then put in our covered dry storage area before being sold . They are guaranteed to have a moisture content of less than 20%. The difference being, we only use the suns power to heat the kiln, so no logs are burnt or fossil fuels or used to heat the kiln.

 

Advantages of our very low moisture content logs :

 

•Easy to light

•Clean burn

•More energy output per log

•Last longer

•High output even with your stove turned down

•Locally sourced  

•Competitive price because no costly drying process

 

How to get the best from your low moisture logs:

 

•Once your logs are alight, it is important to control the burn otherwise you will have a very hot, fast burning fire.

•Get the fire going until you have a good bed of embers going.

•Put three more logs on top and wait until they are alight before turning the vent to low. The fire will burn gently for hours, pumping out heat.

•When that has burned down to embers, put three more logs on top, open the air vents to get it burning well then shut it all down once again.

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With an open fire, you need to control the size of the fire. Putting lots of logs on will make a fast burning and very hot fire. By burning only two or three logs at a time you will lower the intensity of the fire and due to the logs being kiln dried they will throw out more heat than seasoned logs will and in a more controlled and slower way.

 

Burning seasoned logs :

 

The moisture content of seasoned logs can be quite variable, generally between 18% and 50%, depending on how long and how they have been seasoned. This moisture has to be boiled off so a lot of heat is lost doing so.

•The higher the moisture content, the more difficult the logs are to light, they tend to smoke and smolder and blacken the stove glass

• Increased amounts of corrosive tars are deposited in the flue due to the condensing steam which can cause damage and increase the risk of a chimney fire

•Less energy output per log

•The fire needs to be kept burning fast to evaporate the water in the logs which would otherwise snuff out the fire.