And Now, For Something Completely Different

The corn is all picked, the basement is full of firewood, and while there is still the outside boiler to finish cutting firewood for, equipment to put away and some manure to haul out, That Andy is turning to thoughts of time in the wood shop.  He has an order for a lawyer's style bookcase of cherry from someone's property.  He sawed their small logs this spring and let them air dry over the summer.  Slow and natural drying is least stressful on lumber.  Now that he's almost ready to work with it, the lumber needs some final drying to get down to a moisture content that will be stable when in someone's house.

lumber stacked to dry

This is the small finishing kiln Andy built within the shop.  It holds more than enough lumber to complete almost any project at one time.

Heating system to dry lumber

The heat source is some reclaimed baseboard hot water runs left from a renovation project.  The hot water is pulled off the main heat exchanger he built which heats the whole shop.  The heat from the water in the pipe transfers to the fins of the heat run and radiates off, rising up through the layers of lumber, and drying the wood in a gentle manner.  The source of all this hot water is our outside wood boiler. Andy has it plumbed to heat my wool shop and his wood shop, but we also pull some extra 'free' heat off it to bring the water heater up to temp faster for washing wool, and now it gives heat to this little kiln, too.

Breathing holes

A couple of holes in the top, far corner of the space will allow for hot air to vent out and carry humidity with it.

Sealed shut, and working

Simple design, uses 'free' energy, and works quietly all the time without any input from him.

Now if I could just find a way to get wool to wash itself.