Storage and drying
Natural Seasoning of round wood
Once harvested, timber is gathered by our lightweight agile
forwarder and stacked at the roadside of the woodland where the
timber has been felled. To reduce the chance of
ground moisture wicking up in to the woodfuel, the timber is placed
on load bearing beams to keep the drying wood above the
ground. This approach also reduces the risk of the timber
being contaminated by grit and soil.
The drying stacks are located away from the drip-line
growing of trees in exposed, sunny locations. The objective
being to maximise the timbers' opportunity to be dried by both the
wind and sun. The stacked timbers are orientated in line with
the prevailing winds direction, maximising air flow through the
stack.
Indoor storage of seasoned wood chip
The storage of seasoned fuel chip in covered buildings is
essential to ensure continuity of supply (of wood chip fuel) for
heat demand customers, during periods of inclement
weather.
Seasoned timber stacks are set out on hard concrete stands (in
distribution hubs) outside of the covered storage buildings.
This timber acts as a fuel reserve that can be chipped into the
covered building, when fuel chip stock levels become low and access
to timber stacked in woodlands is difficult due to weather
conditions.
Outdoor drying and storage of wood chip
Fuel Chip Ltd's sister company Practicality Brown generates high
volumes of woodchip from one of its core business, that of
commercial mechanised vegetation and tree clearance project
work.
The cleared vegetation and the trees felled during our project
work are often chipped on the project site as part of the
operational process. As a consequence our 'whole tree chip'
has a high moisture content (wet). This wet chip is blown
directly from the chipping machine into one of our fleet of
hook-bins to prevent contamination by soil or gravel.
The hook-bins with wet chip are transported back to one of our
regional distribution / storage hubs and are tipped outside onto a
concrete hard standing.
Force Drying Facility
To accelerate the drying process, especially during winter
months, We now have the use of 2 transportable biomass drying units
with a capacity to dry up to 150M3 per day.
These bespoke state of the art biomass drying plants were
commissioned in Summer 2014 and now allow us to both control
moisture content accurately and to react quickly to new supply
contracts.
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