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When sawmill plant manager Rod Pidskalny and the team at Spruce Products Limited (SPL) in Swan River, Man., went looking to replace two aging batch kilns, they had a few top-of-mind considerations.
First, Pidskalny will tell you, they wanted to address a bottleneck at the dryer. Their 50 mmbf SPF mill was crunched with the two batch kilns handling about 44 mmbf, and the rest sold as rough green lumber.
Second, SPL did not want the expense of replacing or adding to their existing boiler system. The sawmill and dryers are heated exclusively by three biomass boilers running off sawdust from the mill.
Third, the new drying system needed to function efficiently in their central Manitoba climate, where temperatures regularly dip below -35 C in the winters.
Pidskalny’s team were keen to explore continuous dry kiln (CDK) technology, but soon ruled out traditional CDKs without door closures, fearing they would lose efficiency in the harsh winters. Shopping around brought them to a custom solution.
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