A small example of worthwhile forward planning

[Joeboy]

SWMBO & I were looking at secondhand chest freezers back home while we were in Turkey. Every one she enquired on was gone or no reply. To cheer her up I said 'don't worry it will come when it's time and we are heading home'.

Sure enough, on the last day she enquired on a Zanussi medium sized white chest freezer for £30 c/w basket. Just picked it up. Absolute cracker and she can now have the drawer & a half back I had on loan in the garage freezer for frozen chilli's...

Very happy and feel like a grown up!

[Andy]

...apart from the embodied energy of the kiln! Not sure leaving a kitchen electric oven full of wood on low (with the door open?) would go down well here...

I was thinking more along the lines of a box with a fan and maybe electric heater to lower the humidity of the air. Or a box with a dehumidifier in it. These would run off the spare solar.

You should be able to lower the humidity quite a bit. The box would have quite low impact compared to the amount of extra energy you get out of the wood when burning it.

People have even made them with Perspex windows using solar gain. Just I’m not sure how effective that would be in scotland.

[Oldgreybeard]

Years ago, when we used a wood burner for pretty much all our heating and hot water, I used a polytunnel to dry wood. Worked exceptionally well, as long as the ends were kept partially open. I made a high level framed opening at the closed end of the tunnel, about half the size of the door at the other end, and left the door propped open pretty all the time. I raised the logs off the floor on a double layer of pallets down both sides of the polytunnel, so air could get underneath the stacks.

This would easily get the moisture content right down over a summer, even when stacked with relatively wet logs during the late spring. The amount of moisture driven off was amazing, it was common to see the inside of the tunnel wet with condensation first thing in the morning, where the moisture driven out of the warm logs had condensed on the plastic overnight.

[Stinsy]

I've seen people drying out firewood with a makeshift "polytunnel" that has a heater at one end and a dehumidifier at the other.

Great if you have excess solar, you could even use a "diverter" to power the heater!

[Mr Gus]

Stinsy, many moons ago when we fitted our wood cage trolleies in the conservatory, a few weeks of high temps would boil the water out of them, a bit of airflow (windows) & a wall mounted can pushing by air out the door, ..I'd question the need for dehumidifier if the set up is good, ..when I was a teen working in the glasshouse, I stayed out of the poly tunnel as that was worse on a hot day, "hot lungs" ...no wonder I'm a winter sports fan.

[Andy]

Didn’t Joe say he was getting a polytunnnel. Will it be for veg or wood

[Joeboy]

Didn’t Joe say he was getting a polytunnnel. Will it be for veg or wood

Veg, I hope!

[Oldgreybeard]

The polytunnel I set up for wood drying was when we were still living down in West Cornwall, back in the 1980's. That was about as wet a climate as we get south of the border, I think, and logs dried out very quickly without any need for heat, fans, etc. The temperature in that polytunnel got stupidly hot whenever the sun was out, even with the door open and my make shift vent opening at the other end. What used to happen would be that the logs would soak up the heat whenever the sun was out, then sit there literally steaming as the air cooled in the evening.

We ran the house on the proceeds of the 1987 "Great Storm" for about 3 years - my brother had a contract with SWEB for clearing fallen trees from power lines, and got to keep all the wood as a bonus. The verges on both sides of the mile long track leading to my mother's farm were stacked with timber, hundreds of tonnes of it. He built a new Dutch barn, with a floor of pallets, just to season firewood from that storm. He employed one bloke full time for a year doing nothing other than cutting firewood from the mountain of free trees that he'd acquired from that one storm.

[Mr Gus]

Joe.
I know it's Scotland, *but* please, when planning ground prep for a polytunnel...

Think about the extreme temperatures that erupt in these things, ..so plan for non abrasive roll down exterior sharing solutions before it becomes awkward to retrofit based on location.
Consider a forced air "cool sink" running a decent size can to create a positive pressure flow that means you can accommodate more delicate plants in various growing seasons & assist you not running in, dumping a tonne of water on the ground in an attempt to cool (perhaps are an open surface drainable evaporation tank for can air to blow & assist via that fan & beat / are to humidity as required.

Create insect proof mesh door shields that allow the airflow you created to work without having to leggit at all hours to beat the heat.

A tesla 3 glass roof is a mini polytunnel, doesn't take much to cook, ..cooking = hell to work in.

Ours were akin to working in iraq, no air escape beyond the first 5 feet of the open ends, made our townhouse look appealing by contrast.

Bodgineer it matey, maybe a wee bit more solar for a fan, or which I would say a well coiled motor, metal blade 20 inch fan with 3 speeds would be my starter for 10.

[Joeboy]

Joe.
I know it's Scotland, *but* please, when planning ground prep for a polytunnel...

Think about the extreme temperatures that erupt in these things, ..so plan for non abrasive roll down exterior sharing solutions before it becomes awkward to retrofit based on location.
Consider a forced air "cool sink" running a decent size can to create a positive pressure flow that means you can accommodate more delicate plants in various growing seasons & assist you not running in, dumping a tonne of water on the ground in an attempt to cool (perhaps are an open surface drainable evaporation tank for can air to blow & assist via that fan & beat / are to humidity as required.

Create insect proof mesh door shields that allow the airflow you created to work without having to leggit at all hours to beat the heat.

A tesla 3 glass roof is a mini polytunnel, doesn't take much to cook, ..cooking = hell to work in.

Ours were akin to working in iraq, no air escape beyond the first 5 feet of the open ends, made our townhouse look appealing by contrast.

Bodgineer it matey, maybe a wee bit more solar for a fan, or which I would say a well coiled motor, metal blade 20 inch fan with 3 speeds would be my starter for 10.

Thanks gus, I will pay due heed to your suggestions, cheers! The new secondhand Zanussi chest freezer is heading down to the cabin tomorrow. I can then begin the excellent task of filling it for Winter.