Undirectional / Linear Continuous Dry Kilns vs. Counter Flow Kilns

[ingo wallocha]

Hello Everyone,

This is my first post so be patient with me 

I work for Valutec Wood Dryers and we are out of Vancouver, Canada. Our head office is in Sweden. We are suppliers for softwood lumber dry kilns and the leading company in Europe. In Europe progressive or continuous kilns are pretty common since about 30 years. However, our approach is different to what is common in North America with the counter flow kilns. Unlike there our kilns have a unidirectional concept which means that the lumber moves through the kiln just in one direction.  We have doors and vents and zone the kiln into different climate zones so we are pretty flexible with what we can dry since it's like many small batch kilns drying in one line. Please click on this link for more information:

http://www.valutec.ca/products/continuous-kilns/tc-continuous-kiln/

My question now is what you as users and experts would think the advantages and disadvantages of both systems are so we can watch and learn.

You can visit our website www.valutec.ca if you want to know more.

I hope to get as many responds as possible  Thank you!

Regards,

Ingo

[HencoV]

Hi Ingo,

Welcome to the site


 It will be difficult to comment...one would need a solid experience and exposure to both technologies to identify all the advantages and disadvantages.

At first glance however, I would prefer Linear continuous. Generally because you have better control over the drying condition in each zone than what one would expect to find in Counter flow kilns. It should be easier to speed up drying with more controllable results in Linear vs Counter flow.  This said, counter flow should be more forgiving (but not more flexible).

[ingo wallocha]

Hello Henco,

Thanks for your reply. This is my feeling as well but I would like to have more hands on experience about the CDKs from users.

How are things in South Africa?

Regards,

Ingo