Cooker Kills Pests In Firewood

Cooker Kills Pests In Firewood WOODLOT EQUIPMENT Miscellaneous 32-5-10 Jon Bell had trouble with beetles infesting firewood cut from pine trees. He built a "wood cooker" on wheels that "sterilizes" the firewood so it can be sold instead of going to waste. "We get infestations of the beetle from time to time, and in the past we could spray infested wood with a chemical," explains Bell. "We can't use it any more so it often goes to waste." Bell made a shed that pulls loads of wood in on a track, heats it up, and then pulls it out the other side. "I discovered the pallet industry uses hot ovens to sterilize their new shipping pallets," he explains. "I adapted this idea using heat from a wood stove. I can process and utilize wood I cut and be certain the beetles are dead and won't spread to other trees." Bell built his cooker on an old trailer frame. The galvanized tin covered shed is 7 by 11 ft., big enough to hold about 2/3 cord of wood. The walls are insulated with R19 fiberglass and the ceiling with R-30. To handle and hold the heat, he lined the inside of the shed with sheet rock. A wood stove made from a 55-gal. barrel provides heat. The stove is mounted through the wall with the door outside the shed. This allows Bell to feed the fire and control the heat level without opening the door of the shed. "Electric fans stir the heated air and transfer heat evenly and efficiently to the wood," explains Bell. "Temperatures are checked with oven thermometers placed high and low inside. I built it for about $300 using mostly recycled materials." Bell heats the shed until the lower thermometer reads 170 degrees and the upper thermometer reads 225 degrees. He keeps the fire going for several hours before letting it die down and letting the wood gradually cool. "By the next morning, the room is still more than 90 degrees, and the heat has killed all the beetles under the bark," he says. "I'm careful not to let the room temperature rise above 250 degrees for safety." Bell says he can load, cook and unload a batch every 24 hours. Building the cooker on a trailer has come in handy. When friends have wood to cook, he simply pulls it to their site. Four additional cookers are being built, and Bell hopes more will follow. He thinks his cooker would be equally useful in other areas where wood is being destroyed because of insect pest infestations. "The firewood that I cook isn't smoked or charred," he says. "It's perfectly usable. It doesn't dry the wood; that wasn't its purpose. It kills the bugs." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Jon Bell, P.O. Box 344, Lyons, Colorado 80540 (ph 303 747-2611; jonbell@indra.com).

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