I've never used a kiln but have been reading around methods used. Until now, I've brought air-dried boards into the house (with central heating) and allowed them to reduce moisture content from about 20-18% to 10% before using.
I'm thinking to bring a 6' x 2' milled air-dried log home and trying to reduce its MC down to 10% in a shed before bringing individual boards into the house to work on. At some point, I'd also like to try a few large slabs for tables.
From what I can see, kilning usually starts a fair way above an air-dried state, after free water has left the wood (so the wood's maybe at about 30% MC?). So there's a fair bit more work to do in the kiln before it reaches typical air-dried MC, and therefore most kilns have far more work to do to get down to 10% MC than they would if just drying wood that's already air-dried).
If that's correct, can anyone point me to a really simple DIY kiln design that'll only have to reduce from about 20 to 10% MC? If I had more space, I'd just bring the whole log into the house, which would be the simplest solution.
Hope this makes sense.
C