Associated Timber Services Ltd (ATS) is investing nearly £1m in a biomass boiler and new kilns.
The Cathield kilns, will double drying capacity at its Sewston mill to 750m³ per month. Existing and new kilns will be heated by an Austrian Froling biomass-fuelled boiler, saving the company £250,000 annually in fuel bills (oil).
The company is currently kilning lots of African hardwood due to the closure of kilns in Africa, which will generate an estimated £300,000-plus of extra turnover.
ATS’s Andy Lodowski says the whole project, funded by the company and Barclays, should increase total turnover by over £500,000. ATS is also getting into selling chips for woodfuel.
The new boiler’s annual consumption will be around 800 tonnes of wood waste, but ATS produces 3,000 tonnes a year and already has significant tonnage in storage, so it will sell the remainder and is also planning to collect green wood waste from other companies to dry and sell on.
Initially ATS is using a hired chipper to see how the business pans out, but expects to buy its own in the longer term.
