San Group, a fully integrated Canadian forestry company with mills and remanufacturing facilities in British Columbia, recently completed upgrades valued at $100 million to the company’s facilities at Port Alberni. The improvements include four lumber dry kilns supplied by Brunner-Hildebrand Lumber Dry Kiln Co.
San Group specializes in harvesting and milling Douglas fir, hemlock, and Western red cedar lumber products that are exported to more than 25 countries, serving builders and homeowners both domestic and abroad.
The company’s product portfolio includes dimensional lumber, siding, decking, fencing, and many other products for the homebuilding industry. San Group takes pride in carefully overseeing every step of the supply chain — ‘From Harvest to Home.’
San Group has several mills at Port Alberni, which is located in the interior of Vancouver Island at the head of Alberni Inlet and is a deep sea port.
The improvements to the company’s facilities at Port Alberni have made it one of the most technologically advanced mills in North America, according to San Group. The focus was on state-of-the-art technology to produce high quality lumber products the most efficient way possible.
The upgrades included four new kilns to adapt kiln capacity to the lumber output of the new sawmill. Brunner-Hildebrand was selected to supply the track-loaded kilns after San Group did a careful evaluation of dry kiln manufacturers.
The new Brunner-Hildebrand kilns at Port Alberni increase the sawmill’s kiln-drying production to a holding capacity of 400,000 board feet. Drive-through operation helps keep loading and unloading time as short as possible. Stainless steel heating coils, high-grade fan units with heat-resistant motors, and high pressure spraying units make for energy-efficient drying and premium lumber grade.
The new kilns are controlled by B-Vector, Brunner-Hildebrand’s latest kiln dryer control software. The system is capable of controlling up to 32 kiln dryers independently and simultaneously, showing all relevant parameters of the drying process on-screen. Remote control of the kilns by operators may easily be accomplished via computer network.
Brunner-Hildebrand is a German company with more than 60 years of experience and a history of 15,000 kiln dryer installations all over the world.
Brunner-Hildebrand serves the U.S. and Canadian market from its branch in Nashville, Tennessee, and also with the help and support of a Canadian partner, BEP Engineering Services Ltd. in Surrey, British Columbia. BEP also was involved in the building and sawline design engineering of the San Group project.
For more information about Brunner-Hildebrand lumber dry kilns, visit www.bhl-drykilns.com, email info@brunner-hildebrand.com, or call the Nashville office at (615) 662-0745.
