Hampton Lumber Mill
Portland, OR
Hampton Lumber Mill in Willamina, Oregon is a large producer of dimensional lumber for the building industry, producing 500 million board feet per year, with 40% being kiln dried. The MacMiller boiler team noted that they employed an old Autoflame system on an old Cleaver Brooks burner from the ‘70’s that was highly inefficient. So, we visited the site and shared our solution for updating the controls and providing a new burner.
Our team worked with the Oregon Energy Trust to calculate savings that the project would produce – the result allowed for a 70% subsidy of the project by the energy trust! This reduced energy usage came primarily from providing better burner turndown and reducing the need to dump steam in unused kilns. Hampton has run the new system for a couple of kiln runs, and we are seeing better performance without the need to run kilns that aren’t loaded.