Every sawmill that has supplied the Japanese market can testify about the high quality standards they face. This is apparent at the Misawa Homes sawmill in Mikkeli, Finland, whose entire production is exported to Japan for processing into glulam used in the frames of the approximately 7,000 houses the company builds every year.

One of Europe's most modern facilities for the manufacture of glulam is located in Sachsenburg in the Austrian Alps. The sawmill belongs to the family-owned Hasslacher group och and is home to the two first modern continuous kilns delivered by Valutec to the country.

For us at Valutec it’s sometimes surprising to learn what kind of problems our customers encounter with their existing drying equipment.

One such issue, that recently was highlighted in a report from CTI is kiln condensate. Condensate that needs to be treated and recycled which might result in extra work and additional costs.

Almost to the day it’s now 3 years ago since I wrote a small story about my family’s and my arrival in Canada. We’ve experienced so much during that time that I could write a book about it. Fortunately, so far it has been a success story which wasn’t at all clear when our journey started. As you can imagine it was a pretty bold move to relocate from Germany to Canada with my wife and three young kids, especially since in terms of Valutec Continuous Kilns, it was uncharted territory.