Kesla: McCauley Wood Fuels purchases C645T woodchipper

VERSATILITY, build quality and local support should be key considerations for any company when choosing new equipment – and that’s certainly true for McCauley Wood Fuels.

A woodfuel supply business based in County Leitrim in the north-west of Ireland, the company was certified by the national Wood Fuel Quality Assurance (WFQA) scheme in 2012 and supplies its certified wood fuels throughout the North-West and Midlands region of Ireland. Customers range from domestic users to large commercial and industrial firms.

McCauley Wood Fuels started processing firewood in 2007 to complement the existing landscaping business. Its first move into the woodfuels industry was in 2009 when it bought a small woodchipper capable of producing a chip for biomass boilers. 2011 saw diversification of the farm with 30 per cent of the land planted with birch and alder trees, which will eventually feed into the wood supply side.

To understand the potential for the business, it’s important to understand the fuel infrastructure in the region.

“There is no mains gas supply in the north-west of Ireland,” explained company director Kenny McCauley. “The lack of this infrastructure is an obstacle to investment by energy-intensive businesses. By developing the supply of high-quality woodfuels we can potentially help to fill that void and assist in the delivery of the economic development goals for the region.”

Typical users of the woodfuels produced by McCauley Wood Fuels are process heating, the agricultural industry, leisure centres, hospitals and care homes.

Kenny said: “Some of our customers are reporting savings of up to €10,000 per year on fuel costs and a reduction in CO2 emissions of between 120 and 150 tonnes per year.”

As the woodfuels business expanded, the company had to upgrade its existing equipment to help cope with growing demand for its products and ensure it was able to supply a woodfuel of the quality required by its customers.

“Up to 2018 we had been using a drum-type chipper and we liked the machine,” said Kenny. “We were looking for a similar machine that would allow us to process a higher capacity and produce a high-quality finished product.

“Support from a local agent was also a big factor for us when we were choosing a supplier.”

Having looked at the options available, McCauley opted for a Kesla C645T woodchipper with an on-board 305T telescopic crane. The unit is mounted on a chassis which is then towed behind a tractor and powered by the tractor’s PTO.

Up to 2019, McCauley Wood Fuels processed 10,000 tonnes per year. Its investment in the Kesla equipment has helped the business increase capacity to 40,000 tonnes per year.

“The woodchipper is in its fifth season with us now and we’re very happy with it,” said Kenny. “We looked at a number of different manufacturers, but the thing that stood out about Kesla was they were willing to listen to us and find out about our business and what we needed.

“We were familiar with Kesla, having operated their cranes for a number of years before we bought the chipper, so we knew about the quality of the machines.

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“The build quality is also a huge part of our decision to use their equipment. We knew from the cranes that we had worked with previously that the design is very robust and were sure that it would follow through to the chipper that we now use. That has proved to be the case and that build quality allows us to easily cope with peaking loads that are a regular feature of our business, and for anyone working in this industry.”

The customer base that McCauley Wood Fuels supplies is diverse, so it needed a machine that could be quickly and easily changed and adapted based on the feed material and the desired final product specification. 

“Kesla were genuinely interested in finding out not only what we wanted the machine to do today, but where the business was going in five years,” said Kenny. “It seemed that they were as focused on future-proofing our business as we were and that was a big plus for us.”

During the machine-specification process, Kesla worked with Kenny and the team to help them configure the machine to suit their needs. This involved integrating the Kesla chipper and crane onto a single chassis.

Kenny said: “We were able to specify the orientation that would suit us best and both the chipper and the crane work off a single control system called the Kesla ProChipper, which makes life much easier for the operator.”

The machine’s versatility was a key selling point, such as with the ease of changing screens to suit individual customer requirements. Another important element has been the ability to design custom screens to respond to very specific customer needs.

“That has definitely helped us win more business from existing customers as well as opening up new opportunities for us,” said Kenny.

Cost is always a factor when looking at a new machine, but rather than just look at the initial purchase price, Kenny and the team took a broader view.

“Of course we looked at the purchase cost, but we took that in the round along with ongoing maintenance costs, speed and ease of maintenance and whether we could be sure of the final product quality for a prolonged period of time” he said. “Changing blades, adjusting settings on blades, changing screens – all of that can be done very quickly on the Kesla machine compared to some of the other options we looked at.”

The support provided to McCauley Wood Fuels by the local Kesla distributor was another key consideration for Kenny. That distributor is Oakleaf Forestry, based in County Tyrone, which had worked with McCauley before. 

Kenny McCauley (Image: Supplied)

“Joe at Oakleaf Forestry has been a great support to us,” Kenny said. “It’s important to have someone in country, in the same time zone as you when you have a breakdown on a Saturday evening. You have someone you’re able to text or WhatsApp or call at very short notice, and you can be assured that by Monday morning there’s a part on order and it’s likely to be with you for the following day – which in the nature of this business, particularly in the winter months when we would have significant customer demands, is very important.”

The McCauley Wood Fuels business has enjoyed some great success in recent years, and a continuing focus on investing in new equipment and exploring new opportunities means the future looks bright. As for the experience of working with the Kesla equipment, there are a number of things that stand out for Kenny.

He said: “We’re able to produce significantly higher quantities of a very high-quality product in much less time than we were used to. And the support we get from Kesla and its local partner to make sure we get parts as and when we need them just means it’s a relationship that works very well. I feel I’m getting value for money.”