How often do you use your kiln?

[bnca]

Hello,

The question is how often do you fire your kiln a week?

Let’s say I want to bisque fire Monday and want to get a glaze firing going Wednesday after unloading the bisque ware. Is this too much strain on my kiln too fast?

 

Sorry if this seems dumb lol, this is my first year firing my own kiln rather than at school. 

[Bill Kielb]

Around the holidays In the studio we use them non stop so almost no rest. Two of the cone arts have over 1000 firings on them and are in great shape. Still need elements every 150 firings or so though.

During these periods I used to thermal scan them while they were running several time per week and change questionable relays and wire ends etc.... before they went bad just to try and make sure no firing was interrupted mid stream.

Kilns are tough they can take a beating for sure, but the parts will wear out from continuous use and require attention.  Not likely a home kiln would see this kind of load.

[neilestrick]

No worries about over-using it. Once you get it unloaded, you can load it back up and fire it again. Wear and tear is about number of firings, not frequency of firing. I've got one kiln with over 1,500 firings on it- I sometimes fire it 150 times a year. 

[liambesaw]

I fire twice pretty much every weekend

[Jhon]

During the summer we fire our kilns 3 times a week.  During the winter twice a week is more normal as all our yearly maintenance items are set up for the winter so I make less work.  There have been times where our kilns have been opened at 250*F and reloaded as soon as the shelves cooled off.

When I worked at a collage studio most of there electric kilns were fired 4 or 5 times a week.  

[Russ]

I fire mine when i get it full. Takes me a month or so to fill it. I just did a bisque firing with around 450 pieces. I used around 550lbs of clay. Im not in a hurry like so many other people so i built a fairly large kiln

[oldlady]

brica, the kiln can take it but can you reasonably expect to unload the bisque, glaze it all and start the firing on the same day?    maybe so if it is a small kiln.   let us know how it works out

[Callie Beller Diesel]

That’s my usual turnaround in a 7 cu ft kiln. No issues so far. 

[Stephen]

We have 2 kilns so when we have a real tight turn around we can lessen the down time. We don't run them at the same time but kick in one as soon as the other is ramping down.