Imported kiln dry logs ?

[TimberCutterDartmoor]

Check this lot out

 

https://walkerslogs.co.uk/1120/

 

Kiln dried V Seasoned ???

 

Perhaps someone should do a video of poorly kiln dried verses well seasoned.

 

Taking the utter piss

 

Yep that video is UTTER 80110X

 

http://www.thelogpeople.co.uk/the-10-log-commandments/

Edited October 22, 2016 by TimberCutterDartmoor

[wicklamulla]

what percentage of moisture is considered appropriate for seasoned logs? Only reason i ask is i checked my own stacks lasts week and i got a reading of anywhere between 11%-18%. It was all felled, split and stacked in 2016.

[R5log]

And most are going off a meter costing about a tenner

[ash_smith123]

It's called marketing! I have 2 products, one I call seasoned that is an average of 30% moisture and one kiln dried that's all under 20% moisture. They both go in the kiln and just come out at different times. I'm not fooling anyone because I'm telling them exactly what they are getting. Doesn't matter if i call it seasoned and kiln dried or red wood and blue wood. But for the kiln dried I charge £25 per cubic metre more so why wouldn't I split the 2 products and charge more, It's just good business.

[Big J]

But if a supplier is selling dry wood all year round there's no need to

 

For sure the best customers will fill up spring/summer

 

I reckon that the reasons that it is so difficult to make money from the sale of firewood (and why firewood is often so very expensive as a primary means of heating) are the storage and handling implications of supplying dry firewood.

 

Model two different suppliers. Each supply 1500 cube logs (circa 700 tonnes roundwood?) annually. The supplier than only supplies green requires only the space to accommodate roundwood and freshly split logs, that do not need to be protected from the weather. The logs can either be split straight into the tipping vehicle/trailer or a forklift shovel can load them. It's very simple and requires fairly little space or equipment.

 

The supplier that supplies dry firewood must find space to accommodate 1500 cubic metres of firewood drying at any one time. That is also £40000 simply in the cost of the cordwood. A large barn to dry the firewood, box rotators to empty out the firewood, and additional difficulties arise when trying to deliver firewood and keep it dry. Quite often here near Edinburgh in winter, you won't have any dry weather for weeks on end.

 

My point is, if you could educate the public into taking fresh firewood, then the retailers would make more money and the customer would save. At the other end of the market, the current trend for kiln dried firewood is only viable with RHI or imported stock. In very few instances could anyone make any money without one of the other.

[Logged On]

Tried the 'education' route....

 

'Fall on deaf ears' springs to mind....

[Big J]

Tried the 'education' route....

 

'Fall on deaf ears' springs to mind....

 

This is the issue. I also reckon that ill education of customers (or indeed the customer's unwillingness to be educated|) is the most significant impediment to the firewood game being truly profitable in the UK. When you consider that every firewood customer should have a wood store, why are firewood retailers taking on the cost of storing firewood until it's dry, only for it to be transferred into a woodstore at the other end? And for the customers that regard it to be an unjustifiable expense, it's certainly going to be a lot less than the thousands spent on the stove installation.

 

We are in a privileged position at home, I'll admit. I have a sawmill, so have an unlimited amount of firewood. I have a lot of space to store firewood at home so that is what I do. We burn about 35 cube a year, so I have at least 35 cube at home drying at any one time. 20 cube is in a dry, covered store, the rest neatly stacked in lines scattered around the front of the house. It looks great and people regularly comment on it. Anyway, as said I know we are lucky, but we also burn more than almost anyone. So a 2x2x2m store is nothing and would be enough for 90% of consumers. Why spend £800 annually on 8 cube of firewood when you could spend £480 and know that regardless of weather or seasonal demand that you have it sat there waiting for you when you need it.

[richardwale]

It's called marketing! I have 2 products, one I call seasoned that is an average of 30% moisture and one kiln dried that's all under 20% moisture. They both go in the kiln and just come out at different times. I'm not fooling anyone because I'm telling them exactly what they are getting. Doesn't matter if i call it seasoned and kiln dried or red wood and blue wood. But for the kiln dried I charge £25 per cubic metre more so why wouldn't I split the 2 products and charge more, It's just good business.

 

But 30% isn't seasoned is it? Dry it to 25% and it is and then it's a only a few percent off the same moisture as kiln dried. If I was the customer and properly informed, I'd buy the seasoned wood over the kiln dried all day long, why wouldn't you? They burn the same at the end of the day...

[ash_smith123]

Why do you think you would make more money if you were selling unseasoned firewood?

I think It is viable to run a kiln and make money in firewood. The RHI is a nice bonus but if your first business model for example charges £60 per cubic metre for unseasoned firewood and my business model bought a kiln and dried the wood and sold it as kiln dried for £120 a cubic metre I would be £90k a year better off. Ok so I have to take the fuel cost of running the kiln out of that. If I bought softwood in and processed that for only for use in the kiln at an absolute maximum it would cost £15k in the year. So at the end of if I am £75k better off per year than your first business model.

I'm also supplying a quality product ready to burn that people want. Yes it would be nice to educate people into buying early but unfortunately that will never happen. You will always have the people on the morning of the first frost ringing asking if they can have a cubic metre of kiln dried, 10 bags of kindling, 5 boxes of firelighters and for us to stack it in there log store that afternoon.

[ash_smith123]

But 30% isn't seasoned is it? Dry it to 25% and it is and then it's a only a few percent off the same moisture as kiln dried. If I was the customer and properly informed, I'd buy the seasoned wood over the kiln dried all day long, why wouldn't you? They burn the same at the end of the day...

 

 

Exactly my point, it doesn't matter what you call it. Who says seasoned has to be under 25% to be called seasoned? Nobody, that's just what I've decided to call my product that is dried to 30% moisture. I could sell all my firewood and advertise it as kiln dried to an average of 30% because it's been in a kiln so I'm not lying. Who has said to call firewood kiln dried is has to be under 20%? No one.

You can only sell what you advertise!

 

Similar to the food companies selling products as organic... organic has a massive spectrum of meanings when it comes to food but anyone actually look into how organic these products are? Most people buy it because it has organic on the packaging, again it's called marketing!