Imported kiln dry logs ?

[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.

[Logged On]

Tried the 'education' route....

 

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

[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!

[R5log]

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.

 

 

Once you have built up your stock £20k say

You sell some, u buy some keep your stock roughly the same

[ash_smith123]

We always try to have about 100/150 dry at any one time to have a buffer. Kilns turn around 68 cube a week. If you wanted to you can run hardly any dry stock and just sell when the kilns are emptied

[Paul in the woods]

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!

 

Organic food in the UK is certified by one of a few organisations though, so you at least have some idea what organic means.

 

I would also be curious to know what say Trading Standards would say about "Seasoned Wood" being sold that's 30% mc when I would have thought the average buyer would view it as 25% or less?