investment against return scale for wood processing

[openspaceman]

I done some calculations a few years ago on how much I would need to sell to go self employed and to earn roughly £25k a year.

If you were buying the wood in It kept coming to around 1000 cubic metres at an average of £100 per man. That's taking all business costs, rent, machine finance, fuel etc into consideration.

 

I did much the same calculation in 2006 when the pulp mill I was supplying closed and figured I'd need to cut extract , process, season, deliver and sell 1000 green tonnes by myself and I already had all the equipment. May have been worthwhile at 25 but too much at 55 so I worked for others for the past 10 years.

 

Pulp was delivered in at £29/tonne IIRC then, I cannot remember what price I estimated firewood was.

 

Apart from the figures not being promising and the cashflow being problematic, the idea of being able to fell in February to April and then extract from May to June and process suring the summer seemed fine but finding a covered area for 1000 M^3 of solid wood wasn't likely to happen without incurring a lot of rental charges.

[rovers90]

As others have the said, its when you are in the middle ground where it is hard to make money. I get by but have the benefit of a friend with a cracking shed I can use and a tractor he lets me use and another who lets us use his loading shovel. Without these bits of kit it would be a lot more difficult. I looked at how much it would cost to increase turnover and decided I was not prepared to put that amount of money in to it. At the end of the day, you could have all the gear and all the dry split logs and along comes the warmest winter on record and sales nose dive.

 

Buying in kiln dried would be more profitable as you can usually get a premium price.

 

Good luck at whatever you decide to do.

[Acer Forestry]

Give it a shot; I freelance for a few different arb companies, and there is often arb waste to be had, gratis. Buying in for small scale selling is only practical if you've got thousands to throw in, though really. Put out feelers locally to see who does tree work but isn't into logs.

[Logsnstuff]

you can always follow the free wood page on fb you get everything from arb waste to broken pallets.

[flatyre]

Thanks for the advice folks, there are a lot of small scale one and two man tree surgery outfits in my area but don't see any of them selling logs. Also the full time log sellers all seem to be driving very nice pickups and shiny new ifor Williams trailers, so there must be some money in it? At the end of the day if I sell a few trailer loads here and there well and good, if not, its not like I just remortgaged the house to buy a processor. Would rather not buy in kiln dried logs from Latvia or wherever but rather pay a bit more to support local suppliers, and as for commercial milling, unfortunately a friend just up the road already does that, though I am hoping to get the 070 finished and do a bit of small scale hobby milling for people now and then, mantle pieces etc.

[gdh]

Thanks for the advice folks, there are a lot of small scale one and two man tree surgery outfits in my area but don't see any of them selling logs. Also the full time log sellers all seem to be driving very nice pickups and shiny new ifor Williams trailers, so there must be some money in it? At the end of the day if I sell a few trailer loads here and there well and good, if not, its not like I just remortgaged the house to buy a processor. Would rather not buy in kiln dried logs from Latvia or wherever but rather pay a bit more to support local suppliers, and as for commercial milling, unfortunately a friend just up the road already does that, though I am hoping to get the 070 finished and do a bit of small scale hobby milling for people now and then, mantle pieces etc.

 

There is some money in it, just depends on the competition, we average £65 a cube and get by on that whereas some people get upwards of a £100 a cube so if you don't mind travelling you can get a good price. Unfortunately that means other costs.

 

Best of luck, if you ever want to buy some decent priced firewood let me know.

[arboriculturist]

One of the most important factors to address if you plan to process Arb. arisings is having a fast splitter - a cycle time of less than 5 second max. is literally 'a waste of time'.

 

Visit all the Tree Surgeons within a 10 mile radius to start, many of which will be pleased to offload timber on occasion and if you are serious, get all the legalities correct.

 

Best of luck

[MonsterMonster]

2 different ways I would recommend doing it.

Get yourself a small unit/barn and buy it from Europe. You will need about £5k to buy the container and it Comes in at the moment with the exchange rate at about £70 per loose cubic metre. Sell it for a minimum £120 a cubic metre and see how you go. You only need a pump truck (£50) a half tidy forklift £2-5k and a way to deliver it.

You can go down the arb waste, chainsaw and petrol splitter route but your going to have to be a year ahead of yourself. If you sell out in October your out for the winter and you can say bye bye to the customers you have gained because they will go elsewhere.

At least if you buy containers in if you sell it, just buy another one!

Sell at £120 per cube! I regularly hear that firewood margins are tight but at those prices who's making the money?

 

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[ash_smith123]

Well considering most retail industry trade to retail price is 30/40% profit margin. buying in kiln dried at £70 trade to £120 retail is pretty good at 75%.

I also have a timber business and most of the products trade to retail is 35/40%.

[Richard 1234]

Well considering most retail industry trade to retail price is 30/40% profit margin. buying in kiln dried at £70 trade to £120 retail is pretty good at 75%.

I also have a timber business and most of the products trade to retail is 35/40%.

 

 

If you had a shop and sold something that cost you £10 for £14 you would be bankrupt