Soft wood

[spuddog0507]

Softwood nothing  wrong with it at all ,I tend to burn more softwood these days as customers just seem to be so brainwashed that it is no good, so I will sell the hardwood to customers at a premium price and burn softwood myself , currently on Lawson cypress burns well and smells fantastic. Most of my work is in commercial forestry so I have more softwood than I know what to do with but do have a do at selling just softwood at reduced rates in may June July & august and seem to get rid of a fair bit.

[FJMatt]

95% softwood, due to selling to retailers 

 

[richardwale]

8 hours ago, nepia said:

Same-ish here though I'm a tiny, tiny supplier.

 

Funny how softwood keeps Northern Europe, Scandinavia, the far north of America and Siberia warm yet there's no convincing the south of England that it's any good. 

 

At home I burn 100% softwood.

Makes me laugh, I use those facts all the time and it's as if I'm talking a different language! 

[Bloom]

I sell my hardwood and burn my softwood. Really impressed with softwood burning. I take the odd bit of hardwood from my pile. I'd near prefer soft to hard. Been burning a lot of well seasoned Euca - it's sparky but burns well and very hot.

[SamWhiting12]

Out of all we sell, just under 50% of the wood we sell is softwood. Our 50/50 mixed bag is the most popular.

[Philip Anderson]

18 minutes ago, Bloom said:

I sell my hardwood and burn my softwood. Really impressed with softwood burning. I take the odd bit of hardwood from my pile. I'd near prefer soft to hard. Been burning a lot of well seasoned Euca - it's sparky but burns well and very hot.

Eucalyptus is a hardwood most customers wouldn’t know the difference,I’m burning Cedar at the moment beautiful clean burning and fantastic smell.

i tend to sell a mixed load for wood burners no complaints.

im selling around 350-400 tons a year all generated from Arb operations.

[Stubby]

Burn a 50/50 mix on my Burley .  Currently my soft wood is mostly Leylandii , blue Ceder and some Mac . 

[Lucan]

11 hours ago, Alycidon said:

Plus 1 on that but the general public dont by and large want it as 'it burns to quick'.   What they dont realise is the heat release is faster as the wood is less dense.  As logs are sold by volume there are more KWH in hard than soft but its a higher price.  Therefore cost per KW is about the same.

 

I even had a guy not happy with some ultra dry KD Ash last week as it burnt faster than the seasoned wood I had been selling him.

A

But are the costs per kw the same?

 

Softwood has around 75% the energy of hardwood per volume, which means from the customer's side they would be looking at 70-75% to make switching interesting. However you often see softwood only around 10-15% cheaper so is it any wonder the slow demand. I guess that is because although softwood is cheaper to produce that often doesn't match a final 25% cost reduction including delivery?

[Woodworks]

Just now, Lucan said:

But are the costs per kw the same?

 

Softwood has around 75% the energy of hardwood per volume, which means from the customer's side they would be looking at 70-75% to make switching interesting. However you often see softwood only around 10-15% cheaper so is it any wonder the slow demand. I guess that is because although softwood is cheaper to produce that often doesn't match a final 25% cost reduction including delivery?

This is my argument against. Yes no denying it burns fine but it's not massively cheaper per tonne. When wet is just about as heavy as hardwood and when dry is a lot lighter. Working on 4kWh per dry kg I would not be surprised if hardwood worked out cheaper overall. Plus the hardwood is more energy dense which is nice for the customer for storage and nice for me doing the deliveries.

 

I should sit down some time and put some numbers too it.

[Peasgood]

Willow and poplar are hardwood