Will Brexit increase the cost of your wood fuel?

[openspaceman]

1 hour ago, Woodworks said:

I know darn well if I had to pay for logs our stove would become obsolete!

Yes logically that's how I feel.

 

I cannot see it happening in my area as  local arboricultural contractors  concentrate on core business, so it's not at all unusual to see logs left at roadside for collection. see Bob's log goblin thread and I've just walked half a tonne of oak branch wood into my garden that was left from a height lifting on the road outside.

 

Also after 40 years of chopping logs and tending stoves it's visceral, if even a bit masochistic.

 

The chap I occasionally work for has a field full of randomly dumped logs but unfortunately that's 40 miles away but I have managed to get some from Jonny Burch as I re organise myself.

[Gary Prentice]

On 01/12/2018 at 11:22, Woodworks said:

I presume the driving force for imported kin dried wood is price so I guess managing native woods is more expensive. Most things are driven by market economics why would wood fuel be different? 

Why is managing native woodlands more expensive?

[Woodworks]

2 hours ago, Gary Prentice said:

Why is managing native woodlands more expensive?

No idea but if it was cheaper surly we wouldn't have any imports?  

[openspaceman]

2 hours ago, Gary Prentice said:

Why is managing native woodlands more expensive?

You tell us Gary, you'll do a better job of it than most.

[gdh]

3 hours ago, Gary Prentice said:

Why is managing native woodlands more expensive?

Wage bills are much higher here and it tends to be in small blocks with poor access. Most contractors don't want to haul a load of machinery for a few acres as it's not cost effective. 

 

Add to that paperwork with felling licences, bat surveys, agents etc it makes more commercial sense to do massive blocks abroad than the small woodlands we have in this country. 

 

I would never import firewood of course, I don't think the disease risks and transport are worth it. 

 

To the original question; I think the minimum price will go up for biomass and customers like ours who only have wood heating but the occasional users who are willing to pay £100+ a cube will probably start to cut back before they pay anymore. 

 

A lot will depend on whether the oil/electric price keeps rising and if the government decide to tax imports or even wood burning in general which I think is the bigger risk.

 

 

[Gary Prentice]

17 hours ago, openspaceman said:

You tell us Gary, you'll do a better job of it than most.

 

16 hours ago, gdh said:

Wage bills are much higher here and it tends to be in small blocks with poor access. Most contractors don't want to haul a load of machinery for a few acres as it's not cost effective. 

 

Add to that paperwork with felling licences, bat surveys, agents etc it makes more commercial sense to do massive blocks abroad than the small woodlands we have in this country. 

 

I would never import firewood of course, I don't think the disease risks and transport are worth it. 

 

To the original question; I think the minimum price will go up for biomass and customers like ours who only have wood heating but the occasional users who are willing to pay £100+ a cube will probably start to cut back before they pay anymore. 

 

A lot will depend on whether the oil/electric price keeps rising and if the government decide to tax imports or even wood burning in general which I think is the bigger risk.

 

 

Thanks for taking the time to write such an informative answer

[Gary Prentice]

19 hours ago, openspaceman said:

You tell us Gary, you'll do a better job of it than most.

All I've read about harvesting in Poland and the Baltic states is that it seems to be very unregulated and large tracts of virgin ancient and semi ancient woodland are being felled. 

 

I'm sure (or I hope) that that isn't the entire picture, so was just hoping to be a bit better educated.

[openspaceman]

22 minutes ago, Gary Prentice said:

All I've read about harvesting in Poland and the Baltic states is that it seems to be very unregulated and large tracts of virgin ancient and semi ancient woodland are being felled. 

Yes it looks like there's quite a lot of unsustainable harvesting going on in many places worldwide, often to fuel our  wish to reduce our carbon emissions.

 

Mind we too have not restocked upland areas where the enthusiasm for the grant funded expansion of forest cover seems to have been misplaced.

22 minutes ago, Gary Prentice said:

 

I'm sure (or I hope) that that isn't the entire picture, so was just hoping to be a bit better educated.

GDH did a good job.

 

I also wonder if there are really three distinct types of wood burning?

 

The biggest will be the industrial biomass burners, often subsidised by RHI and feed in tariffs, these will depend on imports and big forestry as everything has to be done in bulk. On the home front their raw material  has displaced those former markets, sawmills, pulp mills etc. that were no longer competitive after GATT. Until very recently I think most landowners suffered a financial loss because of this as I saw lots of timber which would formerly have fetched a premium, as sawlogs, being chipped. Now the demand for biomass seems to have increased the price people are willing to pay. Simultaneously in real terms harvesting costs have gone down. It was always the adage that "forestry counts in large amounts" and mechanisation reinforces that. It does seem to be at the expense of ground damage.

 

This  leaves a lot of woodland uneconomic to manage, as GDH said, one of the effects is that  organisations that own these " uneconomic" woodlands then, through ideology and ignorance, surrender  any thought of emulating the practices that conserved these woodlands over the centuries, and thus risk destroying the things they expect from woodlands, like bluebells, anemones, dormice etc.

 

The second group are this "luxury" market but their suppliers also require the same sort of wood that the industrial users want; something that can be easily handled transported and processed.

 

Then we have people like me, "goblins" who have traditionally fetched and comminuted their own wood and will not pay the price demanded for easily handled lengths but will chop their way into arb waste which is uneconomic for lots of firewood merchants to tackle, though I foresee a lot of the firewood suppliers turning more toward this as a resource as industrial wood prices go up.

 

 

[BowlandStoves]

Figures for 2017

 

UK imports:

    The total value of wood product imports was £7.9 billion (+6%).

UK exports:

    The total value of wood product exports was £1.9 billion (+26%).

 

I thought we would be a lot more self sufficient when it came to wood supplies in the UK - scope to expand the industry?

 

* https://www.forestresearch.gov.uk/tools-and-resources/statistics/statistics-by-topic/timber-statistics/uk-wood-production-and-trade-provisional-figures/

Edited December 6, 2018 by BowlandStoves

[MJ Trees & Logs]

But would they need to pay more?  If a greater acreage of home woodland was put back into management there would surely be economies of scale coming into play (machinery in use 5 days a week instead of 2?).  Transport costs could be kept down by using locally sourced firewood so would the retail price need to rise?
 
Debate please!  I'm just throwing my own ideas about.

Just buy British wood, there’s enough of it and as long as COMPANIES keep buying from abroad, it ruins our local domestic businesses. It all has a knock on effect. Too many deals done at the expense of us all! X