Profit

[arboriculturist]

3 minutes ago, Gary Prentice said:

Are imported kiln dried logs any worse (forgetting the ecological importance of some of the forests that they are harvested from) than power stations running on woodchip that is transported across the Atlantic from the USA? And don't even mention where some of that is reportedly sourced!!!

 

Not trolling, just asking purely to encourage debate. Personally I'd like to reduce my own carbon footprint but sometimes I'm not sure you can do right for doing wrong.

Previous generations sourced all their timber locally, carried or moved by horse and cart, cut, split and stacked. That should be the starting point.

Moving forward in time - all our roundwood used to come from within 20 mile radius with no shortages.

Further forward - retailers are importing Kiln dried from Russia, Latvia etc. etc.

 

We all need to be endeavoring to take a few steps back in time!

[arboriculturist]

6 hours ago, ash_smith123 said:

I would probably get a little unit with a forklift and delivery truck and import everything. If you find a tidy supplier there's still good money in it if you can get the customers but again your right in a minimum of 2000 cube a year to make a good wage. Low starting and running costs.

2000 cube is that for 2 people? What level of Income would you anticipate each from kiln drying your own rather than importing if you could produce and sell  2000cube ?  Thanks

[Gary Prentice]

31 minutes ago, arboriculturist said:

Previous generations sourced all their timber locally, carried or moved by horse and cart, cut, split and stacked. That should be the starting point.

Moving forward in time - all our roundwood used to come from within 20 mile radius with no shortages.

Further forward - retailers are importing Kiln dried from Russia, Latvia etc. etc.

 

We all need to be endeavoring to take a few steps back in time!

And buying fruit and veg (or growing it ourselves) sourced locally and in season - not strawberries from Israel at Christmas.

 

Come Brexit we may not have much choice 

[Woodworks]

1 hour ago, arboriculturist said:

2000 cube is that for 2 people? What level of Income would you anticipate each from kiln drying your own rather than importing if you could produce and sell  2000cube ?  Thanks

At least I would have thought. 2000 cube with log sales being approximately half the year. 26 weeks delivering 5 days a week would be 130 days so you would have to deliver 15 cubes a day! That's one very busy delivery guy and you got a lot of logs to cut as well.

[ash_smith123]

At least I would have thought. 2000 cube with log sales being approximately half the year. 26 weeks delivering 5 days a week would be 130 days so you would have to deliver 15 cubes a day! That's one very busy delivery guy and you got a lot of logs to cut as well.

2 people, 2000 cube minimum.
Our delivery driver does a minimum 9 cube and at most 15 (if all really local) a day in the winter 5 days a week and 6/8 cube on a Saturday. We also get quite alot of people collecting. We've got 2 vans so if it's busy we put a run of 3 cube on the second van.
That's what I mean, if you just bought it all in and really pushed it you could have 2 drivers running out and not worrying about cutting it!

[arboriculturist]

11 hours ago, ash_smith123 said:

2 people, 2000 cube minimum.
Our delivery driver does a minimum 9 cube and at most 15 (if all really local) a day in the winter 5 days a week and 6/8 cube on a Saturday. We also get quite alot of people collecting. We've got 2 vans so if it's busy we put a run of 3 cube on the second van.
That's what I mean, if you just bought it all in and really pushed it you could have 2 drivers running out and not worrying about cutting it!

Ah, that's really interesting. I am upgrading the vehicle to take 4m3 but to be honest there are not enough customers to be quite that busy. However the way things are going we may be the only ones left.

All the Tree Surgeons just are not interested in Firewood any more as their staff demand a decent wage so the boss doesn't want to pay them to stand at a splitter and gone are the days of plenty of space to run your business from. Loads just work from home and have zero space.

We have to deliver up to 20 miles at present to find the demand. Sourcing decent timber of the right spec. is getting more of a challenge, as to keep the margins up we need a process rate of 10m3 / hr very minimum.

Edited May 30, 2019 by arboriculturist