How much does it cost you to produce firewood from cord

[william petts]

Hi  guys we purchased out first ever load of cube a couple of weeks back and  just wondering how much it costs you hlguys to produce logs per cube?

 

Price includes cost of timber, labour, fuel, so effectively to turn the lengths into split logs!.

 

From some guesstimate mathematics it's looking like it is costing me around £60 to £70 per cube crate  to produce.

 

What do you guys think on that,  I'm not sure what to expect and i have only got a processor, no log table so was loading corn onto forks of telehandler and manually loading the machine, same machine was then having to move and stack crates so it did eat up time, and there was myself and a lavourer who was helping with the heavy lifting as I've cracked my ribs!!

 

Feedback as always is really appreciated 

[Squaredy]

4 minutes ago, william petts said:

Hi  guys we purchased out first ever load of cube a couple of weeks back and  just wondering how much it costs you hlguys to produce logs per cube?

 

Price includes cost of timber, labour, fuel, so effectively to turn the lengths into split logs!.

 

From some guesstimate mathematics it's looking like it is costing me around £60 to £70 per cube crate  to produce.

 

What do you guys think on that,  I'm not sure what to expect and i have only got a processor, no log table so was loading corn onto forks of telehandler and manually loading the machine, same machine was then having to move and stack crates so it did eat up time, and there was myself and a lavourer who was helping with the heavy lifting as I've cracked my ribs!!

 

Feedback as always is really appreciated 

Do you mean £60 to £70 per cube including the cost of the logs?

 

And one thing you have to remember is one of the greatest costs is difficult to quantify - the cost in time and space and tied up capital of having hundreds of crates of firewood slowly drying.  For some people the space it takes up is just too much (this is why I stopped), whereas for others they may have loads of free sheds sitting empty.

[Woodworks]

I would rather not know! 

 

Recon I might give up if everything was costed 😆

[gdh]

Everything (including the stuff like depreciation, shed repairs, insurance, oil etc) on a reasonably big scale is around £25-30 a cube plus timber for us. That's assuming no major breakdowns, costing my own labour at £10 an hour and that interest rates stay low.

 

Boxes included but kiln drying or space/cover to air dry is on top.

 

It's not the best way to compare to other businesses though, it's going to depend on local labour costs and could be much higher if you're getting cheap arbwaste for example.

Edited August 13, 2021 by gdh

[defender tipper]

Hers my typical costings

cord £27 a cube

running of splitter on tractor £2 per cube

running saws £2 per cube

so that gives me a cube of split logs on the truck for around £31

then the delivery based on an average of £5 worth of diesel and another £3 for the running costs on the truck,so dropped on the customers drive im looking at about £40

and selling at £90 gives me a miserly £50, thats without building costs insurance advertising, double handling on what goes in the drying shed and thats without going in to useing the proccessor, yeh goes on and on no wonder I got holes in me boots.

 

[Martin du Preez]

we don't buy cord in but when considered i came to the same costings as you. i think we have the same processor dalen 2054 which whomps through oversized. i guess its all on your delivery radius. most of our timber comes from site clearance and tree surgery at the customers expense to get it to my yard. i don;t think i could justify it if i had to buy the timber in unless it was on a massive scale. maybe to top up a season and not lose customers. we're £115 for 1.2 cube and £190 for 2 cube plus vat.