Help with logs.

[RobG 86]

Good evening all, hope you're keeping well. 

 

Looking for people's opinion on if it's worth going down the route of storing, logging and splitting logs to sell as firewood? Not looking to do this on a big scale. 

 

What are the best logs for burning/purpose? Would be looking to sell in cubic meter bags, what sort of price would be fair to sell them for? I know this would depend on if it's hard or soft wood.

 

Thanks in advance.

[Rob_the_Sparky]

Your first problem will be the Ready to Burn scheme.  I do not know the details (I'm not a trader) but I do know that to be formally within the rules you have to give them money to sell logs (neatly stitched up) or you can only sell them 2 cube at a time and marked as not ready to burn (regardless whether they are or not).

 

With regards what is good wood - that depends more on your market than what is good wood to burn in a wood burner.  Different woods burn differently and the market may well want hardwood but softwoods dry faster and burn faster.  Same energy weight for weight but less dense.  The best is a good mix of denser and lighter wood but what the market wants?

[RobG 86]

Thanks Rob. Really appreciate the info. Give me something to look into now. 

[Stere]

If you can get a decent volume of  wood for free & own the yard/barn space  perhaps

 

& also it depends how much you earn doing other work.

 

Species is pretty irelavant once seasoned imo but rdm knotty arb waste etc takes twice the time to do as processor grade straight roundwood and the logs won't  be pretty & uniform for fussy customers.

 

Most logs ive seen advertized as a 1m3 cube  sell in the 0.8x0.8m builders bags so  are a 0.6m3 volume dumpy bag for around £100. Or are thoose stacked  imported crates from the Baltic.

 

 

 

Edited 13 hours ago by Stere

[GarethM]

If you're a farmer and it's a sideline, fair enough as space and equipment rental will be the killer.

[Steven P]

Firewood is going the way that you have to really go all in and full time or just about break even with small quantities I think.

 

All in and you can afford the machinery from your sales with the added costs of the ready to burn scheme, small scale the ready to burn scheme eats into your profits too much taking into account of machinery costs.

 

You could sell unseasoned wood... but you don't get the premium of leaving it outside to dry and increasing your prices, your time input is the same but less money.

 

 

Small scale, there is premium of very small scale - those that want a Christmas day fire type of thing or a sunday afternoon where £15 for a few dry logs (not ready to burn) can be profitable but in limited quantities each year

[Mark Bolam]

I don’t know a single supplier down here who has signed up to the bullshit ready to burn scheme.

 

Hopefully it will just die.

[GarethM]

6 minutes ago, Mark Bolam said:

I don’t know a single supplier down here who has signed up to the bullshit ready to burn scheme.

 

Hopefully it will just die.

It's just gone up price wise, all lardy dah we've got more management bs.

 

They'll not let it die as hetas is a glorified government department.

 

Bend over, 500 quid and then every man and his dog undercuts you and this year has been depressing trying to compete with Facebook fly-by-nights.

[RobG 86]

Thank you all for the replies. Just look at doing 15-20 bulk bags a year, we get plenty of wood from the tree work. Keep getting asked by customers. We have space, and just an extra couple of day work for the lads over winter so they don’t lose hours if weather is crap. Thanks again 

[Mark Bolam]

26 minutes ago, GarethM said:

It's just gone up price wise, all lardy dah we've got more management bs.

 

They'll not let it die as hetas is a glorified government department.

 

Bend over, 500 quid and then every man and his dog undercuts you and this year has been depressing trying to compete with Facebook fly-by-nights.

 

If no one signed up for it it would die.

 

Who enforces this crap anyway?

 

The police don’t even attend burglaries.