25ton load, home use, can it be feasible?

[ostosix]

Hi folks, mostly a lurker but been turning this idea over for an age so id like to hear your thoughts and/or ideas and experiences. 
 

normally sort my own firewood from odd tree jobs or bought from local tree surgeons and split stacked and seasoned in garden.

 

Due to high use as stove does our hot water and heating(3 bed semi) i have recently fell behind due to kids, diy and life, so this year had to buy some. I bought 2 cube apparently kiln dried for £240 delivered. It was the worst timber i’ve ever burnt. This was also quite a big supplier in the Lincoln area. I dont want to be caught out again. 
 

it just made me think should i buy in large scale 25ton for future use and sort some mates firewood as a dozen people have said they’ll have it if i do it. 
 

Some where to put it? Only price ive had to have it put yard wise is £195 per month for 100sq/m. Seems steep to me so probably wont go with that. 
 

Question is to you; what size space would i need to give it a go? And how long would it take me to split all that hours wise.
 

An option is to trailer home and split in garden. Normally split by hand. Is a proper splitter a must? i’ve found a supplier who can deliver process grade 2.5m lengths if i choose to do it.

 

this has been a 5-6 year thought for me, what are you thoughts? 
 

thanks.

 

Edited Friday at 18:36 by ostosix

[topchippyles]

17 minutes ago, ostosix said:

Hi folks, mostly a lurker but been turning this idea over for an age so id like to hear your thoughts and/or ideas and experiences. 
 

normally sort my own firewood from odd tree jobs or bought from local tree surgeons and split stacked and seasoned in garden.

 

Due to high use as stove does our hot water and heating(3 bed semi) i have recently fell behind due to kids, diy and life, so this year had to buy some. I bought 2 cube apparently kiln dried for £240 delivered. It was the worst timber i’ve ever burnt. This was also quite a big supplier in the Lincoln area. I dont want to be caught out again. 
 

it just made me think should i buy in large scale 25ton for future use and sort some mates firewood as a dozen people have said they’ll have it if i do it. 
 

Some where to put it? Only price ive had to have it put yard wise is £195 per month for 100sq/m. Seems steep to me so probably wont go with that. 
 

Question is to you; what size space would i need to give it a go? And how long would it take me to split all that hours wise.
 

An option is to trailer home and split in garden. Normally split by hand. Is a proper splitter a must? i’ve found a supplier who can deliver process grade 2.5m lengths if i choose to do it.

 

this has been a 5-6 year thought for me, what are you thoughts? 
 

thanks.

 

You would need a commercial premises to process and take delivery for a full artic load of logs unless you have access to a field or land somewhere. 

[Jackalope]

If you can get friendly with a local farmer you might manage to strike a deal on the basis of: he/she supplies the space to store and process it (back of a yard somewhere) in return for a percentage of the timber/logs. Added bonus of you only taking clean logs home rather than creating sawdust and splitting shards in your garden. 

[ostosix]

What sort of percentage would you say for an arrangement like that?

 

What about splitting time? Most i’ve done was arb waste oak massive thing took about a week to get it all done by hand. I’d be hoping ‘processor grade’ would be fairly straightforward by hand?

[NJA]

You'll only buy it well if you've got, or can get artic access.  Unless you can find someone with a rigid but hard to find.  Or try and find a local estate who will sell you decent cordwood per m2 that you can collect in your own trailer.

[Mark Bolam]

Your best bet would be to find a local tree surgeon with a yard and process their timber into logs for a 50/50 split (pardon the pun).

Budget £1.5k for a decent hydraulic splitter.

Do it by hand if you’re mental.

[ostosix]

That’s a good shout i had never thought of that, cheers

[Steven P]

Do the sums on the yard, our 3 bed semi- that £200 a month yard rental would pretty much cover our entire electric bill (no gas, benefits of living out of town), and then you have the cost of the wood as well, and your time to cut, split, stack, dry, deliver to yours. Probably for that it is cheaper to buy it in.

 

If you are not to fussy I'd look at the local tree surgeons like Mark says - get a random mix of wood depending on whether the original tree owner wants it left (trees cut up in the back garden are valuable you know, pay back the cost of the tree surgeon selling the wood....).

 

If that doesn't work out, then talk to the tree surgeons again, I am quite happy to pay for 'petrol' (a reasonable amount) to get fresh unsplit logs delivered. Buying a some loads in during the year might be cheaper than yard rental.

 

Not too sure about a farmers field unless you have a decent vehicle able to go off road or they have hard standing for you. Bloke round the corner has spit a couple of tonnes, the field isn't fenced off and anyone could walk off with his hard work - so make sure your logs are out of sight, especially the split ones. Might be possible to deal with the farmer in the same way as a tree surgeon, they take a cut off the logs and you get barn space which might be win-win.

 

However do the sums,

[ostosix]

Thanks everyone for these responses! I’ve carefully considered whats been said and didnt want to bombard the thread with replies as i think a lot of folks will find this a useful thread in future. Hopefully its not finished either!
 

These points you raise probably aren’t what i wanted to hear😛 I suppose thats why i put it to you chaps, always give stuff a good looking at and have benefits of experience.

 

Sounds like getting the 25ton has been turned off across the board unless there a near free place to work from! Yes 200 per month on a yard isn't sustainable(never was). Be cheaper just to buy wood even split and season myself. 
 

I didn't think 100sq/m would be enough anyway and certainly wouldn't allow storage.
 

I think i can see now that there is no middle ground for firewood, either its a sideline which works on small scale if you have yard, arb waste etc or you need to go big with yard, processor marketing and delivery. 
 

1)I have considered asking the supplier chap if i can buy about 5ton and just trail it home and see how splitting goes. The nearby job starts April so will look into that. 
 

2)Also will look at the local tree surgeon supplying timber(which i have done previously although there was a lot of waste in it-still worked out cheap). Or splitting it for them at they’re yard. 

 

3) Also will look at a splitter to make any incoming timber less of a hit on my time and meaning i can be ready for next load sooner when based from the garden.

 

Did have a quote from Riko about Profi 15 splitter so considering options like that. 

 

I’m interested to hear thoughts on how much can be split a day etc because that time needed really is the next part of the plan. 
 

cheers 
 

 

 

Edited Sunday at 08:41 by ostosix

[AHPP]

Yep. You've worked it out. Rent kills it. Half arsing it kills it.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Landlord's_Game