Anyone tried importing firewood?

[samarb]

I import my firewood from Devon, thats far enough away for me.

[Highland Forestry]

Hmm now there's a thought...

 

 

We export alot of timber out of the UK, namely Sitka Spruce for pulping. I know when the boat comes in to aberdeen it takes out around 8000 ton at a time.... nobody seems to care about the carbon footprint caused by this and all the haulage, harvesting and pollution caused by the production so why are we worried about the carbon footprint of importing wood??

 

The kiln dried imported stuff from Germany would have a great market in Edinburgh/Glasgow due to the smokeless zone.

[woodrot]

"nobody seems to care about the carbon footprint caused by this and all the haulage, harvesting and pollution caused by the production so why are we worried about the carbon footprint of importing wood??"

 

Well they ought to care, and maybe they do care but feel they can't do alot about it! I care, it's a grandfather thing with me - We don't inherit the world, we borrow it from our kids - Really scares me!!... Maybe an Arbtallk forum should be very mindfull of this, or maybe not.

Profit seems to be King, and before you know it electricity and gas will seem quite reasonable forms of energy again regardless of the carbon thingy.

[Swedish Dave]

im getting those Emails aswell from chessmaker trading (Latvia) . not worth it imo plus i can c them being a pain to deal with.

[WFWales]

Does anyone have any actual facts and figures for the carbon footprint of logs delivered in different ways?.

 

I have been told that import restrictions require that wood is kiln dried in order to kill off the nasties.which makes it potentially very dry to burn, but as soon a s it reaches these humid shores it will start taking on a bit of moisture if it is not used quick. Can anyone verify this?

 

I agree with the comment about using woodchip in powerstations. using a fuel and only realising 20% of it's potential is shocking.

[porky]

I seem to remember a statistic that we import more timber than any other country in the world bar Japan.

Something is drastically wrong when you consider how much of the land being currently grazed and subsidised could be afforested.

[widmere]

It'll be bankers draft up front - then once you've worked hard flogging their product and found a good market i don't look forward to negotiating next year ah Mr Widmere price gone up. To make it work you would have to shift a lot of their wood which on the face of it looks great stuff - I wouldn't fancy having an artic load turning up of dubios quality - what you going to do then after you've paid for it threaten to turn up and take the Latvian mafia on single handed.

 

Hmmm

[renewablejohn]

 

I have been told that import restrictions require that wood is kiln dried in order to kill off the nasties.which makes it potentially very dry to burn, but as soon a s it reaches these humid shores it will start taking on a bit of moisture if it is not used quick. Can anyone verify this?

 

 

I use kiln dried offcuts mainly Swedish timber to manufacture wood pellets and briquettes the MC is consistently 12% dried in our solar polytunnels. We can go up to a max 15% MC making briquettes but we get into trouble with wood pellets at 15%.

[Arbgirl]

Re; carbon footprint - coal used to fire Uk coal fired powerstations is largely imported

 

 

There is a carbon footprint associated with transport of any fuel

 

Wood is sustainable unlike other fossil fuels

 

Im not sure importing wood is a good idea when we have plenty here - the carbon footprint of using Uk timber would obviously be less.

 

I think the US imports a huge amount of timber - rather more than the UK!

[Mike Hill]

Pretty much all of the Fire Wood available in retail outlets like Supermarkets and Garden Centers here in Norway is Trucked in from Lativa.

 

The Quality/Moisture Content/Size is very inconsistent.

 

Almost all of it is Split Saplings of about 4inches Diameter,packed into 40liter Sacks.It sells on its convenience and product placement.

 

One Garden center here in a town of just 350,000 sold £50,000 of Wood in a single weekend!