Is fire wood worth doing

[greengrafter]

Hello, to all you fire wood men who are helping to keep the nation warm!!

 

I've been uming and arring for a few years now whether its worth buying cord wood in, seasoning it and selling it when things get a bit quite this time of year.

When there's numpties down the road selling a so called ton of wood for 50 quid.

 

Is it worth the hard work cutting it up with a chainsaw splitting it with a slow hydraulic splitter and delivering it? Or is a fire wood processor the only way forward to making a profit?

 

Any advice wood be much appreciated.

 

Cheers all Steve

[Pete Hart]

Hi mate, from my experiences of doing it on a smallish scale (arrisings from tree work, and splitting by hand), it can be a nice little sideline to other work (i.e tree surgery) and it can get you access to customers you may not have heard from otherwise...but i have also found that people treat you with a poor attitude as a log seller. They can be very untrusting, always argue the toss over the price, moan if the logs are too big, too small, too long, too short, wrong species etc etc!

There are the odd individuals who i have found to be geniunely pleased with what you are selling them, and this is great.

If you are thinking of doing it as a main venture, then decent splitter and processor are almost essential.... if its a sideline thing, then do splitting in downtime and try to make yourself a few quid!

[Pat Ferrett]

Hi mate, from my experiences of doing it on a smallish scale (arrisings from tree work, and splitting by hand), it can be a nice little sideline to other work (i.e tree surgery) and it can get you access to customers you may not have heard from otherwise...but i have also found that people treat you with a poor attitude as a log seller. They can be very untrusting, always argue the toss over the price, moan if the logs are too big, too small, too long, too short, wrong species etc etc!

There are the odd individuals who i have found to be geniunely pleased with what you are selling them, and this is great.

If you are thinking of doing it as a main venture, then decent splitter and processor are almost essential.... if its a sideline thing, then do splitting in downtime and try to make yourself a few quid!

 

Your Bang on the money there Yaffle!

 

I used to have a free tip for good cord and clean chip then they got fussy after buying a processer and wanted to charge for larger lumps and then started to charge for the chip, so I dugg my heels in and got extra space in the yard for cord and chip. Its nice this time of year if it goes quiet or Im rained off to do a load of logs or a load of chip, worst way I cover the cost of wages and rent, and no waste to pay for, different if your buying in, I say if your only doing it small scale just try for a year and use your own waste then work out your profit if you had bought it in.

[zeroluke]

The more I look into firewood buying to sell the more i wonder if its worth doing. I've seen people quote good prices on deals of buying to sell. But where I live in doncaster all the suppliers are charging nearly £3.50 for a bag or 40 quid for 12 jumbo bags ( 12kg or so each ) for 45 quid. They say it offers a good markup for shops but I don't see how it does, making maybe 2 quid on each little bag and the same percentage on bigger bags. It might be that doncaster, and surrounding area is the too high a price I think it is and the only people who make much money is either the suppliers or, people who do it small time from tree work and that.

[greengrafter]

Thanks for your views guys....I may sell a few loads I've got in the yard from jobs and see how it goes.

 

It makes me wonder if there's any money in anything these days unless your tesco's of coarse

[Arran Woodfuels]

the only people who make much money is the suppliers

 

Well, they are the ones doing the hard graft.........

 

Perhaps if you divulge which area you are from, Greengrafter, you may get more responses, depending on who your local competition is, of course...

 

I would say to you guys that there is no point in you starting to produce logs, the guys who have already invested time, money and energy into their firewood enterprises can take up any demand you identify. This forum would be a great place to let them know of any tips or enquiries you may have.

[greengrafter]

Well, they are the ones doing the hard graft.........

 

Perhaps if you divulge which area you are from, Greengrafter, you may get more responses, depending on who your local competition is, of course...

 

I would say to you guys that there is no point in you starting to produce logs, the guys who have already invested time, money and energy into their firewood enterprises can take up any demand you identify. This forum would be a great place to let them know of any tips or enquiries you may have.

 

I'm from Momouthshire South Wales.

 

I don't mind throwing a load of time and money into something if the pay back is worth the effort....is it?

[samtheman365]

Well ive just done my first year doing logs and after throwing lots of money and time its worth it, but it wont make you rich