Ash cord wood

[renewablejohn]

how much is 1, of those ,will it compress wood chip ?

 

I use woodchip produced from my heizohack chipper but need to put through a hammermill before it is compressed in my briquette press. As previously said moisture content is critical and needs to be below 15% for my briquette press or below 12% for my pellet press which we achieve in our solar kilns.

[hardtop110]

There is a perception problem with domestic customers which exacerbates the problem of increasing prices.

 

The first is that many see it as a black market / cash-based product, where unscrupulous sellers don't provide proper receipts, prefer cash and don't pay as much tax as they should.

 

The second part is that may see it as an unskilled operation, which effectively it is. Of course there are plant, storage and delivery overheads, but the basic operation relies on grunt rather than brains. The public equate this type of operation as minimum wage territory.

 

As its difficult to just increase the price of the end product its necessary to up the game around the service. That may include charging an extra £10 to stack the logs on delivery, providing receipts with vat registrations, having same day or next day surcharges, wearing a uniform / having sign written vehicles etc. etc.

 

Its not good enough to just rely on price competition. That will end with a race to the bottom.

[philg]

It makes me smile all these threads about cord being to dear when someone advertises some timber. I dont think its going to cause the price to drop!

 

I think you guys that think you will be able to keep buying cord at £30/ton are kidding yourselves, not by the time the timbers been felled. Decent cutters arent cheap, Extraction isnt cheap, diesel is going up a lot, most the nice easy woods have now been thinned and there isnt going to be the ready supply of quick and easy firewood processor sized cord wood about in the surpluses there has been in the past, all the indications are that its going to be in exceptionally short supply after about 2018 as the accelerating rate of firewood production will mean that most blocks will have been thinned by then and there will be a lag before any more is available. All the new planting schemes for hardwoods wont be producing timber for about another 10years at the earliest. I think that if people sit on their cord surplus's untill winter, if we have a cold snap like last year there were guys begging for timber on here!

 

I have heard of several site across the eastern side of the country with hardwood cord making £50+ at Roadside, so for ash that could conceivably be run through a process now and still sold this winter, I would hold out for the £60 if thats whats needed to turn a profit!

 

 

oh and the fact that everyone thinks firewood is the thing to be in, so have been rushing out buy processors its forcing prices up, demand is rising at an amazing rate, as are the number of people wanting cord. When i was a kid i think there were three local estates doing a bit of firewood locally on wet days as some extra income. Now i know i have at least 7people with processors within 10miles of here!

I'll hold on to it and wait for the classic "Cordwood wanted" ads to come up on here when the classic small time firewood suppliers keep putting ads up reapetedly and roughly once a week for "Cordwood wanted":lol: It'll be a bit more then:thumbup:It's a bit like the customers you get when it's -10 demanding logs to be delivered immediately because they have no logs.

Thanks Phil.

Edited September 9, 2011 by philg

[Big Bolt]

philg hey buddy it is your wood sell for what you want , if you dont sell it it's your loss . And if you dont want it don't bye it easy

[Daniël Bos]

Hang on to it then 'till that time comes Phil.

There's a good chance you'll have many takers for it by early feb.

There's also a good chance that there won't but if you can afford to hang on to it, I'd hang on to it.

[philg]

Hang on to it then 'till that time comes Phil.

There's a good chance you'll have many takers for it by early feb.

There's also a good chance that there won't but if you can afford to hang on to it, I'd hang on to it.

Lets wait then:thumbup1: "Seasoned ash cord" price to be confirmed with buyer (only because they will be too embarrassed to admit what they've paid:lol:)

[Frankie Lawrence]

I agree with Charlie on the first page his post sums it up nicely. If you don't like the price of cord buy it standing and do it yourself! Simples

[baz]

There is a perception problem with domestic customers which exacerbates the problem of increasing prices.

 

The first is that many see it as a black market / cash-based product, where unscrupulous sellers don't provide proper receipts, prefer cash and don't pay as much tax as they should.

 

The second part is that may see it as an unskilled operation, which effectively it is. Of course there are plant, storage and delivery overheads, but the basic operation relies on grunt rather than brains. The public equate this type of operation as minimum wage territory.

 

As its difficult to just increase the price of the end product its necessary to up the game around the service. That may include charging an extra £10 to stack the logs on delivery, providing receipts with vat registrations, having same day or next day surcharges, wearing a uniform / having sign written vehicles etc. etc.

 

Its not good enough to just rely on price competition. That will end with a race to the bottom.

 

Sound words indeed and ones that more than will should take heed of.

[Crazy Cutter]

It makes me smile all these threads about cord being to dear when someone advertises some timber. I dont think its going to cause the price to drop!

 

I think you guys that think you will be able to keep buying cord at £30/ton are kidding yourselves, not by the time the timbers been felled. Decent cutters arent cheap, Extraction isnt cheap, diesel is going up a lot, most the nice easy woods have now been thinned and there isnt going to be the ready supply of quick and easy firewood processor sized cord wood about in the surpluses there has been in the past, all the indications are that its going to be in exceptionally short supply after about 2018 as the accelerating rate of firewood production will mean that most blocks will have been thinned by then and there will be a lag before any more is available. All the new planting schemes for hardwoods wont be producing timber for about another 10years at the earliest. I think that if people sit on their cord surplus's untill winter, if we have a cold snap like last year there were guys begging for timber on here!

 

I have heard of several site across the eastern side of the country with hardwood cord making £50+ at Roadside, so for ash that could conceivably be run through a process now and still sold this winter, I would hold out for the £60 if thats whats needed to turn a profit!

 

 

oh and the fact that everyone thinks firewood is the thing to be in, so have been rushing out buy processors its forcing prices up, demand is rising at an amazing rate, as are the number of people wanting cord. When i was a kid i think there were three local estates doing a bit of firewood locally on wet days as some extra income. Now i know i have at least 7people with processors within 10miles of here!

 

Coppice we have been there before. Decent cutters? there aren't many around here who can fell without smashing up what you are trying to save. Extraction machinery has become too big as well adding to the look of destruction. Roadside prices are still around 50 p/t here at present. lots of pine going for biomass but oak sitting about unsold too big for a processor. Firewood has turned into a bandwagon by consultants but this year joe publics cheque book ran out and the bank won't send a new one!!

[Iain H]

Nobody has seemed to work out the price of getting the wood to roadside? Lets say i buy at £10 ton, it costs me another £10 per ton to cut it and another £8 to extract as we use low impact extraction equipment. The agents charge green weight so unless you get it shifted straight away you are losing between 5% - 10% of your weight. That does not leave you with much selling at anything less than £40 ton roadside. Maybe £10 ton profit, for something that is a damn site harder than processing it into logs. Then you hear stories of people paying £25 ton standing??? You can make money if you see the job through from cutting standing timber to delivering a load of logs to the customer. I appreciate this is not possible for everyone but might be the way to go if you cant afford to by in cord.

I went to a FC demo last week and there are more contractors setting up with smaller extraction equipment such as mini forwarders, compact tractors with winches, hydrotongs, atc forwarding trailers on quad bikes ect. These provide people wanting to buy firewood standing a cost effective solution for extracting small amounts of timber. Maybe this is the way it will go?