Firewood Processing Service Available (Bags)

[Billy68]

i charge £200 a day and the can processor take upto 15 inch and can lift the logs i wish i could get £30 pound a bag if you can get it good look

[AJR68]

There is a clear winner on that deal, he will be left with around £30 profit a day, pointless in my opinion.[/quote

 

Be nice to see some figures to back that up:-

 

A processor at 10k 50% occuppied over 2 years @ 46 weeks/ year and assuming residual value of £5k has a write down of £21.74 per day + cost of finance.

 

Allow a tenner for belts, shrpening and hydraulic oil and you are still left with £125/day less fuel so it is not obvious where you get your £30 profit figure from

 

Cheers

mac

 

Oh please, knock another £30 off for fuel realistically if doing 18-20 cube then leaving £95 then, fuel and travel time to site say £20, vehicle wear and tear, insurance, income tax, need I go on. You cannot seriously think this is worth doing..can you???

[Johny Walker]

how many bags would you expect to do in the day ,if the condition were right ??

[gensetsteve]

I have a friend who comes in and helps. we cut the cord to manageable sizes and load by hand. in a 7 hour day we get about 10 - 12 loose cubic metres processed. I would expect at least £300 for the day. I would not be charging £160 just to see the logs being sold for £1200 at christmas. Some people want to pay to little for their logs and some people want to charge to much but we all have to make a living.

[AJR68]

I have a friend who comes in and helps. we cut the cord to manageable sizes and load by hand. in a 7 hour day we get about 10 - 12 loose cubic metres processed. I would expect at least £300 for the day. I would not be charging £160 just to see the logs being sold for £1200 at christmas. Some people want to pay to little for their logs and some people want to charge to much but we all have to make a living.

 

Thank god for a sensible answer, :thumbup:

[muldonach]

 

Oh please, knock another £30 off for fuel realistically if doing 18-20 cube then leaving £95 then, fuel and travel time to site say £20, vehicle wear and tear, insurance, income tax, need I go on. You cannot seriously think this is worth doing..can you???

 

Your original statement was that a man supplying a processor and charging £160/day would be left with £30 was it not?

 

We have already put some figures on the costs of running the processor as for fuel the Valtra in my avatar will run flat out all day for £30 and will happily drive a processor ticking over at 540 output in the 1000 pto range for half of that.

 

£20 of petrol will get you 3 gallons in my language which will take you a fair old distance, round this neck of the woods most people travel in there own time.

 

Vehicle insurance, tax and servicing? = £5/day

 

Vehicle depreciation = you can make it any figure you want - ballpark figure £10/day

 

I suspect that the chap in question will be left with about £90/100 per day which would be a very reasonable wage round here for a paid employee, a little on the low side for a guy providing his own plant.

 

As for charging £20 to fill a cubic metre bag with a processor - good on you if you can get it but I certainly would not pay that rate.

 

cheers

mac

[gensetsteve]

I am guessing Galloway is not the place go processing. £20 to process + your free wood = £20 and the bags sell for £80 - £140 so the person gets £20 for doing all the work and you get £60 for doing nothing.

[Michael C]

£30 - approx 46 litres seems very low for a tractor running 'flat out' all day.

[AJR68]

Well at the end of the day chaps I guess how a price and value my business is down to me. I realise some people will do it for in my opinion nothing, but as Nick Channer pointed out a tractor and hedge cutter will operate for £25 ph, fair do's but I know 10 people with the "popular" equipment for hire, I dont know of many processors in the area. I think to pay in the 10k region for a mobile outfit that you are not going to work everyday in reality justifys a decent reward. As has been pointed out £20 per bag maybe sounds a lot, also mentioned if the wood comes at the right price it leaves a very good profit. I got another booking to process 200 tonnes today so it works for some if not all. We sell logs too, but I'm buggered if I am going to bray away with an axe all day for a few quid, but I filled 4 m/3 bags in under an hour tonight and thats good for me. We negotiate good prices for good customers but I will just close with the final word from me on this. I will not work for nothing period. I pay all the same most of you do, insurances, tax, vat, running costs, and but the best gear I can afford which hopefully gets me repeat work time after time.

[muldonach]

I am guessing Galloway is not the place go processing. £20 to process + your free wood = £20 and the bags sell for £80 - £140 so the person gets £20 for doing all the work and you get £60 for doing nothing.

 

At £40 per cube processing I don't believe you would get too many repeat customers, we did it a few years back at £30 per hour all in (man, boy processor, tractor and chainsaws etc etc).

 

As mentioned on other threads we do get £60 per cu mtr bag but that covers all stages from growing tree to delivered firewood so it is hardly for doing nothing.

 

We have a guy up the road selling 1.2m bags of softwood at £40 if you collect and another couple of guys at similar prices so opportunity to get the price up is limited.

 

I tend to sell the firewood we produce from thinnings or windblow that we need or want to clear anyway rather than looking to scale it up.

 

Cheers

mac