Coming to a county near you?

[Joy Yeomans]

I am not aware Heartwoods are working with CW more than any other of the small guys that get a look in at the firewood coming of sites. All heartwoods do is go in advise the woodland owner on what they could do with the woodland. They dont sell firewood, so its upto the individual owners who they sell to, which if your running a business is going to be the person offering the highest price. Heartwoods are helping to promote getting unmanaged small woodlands back into some management, if increased timber prices stimulates this then surely its a good thing. Its increasing the work for forestry contractors, as more woodlands will need managing. Certainly any sites I work on i try and get local guys to do the work, or the best suited contractors for the job. I also advise that a lot of the time its best to sell the timber standing as for large numbers of small woods owners, as its not often worth trying to manage felling, extraction and marketing seperatly on these sites.

 

Heartwoods isnt government funded, there is some government funding for specific projects but its largely funded by external funding such as environmental grants. There is no push at all to national companies, in fact its far from it. I havent read this article, but it sounds like its been worded badly, or certainly being misinterpreted from what is actually the case.

 

i hear what your saying charlie , but both Roh and i read and reread the article inthe CLA mag and it definately reads that heartwoods are promoting woodland owners to sell to CW as that is what the two page article is about, will let you have the mag on friday to view -see you then charlie:thumbup:

[Spruce]

Indeed! However it's generated, the heat used in the kilns has a cost to it. A premium air-died or solar kiln dried product should carry as much if not more kudos than part-cooked logs.

 

Yes, and it should be marketed as such. Kiln drying (ie, drying with heat generated from a fuel source) is a complete nonsense. If you think about it it's as wasteful of energy as burning green wood in your stove.

 

There's a place just down the road from us producing wood pellets for pellet boilers out of perfect processor size cord. I don't know how wasteful of energy the process of making pellets is, but I'll bet it's at least as bad if not worse than kiln drying. If it were a waste product that was being made into pellets it would probably be justifiable, but decent wood that could just be cut up, air dried then shoved in a stove? Bonkers.

[Alycidon]

There's a place just down the road from us producing wood pellets for pellet boilers out of perfect processor size cord. I don't know how wasteful of energy the process of making pellets is, but I'll bet it's at least as bad if not worse than kiln drying. If it were a waste product that was being made into pellets it would probably be justifiable, but decent wood that could just be cut up, air dried then shoved in a stove? Bonkers.

 

 

Grind it down to sawdust, dry it, then pass it through a high pressure extruder to pelletise it, pellets come out warm and pliable. It takes a lot of high energy to do that, when I looked at the idea a few years ago processing costs were about £20 a ton in decent volumes. Product is sold at about £200 a ton + delivery, the major player in that market keeps the price just below oil per kw.

 

A

[Crazy Cutter]

The bit that is worrying me the most is woodland will just be treated as a crop to make money which will in turn need large investment and large machinery forcing small fry like myself to call it a day. I can name four estates within ten miles of me that have obtained funding to develop a firewood business but i have access to nothing. I have spent thousands over the years obtaining the tickets and skills to hand fell but that accounts for nothing when a grant can be found and the average farm worker let loose in the woods just to fill time. There is no level playing field, the system has been developed over 30 years now, it is a very small community and relies on who you know and if you aren't part of the click you will be left out. I have considered moving to just buying in cord so i can avoid that side but the agii-estate has the buying power to spend more on cord than me. Those estates that set up a few years ago have already used up their own thinnings (the whole purpose of the grant) and now buy in cord.

 

On the subject of the chinese, their economy is as fragile as ours and is already being hurt by our recession. They will only invest in something with good returns and wood is too volatile for that. The euro crisis could in theory damage the chinese more than us.

[corylus]

As I said here http://arbtalk.co.uk/forum/firewood-forum/34495-how-big-boys-do.html all this needless processing is only enabled because the global cost of oil is too cheap.

 

The 'hi-tec' wood processors need wood in-wood-out as quick as poss. Sadly and currently is is more profitable to half cook the wood than to let it stand, covered and let nature take its course over a couple of years. OIL is cheaper than TIME.

 

However as far as we know, oil is finite, time is infinite.

 

Rant over........................please continue with your day:biggrin::biggrin:

[ThrustSSC]

As I said here http://arbtalk.co.uk/forum/firewood-forum/34495-how-big-boys-do.htmlThe 'hi-tec' wood processors need wood in-wood-out as quick as poss. Sadly and currently is is more profitable to half cook the wood than to let it stand, covered and let nature take its course over a couple of years. OIL is cheaper than TIME.

 

The real issues here are:

 

1) leadtime

2) space, and

3) opportunity cost

 

The whisky industry have suffered for years from the problems with leadtime - look at what Cardhu tried to do to meet Spanish demand with their 'real malt' a few years back. The answer is stability of demand - which we won't get in this transitional period from oil to renewables, unless the government pull some tricks to stabilise the market.

 

Space is the next one - the volume that e.g. CW process would require a significant acreage to season under polythene. We could do it for around 40k cubes, but any more we'd be stuck (and my wife would need somewhere else to keep the horses!).

 

Opportunity cost is a matter of business planning and is something we small producers all face: that stock sat seasoning is money tied up for a year or more. We don't have many of CW's costs (e.g. kilns) but they don't have our opportunity cost because their product takes so much less time between coming in and going out. Even so I note that they do their initial seasoning naturally (only a few weeks' worth, mind).

[corylus]

The real issues here are:

 

1) leadtime

2) space, and

3) opportunity cost

 

The whisky industry have suffered for years from the problems with leadtime - look at what Cardhu tried to do to meet Spanish demand with their 'real malt' a few years back. The answer is stability of demand - which we won't get in this transitional period from oil to renewables, unless the government pull some tricks to stabilise the market.

 

Space is the next one - the volume that e.g. CW process would require a significant acreage to season under polythene. We could do it for around 40k cubes, but any more we'd be stuck (and my wife would need somewhere else to keep the horses!).

 

Opportunity cost is a matter of business planning and is something we small producers all face: that stock sat seasoning is money tied up for a year or more. We don't have many of CW's costs (e.g. kilns) but they don't have our opportunity cost because their product takes so much less time between coming in and going out. Even so I note that they do their initial seasoning naturally (only a few weeks' worth, mind).

 

Cant do 'owt but agree with you boy! Dont forget though that WE bore some of CW's costs.

[gensetsteve]

The other problem with seasoning for a year or two is the cost of rent and rates if you stuck 4000 ibc containers in a field you would get a fair size rate bill for industrial use. So kiln drying is quicker and probably cheaper. If you had a nice dry building would you store 5k of wood in it or rent it to a small business £400 a month bearing in mind 5 k of wood will have about £1000 profit in it.

[BurnerLogs]

I am new to the forum and new to selling firewood. While I am by no means an expert in firewood (or will ever claim to be) I liken the situation with companies like CW to what Ive experienced in the past in other areas.

 

They and other big estates, farms etc that are getting grants and seemingly ploughing money into their operations need not be feared. Especially in something as niche as firewood.

 

Ive seen it partucularly with Ice cream and dairy products and have seen it in other markets and industries, people step up and try and have a stab at being the big dog. A small percentage will succeed and develop a brand and will move to the upper echelons of the market. They then become less interested in world domination and more interested in market share. The rest will fail miserably and disappear. There's not a lot of room at the top in any market.

 

The 'big dogs' will not try or ever be able to crush the area of the market shared by small to medium producers. As soon as they get so big they are more interested in not being replaced by another large producer.

 

In fact if anything companies like this, at least for a short time, will raise awareness of the fact that you can use wood to heat your home and more woodburners etc will be installed. Your small advert and word of mouth will bring you even more business as result of the new trend.

 

The one thing you can fear is (or become a part of) is cooperatives in your area. That is groups of small producers teaming together and if nothing else wrapping the local market up for their 'clique'. If your in your fine, if your not you could get screwed.

 

On the whole though I think if your wood is good, your prices are okay and your service is reliable and consistent you will never lose in the long run.

[Crazy Cutter]

Thanks for that a bit of fresh air.

 

My only concern is that i don't cut or produce enough to keep the landowners happy because they think (whether right or wrong) that they could be making more. We all have limits unless you able to step up and go bigger. To tell you the truth i'm happy being a small producer (around 600 tonnes) but i'm forever being told to go bigger by those selling the timber. What does that say?