What would you do with this lot?

[djbobbins]

At risk of stating the obvious, I think you can sell it as firewood, and there will be a market for it. It just depends on finding a few of the right customers.

 

My folks run a solid fuel, 1940's vintage Rayburn, an open fire and a stove. They believe themselves to be lucky because they have found a furniture-making place which lets them collect exactly this sort of wood waste free of charge, by arrangement. My parents are sufficiently happy with this arrangement that they are prepared to do a nearly 40 mile round trip to collect a 1 cube trailer full, and to do the loading themselves.

 

Plenty of the other members of the family, who run both open fires and closed appliances, are desperate to find out where the source is. I've had some of the wood myself and it is great for coming home from work and getting some heat up quickly.

 

I think if you can find the right customer base you will have no problem at all shifting this "as is" in dumpy bags without processing it in any way. At the right price I'd consider buying some myself to augment my own personal log supply but distances are prohibitive!

[gensetsteve]

Thanks for the input everyone. We were given the opportunity last year to take this waste wood and sold all we had. It was totally experimental and wanted something to fill in during the winter. As I want to make a business out of this I have to pick the right product to focus on and make it work. I'm keen to make kindling out of what we get, there isn't anyone right on my doorstep doing it. I do wonder if too many people might be looking into producing kindling. What do you think about the supply/demand for this season so far?

 

I had stuff like u have on the left. Put it into builders bags and put it on ebay for £15 a bag had one taker who knocked me down to £50 for 5 bags. I decided it was not worth the time and diesel in the forklift. You could advertise it as kiln dried untreated joinery waste suitable as firewood. You need to watch out for the green stuff as its treated with nasties and now they have a new treatment which makes the wood a deeper yellow colour. With the right kit you could turn the stuff into kindling but it would still be labour intensive. Judging by recent replies someone will be along soon to tell me i am clueless and pessimistic that they are the god of logs.

[Michael C]

I had stuff like u have on the left. Put it into builders bags and put it on ebay for £15 a bag had one taker who knocked me down to £50 for 5 bags. I decided it was not worth the time and diesel in the forklift. You could advertise it as kiln dried untreated joinery waste suitable as firewood. You need to watch out for the green stuff as its treated with nasties and now they have a new treatment which makes the wood a deeper yellow colour. With the right kit you could turn the stuff into kindling but it would still be labour intensive. Judging by recent replies someone will be along soon to tell me i am clueless and pessimistic that they are the god of logs.

 

Realistic is the word you are looking for..

[Chris Gagen]

I take waste timber from a staircase manufacturer for kindling production.

 

I sell tight cubic meter bags of these offcuts for £60, I tell people that it's a firewood and rough kindling mix... works for me! But then I only have around 10 bags a year to shift. I have also sold to camp sites in net bags for use as camp firewood at £2.20 a bag.

 

P.S. this is all I ever burn in my own stove too.

[Chris Gagen]

I take waste timber from a staircase manufacturer for kindling production.

 

I sell tight cubic meter bags of these offcuts for £60, I tell people that it's a firewood and rough kindling mix... works for me! But then I only have around 10 bags a year to shift. I have also sold to camp sites in net bags for use as camp firewood at £2.20 a bag.

 

P.S. this is all I ever burn in my own stove too.

 

sorry, meant to say i term it "lump-wood" not firewood...

[gensetsteve]

Realistic is the word you are looking for..

 

Micheal I like your way of thinking:beer:

 

If my stove was bigger and I could get a bit more in I would burn it but it just burns too quick and leaves very little bed. I am actually buying skip fulls of 4ft off cuts for £20 a skip. I have 6 of my own skips and cant keep up. I fill 4 bulk bags a day when working the kindling 2x2" off cuts if someone close by has a use let me know. Currently I give it to one of my neighbours.

[Chris Gagen]

steve what size skips are they? you not getting hold of full lengths of reject grade stuff any more?

[gensetsteve]

steve what size skips are they? you not getting hold of full lengths of reject grade stuff any more?

 

Still getting the lengths just recently done 10,000 bags so been sucking everything up in the local area. I was removing offcuts free but sorting was taking too much time. The offcuts we get are all minimum 2x2 and over 6" long. I think the skips are 3 yard or 1.5-2 metres.

[MarkG]

I agree with all the comments. Last year we sold builders sacks, (not a cubic metre!), at £25 wholesale plus delivery and a £5 deposit on bag, about 55 went. Orders are slower this year, we had repeat business through the season last year so people weren't put off by the wood. We also sold white woven bags weighing about 30kg wholesale was £10 last year and sold 150 to one store. They have just reordered 20 bags. Its a good product for profit but I want to get into a bit bigger volumes.

Tomorrow we are calling all the customers we supplied to last year. We just bagged and sold the wood before without giving much thought as to what product we would specialise in, i.e. kindling or sell it as it is. We also didn't measure volume of wood or timing how long processes take to sort or fill bags. We need to do this now to get the most value out of the wood we get hense market research is needed leading me on to my final question - honest - do any of you pack kindling into small plastic bags weighing approx 1.5kg? The likes of Londis and corner shops seem to like them more and I would think more profit to be made being a smaller bag?