Log sellers experience of last winter

[Crazy Cutter]

How many of us depend on logs for the winter or is it just a by product?

 

My main job now is to fell and season as much wood as poss for the coming winter. Whats the point if i haven't got a market. Should logs just be a side-line?

[gensetsteve]

How many of us depend on logs for the winter or is it just a by product?

 

My main job now is to fell and season as much wood as poss for the coming winter. Whats the point if i haven't got a market. Should logs just be a side-line?

 

If we had a crystal ball and could tell what the winter was going to do we could be minted. If it was going to be a hard winter you could buy in a 1000 tonnes of cord and sell the lot. But if its mild you dont want to be sat on £50,000 of wood.

I forgot to mention the double dip recession and the storms which killed alot of business. One customer of ours spends £1200 a year and had a huge ash tree blow into the garden. Unless you have a large retailer taking your wood I would keep it as a side line and not put all your eggs in one basket.

[widmere]

happens every year, Oil Seed Rape prices were sky high last harvest, now everyone has upped there OSR acreage and now you see seas of yellow everywhere in the countryside!

 

Farmer Ben - have you had a look at the Rapeseed market of late? It's on fire (sorry for the pun )

[Able Fella]

Very poor for logs last year, it was far too mild and wet, got loads of wood so I'm hoping for a harsh winter.

[farmer_ben]

Farmer Ben - have you had a look at the Rapeseed market of late? It's on fire (sorry for the pun )

 

at current prices its the same now and as it was last year, but i believe there is more planted this year so possibly wont be as sharp come harvest? anyones guess really though, very volatile market and hard to predict. i have sold half my wheat forward for harvest at a sensible price...i hope

[Johny Walker]

did just fine:biggrin:,only down £302 on 2010 sales @ the mo,sold less but charged more + had more compertion ,over produced to get in front so have 60 loads ready to go & another 300 drying

[Joy Yeomans]

I thought after selling logs for six years I . We have a good advert which works a treat and we dont normally need to advertise but last winter we did. Most of our wood is bought in cord at around £40-£50 a tonne so if we drop our prices it wont be worth doing. My conclusion is if its a mild winter the cheap loads will last and business will be slow. .

 

 

yes steve , if we had to buy in all our wood i doubt we would still be doing it as i dont know how firewood business can survive buying in cord -

 

we are different i guess, in that all our timber is felled by ourselves and we only rarely buy in an odd load if a haulier is passing and we can get it at the right price.

 

weve been doing firewood for over 10 years and are in it for the long term, these winters and seasons we have seen before and arent suprised, as for the buying patterns of customers , this has changed and we find that full tip loads are not always what the customer wants - but we have a good variety of different products/prices etc and can usually fulfil what every customer wants and wants to pay.

 

there have been way too many entrants into the firewood game - as i have said many times before -but its only when we get these unusual conditions that it sorts them out.

 

firewood is never going to make you your fortune and i dont think you can solely build a business on it, but it supplements our businesses v.well

[Rob D]

Still got 40 cube of mixed (hard and soft) dry wood left....

 

My theory is you need a good 2 weeks of cold weather early on to get people in the habit of using their log burners.... after that they'll use until it gets warmer.

 

This didn't happen 2011 and it was milder as well.....

 

One plus point is it may thin competition for this year.

[Joy Yeomans]

forgot to add aswell - i think this firewood snobbery of these newbies advertising "premium hardwood" etc at a premium price is falling flat on its knees, we offer many products from mixed bags of conifer/tree surgery arisings to larch, to mixed loads to pure hardwood and priced accordingly

 

softwood will have its day and shine

 

joy

[mikey10]

We sold about the same this year as the year before, but that is because in 2010 we ran out by jan and could of sold more, but this year we have not run out, and with this rainy/coldish end to april we are still selling logs now. as for knowing how much wood to buy for the following year what does not sell will keep for the following year