Are logs worth doing anymore ?

[Steve Bullman]

Bury-st-Edmunds....My mate told me that it was an 01359 phone number, which IIRC is a Elmswell, Woolpit area number.....If so the guy as driven about ten miles to deliver that load!!!

 

How he makes money at that I dont know.

 

2 men hand cutting a load of tree surgery wood waste in their yard at the end of a day where they have already made a day rate on their tree surgery. say 2 hours work, £120 cash at the end of the day, not a bad little pick up to round the day off.

[Crazy Cutter]

Sold more through this summer than ever, and regulars are quite happy. Prices are all similar out there, but I've noticed some are starting to undercut, this must mean they are struggling for business, & wont be making much profit, just 'Keep calm and Carry on'!

 

My problem is i have been doing logs for 17 years, to put my price up one year to 80 a cube i would lose all my customers i keep edging it up every year now!

[skyhuck]

2 men hand cutting a load of tree surgery wood waste in their yard at the end of a day where they have already made a day rate on their tree surgery. say 2 hours work, £120 cash at the end of the day, not a bad little pick up to round the day off.

 

I even know someone who cuts it up on site, puts it in IBC cages ready for sale.

[skyhuck]

My problem is i have been doing logs for 17 years, to put my price up one year to 80 a cube i would lose all my customers i keep edging it up every year now!

 

You could be wrong, you could loose some customers, but still make more from the ones that remain and for less work.

 

A mate of mine has a friend who's a decorator, he'd been charging £10 per hour for years, my mate told him to up his rate to £18, the guy said "no way, I'll not get any work!!"

 

So my mate said "Just try it on the next job you quote, if you don't get the job forget it"

 

A few weeks later the saw each other, the decorator told my mate he owed him big time!!, he was now getting £18 per hour for every job and life was sweet!!!!!!!!!

[Woodworks]

You could be wrong, you could loose some customers, but still make more from the ones that remain and for less work.

 

A mate of mine has a friend who's a decorator, he'd been charging £10 per hour for years, my mate told him to up his rate to £18, the guy said "no way, I'll not get any work!!"

 

So my mate said "Just try it on the next job you quote, if you don't get the job forget it"

 

A few weeks later the saw each other, the decorator told my mate he owed him big time!!, he was now getting £18 per hour for every job and life was sweet!!!!!!!!!

 

I have heard this time and time again. I think it is partly down to the fact that people will judge how good you are by how much you charge so the more you charge the better you must be (within reason).

 

We have been charging top whack for our logs and have no problems selling them but we don't have much to sell each year so less risk.

[thomashenry]

I think the problem with the whole log industry is that it kind of doesn't add up. According to most sources, a 3 bed house heated exclusively with wood will use up to 16t per annum. So what's that? 25 cube at least of hardwood. Probably 30-35 soft at a guess. Some basic maths tells us that even at £60 a cube for hardwood that's £1500 a year. That seems a lot to me. Maybe it's not.

 

But £60 is way too cheap as far as I can see. If I were in logs I would want to be charging £100 a cube. That takes it to £2500 - £3500 a year for heat.

 

According to Ofgem Home, a typical figure for annual household gas consumption is in a year is 16,500 kWh. Now, with a boiler at about 90% efficiency, it means a house is using about 15,000kWh a year of actual heat. The cost of this will vary a lot depending on your tariff, but around £600-700 quid would be fairly typical.

 

So how much wood would you need to get the same amount of heat? Dry wood contains about 4kWh per kilo. Now the overall efficiency of most stoves is around 70%, so you actually get 2.8kWh of heat from each kilo of wood. Using these figures, you'd need 5.35 tonnes of dry wood to get 15000kWh of heat.

 

In terms of cubic metres, we'd be looking at around 8? So at £60 a cubic metre, you'd pay £480, so that's cheaper than gas. £75 a cubic metre is the point at which firewood starts becoming more expensive than gas, and at £90-£100 it's a lot more expensive.

 

Where I live, a fairly well established firewood vendor charges £95 per .75m3, equivalent to over £120 per cube. This is pushing around twice the cost of gas per kWh.

 

So in general, log prices of around £75 a cube are competitive with gas in terms of energy output. Of course, with wood you get far far more than just heat, and the extra value from the cosiness and ambiance of a real fire makes logs far more than just fuel.

Edited October 27, 2012 by thomashenry

[Stereo]

That's interesting and changes things a bit but you have to remember that wood is not usually as controllable as gas. We have a wood stove linked to an accumulator tank so in theory we should store excess heat in the water and then use it when the underfloor heating cuts in. But sometimes the tank gets too hot and the fail safe starts pumping water into the bathroom heating circuit to get rid of the heat. Wen we go to bed we stoke the a stove with dry ash and it must run the heating for a couple hours but the night is long and cold in the winter and I always hear the gas boiler backing up in the morning. Maybe our heat store is not big enough. That may be it.

 

But for us, we can't get by without gas at the moment and I would assume that is the same for most households. To truly heat your house with wood means investment in a serious system. Probably a big heat store and a gasifying boiler.

 

I'm sure our woodpile saves us a lot in gas and I cut it myself so no cost as such (I consider the time as time I would otherwise spend in the gym or just chilling out).

 

What I do know is that my gas combi would power our heating in an extremely efficient way if I wanted it to and I would have very little energy wastage.

[Alycidon]

Have a look at the Nottingham Energy partnership costs comparison chart. Last time I looked that showed logs at about the same price per kw as gas currently is.

 

A

[farmer_ben]

I even know someone who cuts it up on site, puts it in IBC cages ready for sale.

 

when we doing hedge row coppicing we process straight into vented cube bags and load on to trailer to then stack to season at the yard. saves a lot of extra handling for us.

[eggsarascal]

2 men hand cutting a load of tree surgery wood waste in their yard at the end of a day where they have already made a day rate on their tree surgery. say 2 hours work, £120 cash at the end of the day, not a bad little pick up to round the day off.

 

Good luck to em, i wouldn't do it for that money....It's a back breaker