Firewood For a living

[Peter]

If you are thinking about planting trees to supply future fire wood needs, then you could look into a coppice system. It would take a few years to get up and running, but it would produce nice straight even sized stems for firewood production, and it would be easy to harvest with minimal equipment.

[Shic]

Thank-you Peter,

 

What kind of wood works well for a coppice system? and whats the best way of getting it going?

 

Shicksall

[Peter]

Hazel, alder, ash, sycamore.

 

Plant small, start the coppice early.

 

If you are working on a five year rotation you will have to spend five years planting before you get much harvest, but long term its the best way of getting the most firewood out of a given area of land.

[liamjordan]

coppicing is a gooood idea

 

equipment wise, to be honest i would not bother splashing out thousands of pounds for one, we sell a lot of firewood and we manage fine with "vintage" machinery, look at this topic for some pics - http://arbtalk.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=5415

 

Cheapest piece of tractor driven equipement is probably a second hand saw bench which you could easily pick up for a couple of hundred pounds,

 

e.g. http://www.farmingmachines.co.uk/machinery/M03700 or somthing more basic and cheaper like ours i'll upload a few pics

 

or a sprial type loggsplitter

[ame]http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_9tsgLexvSQ[/ame]

 

 

I have recenlty got hold of an older one of these, hasnt changed much, works well:

http://www.japa.fi/en/index.php/klapikoneet/sirkkelikoneet/japa-100.html

[firewoodman]

i started with chainsaw and table top splitter £2000 to set up.

2 yrs later bough first processor and increased output.

 

if starting again i would buy a cheap tractor and processor as there is not much to go wrong and they are fairly easy to fix.

 

build up a good relationship with your local supplier to get help with repairs

[Billy Goat Gruff]

Personally I would not bother too much with coppice, as it will take far too long to get a return on your capitol out lay, if you have just come out to civvie land then you will probably have a good pension and lump sum, so I would spend it wisely.

Young saplings is very vunerable to wild life damage etc, so needs managing.

You also don't really want to be cutting down too many mature Ash trees as this would have an impact on the landscape, and consider the length of time that they take to grow.

I would cut down the dead or decayed ones only and buy in wood as cheap as I could, you should beable to locate a source in the Pyreneese.

Get yourself an Old tractor and a saw bench and a pto driven log splitter and you are away.

P.S. If you go down the rearing pigs road, smoke the carcases over wood chippings mmmmmmm

[Shic]

Thanks for all the top advice,

 

Apologies for the late response, but we have had no power for over a week, after a huge storm ripped through here. Can now cook a 3 course meal on a log burner!

 

Got the old tractor already, so that's a head start, and an old barn for storage so a saw-bench and log-splitter to get myself up and running.....

 

Was thinking of selling it in builders bags any thoughts?

 

Also are the wood moisture meters any good? most wood sold here is by farmers who do it as a little sideline. I was thinking a more focused operation could maybe fill a gap in the market

 

Yes Billy Goat did get a lump sum and pension, and am very keen to make it last, especially now the pound has nose dived against the euro!