Standing sales for hardwood thinnings - prices?

[Big J]

I'm in the process of trying to persuade one of the local estates to start managing their younger hardwood stands. They see them as a financial drain, and I know that they could make money from them. It's mostly 30-50 year old ash, sycamore, beech, oak and the like. Potentially a few beam grade logs from the oak, but very few.

 

What would you be offering on the tonne, standing? I think that I can make a reasonable amount up to about £8-10 a tonne, beyond that the economics go out the window somewhat.

 

Additionally, securing a stand of these thinnings means we can get a hardwood thinning workshop off the ground too

[MattyF]

I'd offer them that and make them aware that earnings from selling there timber are tax free... You should get a deal then J... In regards its only thinnings walk through and get them or your self to mark up whats to felled so they know you won't rape the wood! .. I think that's a good and reasonable offer.

[Lyncombe-climber]

What's your email bigj. Ill send you a graph.

[Big J]

What's your email bigj. Ill send you a graph.

 

info at rstw.co.uk - thanks for that!

 

Good thing is we've been doing hardwood thinning on the neighbouring estate for years now, so a 10 minute car journey away are 10s of hectares of woodlands we've thinned that I can show them.

 

Call me an idiot, but even on tonnage rate I still cut scrub and prune where needed. I can't stand slash and bash cutters who just go in for the tonnage. I reckon you get more work being conscientious anyway.

 

Jonathan

[Lyncombe-climber]

Sent.

[Big J]

Sent.

 

That is superb, thanks. Slightly higher standing price than I expected, but also high price at roadside.

 

Jonathan

[Lyncombe-climber]

Yeah. Seems to work out well as long as the site is average. Not to steep etc.

[Chris Sheppard]

It depends on loads of things, usually site related, but it's been known round us to go as stupidly high as pushing £20/T on exceptional stuff.

 

If you're pruning and cleaning as you go then effectively they're getting a paid job done for free too so it's always a good bargaining chip, however, IME a lot of landowners don't really care, they just want the most money out of it they can.

 

Roadside prices seem to be pretty stable at the mo, if anything the demand is still increasing so could probably stand a bit more.

 

If we could get hold of it, I'd be fairly confident we could sell 3-4 times what we could extract per season than we currently do.

 

All I can suggest is don't undersell yourself at roadside, there's plenty of idiots who'll want it for peanuts, but for every one of them theres at least another who will pay what it's worth.

 

Radside prices seem to vary nationally a fair bit but it sounds like hardwood isn't massively abundant round you so I'd expect it would need to be pretty rough stuff to not be making mid £40's /T+vat roadside.

[New Forest Firewood Co]

lyncombe climber...

 

be interested in your graph too.

 

enquiriesatnewforestfirewooddotcom

 

cheers in hope...

[Tom D]

lyncombe climber...

 

be interested in your graph too.

 

enquiriesatnewforestfirewooddotcom

 

cheers in hope...

 

Me too:

 

[email protected]