The diary of a kindling maker

[gensetsteve]

After my experience of making kindling over the last year and seeing the other kindling thread thought I would put my thoughts down in print. The days of cheap oil, gas, electric, logs and kindling may be comming to an end.

 

Two years ago my material cost to make a bag of kindling inc bag was around 30p this week I am struggling to keep material cost below £1. Our summer orders this year are roughly double and we are having to purchase timber at a cost of £40 a tonne delivered in.

A tonne of timber makes about 80 bags of kindling and needs to be dried. Whoever you get your kindling from dont leave it too late as you may be disappointed go easy on you supplier as we are getting stuffed by the biomass boys who get big subsidies to buy cord this has pushed the price up.

 

We enjoy what we do and look forward to meeting all our customers we are doing all we can to make sure we have enough dry kindling to supply through the winter. If anyone knows of a nice pile of fresh 12" pop with no knots going cheap I will be a happy man

[Joy Yeomans]

got a load sat in our yard steve.

 

joy

 

Sent from my GT-I8160 using Tapatalk 2

[Stubby]

Maybe you could get the customers to buy ( from you ) a sensible hatchet or similar and split a few bits as they need them from your well seasoned logs . It works for me !

[gensetsteve]

Maybe you could get the customers to buy ( from you ) a sensible hatchet or similar and split a few bits as they need them from your well seasoned logs . It works for me !

 

We dont sell logs. But we have sold 12,000 bags of kindling this year so far. I think there must be a good demand for it maybe not every one has time to sit with a hatchet luckily

[Stubby]

We dont sell logs. But we have sold 12,000 bags of kindling this year so far. I think there must be a good demand for it maybe not every one has time to sit with a hatchet luckily

 

Ok understood . The times hey are a changing .

[farmer rod]

 

We enjoy what we do and look forward to meeting all our customers we are doing all we can to make sure we have enough dry kindling to supply through the winter. If anyone knows of a nice pile of fresh 12" pop with no knots going cheap I will be a happy man

 

Steve, sorry if this is a daft question, but can you kindle fresh pop and let it dry in the bag?

 

Rod

[gensetsteve]

Steve, sorry if this is a daft question, but can you kindle fresh pop and let it dry in the bag?

 

Rod

 

2 weeks ago I would not of had a clue not a daft question at all. But I would now say wet pop kindled and stacked on pallet will probably go mouldy. But kindled wet and left with air space in a poly tunnel in the summer it dries in 5 days. Pitch pine and spruce gets mould on the end no matter what you do. Our plan is to process into 6 in logs and season in vent bags for several months. Avoid cutting through winter. I have been sat in my office with the aircon on and the stove lit over the last few weeks the neighbours always knew I was mad but now they think I have completely lost it

[renewablejohn]

You will always get cheap illegal kindling made from pallets as trading standards/EA only seem to prosecute the big boys.

[woody3]

You will always get cheap illegal kindling made from pallets as trading standards/EA only seem to prosecute the big boys.

 

why can't you use pallet grade wood if untreated?

[renewablejohn]

All pallets have to treated to comply with eu standards. The only timber from pallets allowed to be burnt in domestic stoves by the EA are heat treated pallets which make up a very small percentage of new pallets and certainly have not as yet entered into the mainstream recycled pallet market.