Whats a load?

[Logsnstuff]

There is nothing wrong with striving for efficiency and wanting not to overcharge your customers.

 

It's not just the fault of the producers, but also the customers for being ill educated. Most European users of firewood ensure a winter's worth of firewood is sat outside the house before winter starts. The most efficient way to produce and deliver firewood is to sell it green, as you are not sat on the stock (which is cash tied up, with the associated costs) and it reduces handling and storage (also large costs).

 

3-400 tonne puts you in the difficult middle ground of being small enough to be competing with the transit tipper axe wielding warriors and large enough to have significant costs.

 

Firewood is just fuel. It's timber we burn. It's not worth £120 a cube. It doesn't cost anywhere near that to produce. If you have to charge £120 to make a profit then you're either overpaying for your raw materials, or there is an awful inefficiency somewhere down the line. It's nothing personal to you, Lognstuff, it's a general frustration with the fact that everything is fiercely expensive in the UK, with firewood being no exception.

 

give us a breakdown of the figures your working on to calculate a fair price it's been a while since anyone posted a breakdown for production storage and delivery.

overpaying on timber probably but it can be difficult to source here as the main company harvesting in this area keeps it all themselves and we don't have contacts on estates the 2 estates we used to get from both produce firewood now.

[Logsnstuff]

I admire you for selling at a good price, nothing wrong with that. But I still can't see why you can't advertise a different per cube price for each packaging method. People understand that buying in bulk will be cheaper so whats the problem?

 

BTW how do you manage selling in nets? it must be way less profitable than the bulk bags no?

 

nets are a pain in the backside and if we had enough demand to just do bulk bags I wouldn't go near nets but as I'm year round firewood I have time to fill them and we only have a couple of trade customers so 2-3k nets a year very few privates buy nets from us they usually go for a barrow bag.

[R5log]

Loose loads all the way, why mess about with bags

[Mortimer Firewood]

Loose loads all the way, why mess about with bags

 

How many times have we been here the pros of bags are obvious all the big merchants I know use bags coincidence I think not

[R5log]

Perfect trailer for delivering bags

Still loose loads are better

 

Will take a picture of creates for u Mortimor and put a sign in front so u know there mine

 

Not a library picture!!!!!

 

May even go 8 high

[Lee Winger]

I made a fortune out of selling logs by the net i was getting double the price compared to a three cube load, i delivered but i had a minimum of 10 bags

[R5log]

Don't you cost in business rates?

[Logsnstuff]

Small business 100% rates relief

 

almost none of our customers want tipped loads they want bags so we're £56k for a delivery vehicle a lot of places we deliver you couldn't access with crane in a trailer option,

normal forklift wont work on the sand and mud of our yard so 26k for telehandler

£36 a cube for cord (1.5m3 at £55 a ton) you gotta price on worst case scenario unless you want to risk selling at a loss not everyone has processors that can cut 18"+ so more realistically is 2 cube an hr if things go well.

 

tractor running processor is a tank of diesel every 2 days can't remember the volume. usually oldish tractors so a trip to workshop is generally £1k a time you can fix it yourself if your mechanically motivated or you can chop the big ugly stuff during these breakdowns. you also need enough profit to cover your expenses for the breakdowns the wages etc.

 

the rent is similar but we get no buildings so costs us £10k a polytunnel to get the land prepared and put it up.

 

in general your figures seem low to me I would like someone operating a similar size processor to give their opinion on them

Edited July 12, 2015 by Logsnstuff

[Wood wasp]

Secondly, once we've educated the customers to the above, we need to get them to buy the blasted firewood unseasoned. Any right thinking person looks after their own firewood needs and ensures that it's dry themselves. That way, there is no quibble regarding moisture content.

 

Finally, once the first two steps have been completed, we can drop prices. If prices are more affordable and more consistent, it becomes a fuel source, rather than a luxury item. £120 for a cube of firewood is nuts. You'd get that through a processor in 15 minutes for a maximum of a £30 raw material and labour cost. Where does the extra £90 come from?

 

 

Re buying unseasoned, best point made on thread. Not sure your cost structure is right though

[Logsnstuff]

Re buying unseasoned, best point made on thread. Not sure your cost structure is right though

 

pretty sure most of us have tried pushing unseasoned not just to get cash flow through the summer but also takes a bit of pressure of the delivery schedule in the winter, when you get 20 orders wanting next day on the 1st Oct it's a headache to get them delivered and we try to do next day not 5-7 although maybe if we were to take a week or a fortnight we would get earlier ordering.