What price?

[SPC Trees]

The farmer where I rent a yard has a huge 2 year old seasoned ash that fell down in a storm. He's happy for me to ring and process it into firewood but wants some money for it. It will produce about 30m3 of firewood. How much should I give him? Or how shall I work out a fair price? Ideas?

[muldonach]

The farmer where I rent a yard has a huge 2 year old seasoned ash that fell down in a storm. He's happy for me to ring and process it into firewood but wants some money for it. It will produce about 30m3 of firewood. How much should I give him? Or how shall I work out a fair price? Ideas?

 

If you know it will produce 30cu mt of firewood :-

 

What can you sell that for? or alternatively how much would you have to pay for it delivered to your door?

 

How long will it take you to convert the fallen tree into processed firewood? Put an hourly rate on that time and deduct from above

 

What other costs will you have? Fuel, oil, trasport etc - quantify them and deduct from above

 

The figure you have arrived at is the maximum you can pay and make a decent return - the proportion of that that you initially offer is up to you

 

Cheers

mac

[se7enthdevil]

if it's huge, why not mill it and make more than you would from firewood...

[davetaz]

just offer him some cash (say £100 to start) and see what response is like. Be prapared to negotiate though and explain how much you could it delivered in for and how much work is involved dismantling and moving it

[agg221]

You say 2yr seasoned. Does that mean it fell over/was cut down 2yrs ago and has been left? If so, it will still be wringing wet so I wouldn't factor 'seasoned' into the pricing.

 

I would work on the basis of roadside cordwood in your area as a reasonable price. You know the usable volume and you can calculate the green weight. Cordwood is sold per ton, so multiply by the number of tons and you have a figure.

 

It won't process as easily as cordwood, but you don't have the transport costs or time so it's probably a fair basis, particularly if the farmer can lend you a tractor/trailer to bring it back.

 

Alec

[Woodworks]

30 m3 so approximately 15 tonne @ £50 per tonne roadside = £450

 

Offer £200 see what he says.

[davetaz]

30 m3 so approximately 15 tonne @ £50 per tonne roadside = £450

 

Offer £200 see what he says.

 

15T at £50 per tonne is £750

 

I would only ever offer £50 -£100 for atree like that. Quite a lot of work to get it back to a yard for turning in to logs

[scbk]

You have to watch how much tidying up is expected and what access etc is like, if it's wet you can very quickly make a mess.

 

I would say a bottle of whisky to the farmer and no more!

[Hodge]

I did the same a few years ago, gave a farmer £100 for a big ash, I got about 40 cube from it.....after I got it back to the yard, cut it and split it, blunted a few chains from what was hidden in the trunk etc.

[Mark Bolam]

Say you'll call it a grand.

Do it, then invoice him £1000 for 'clearing fallen tree'.

It will be a right laugh.*

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* Have a new yard ready to move to, like.