How did you get into the firewood business?

[flatyre]

Hey folks just wondering how you started out in the processing business, I have a weird thing for logs, my wood store is full, there is a pile outside the kitchen, a pile down the garden, and now a pile in the lane running up to the house. I seem to find it very therapeutic, and people keep suggesting I get into the firewood business even on a small scale to counter balance the drop off in gardening during the winter months. I'm only talking a couple of 8x4 trailer loads a week, unfortunately most of what I bring home is conifer so would need to find a source of decent hard wood but there are a number of big estates in my area (Dunleath estate is 1200 acres and half a mile away), would it be viable to offer some sort of maintenance programme for the estate whereby I was allowed to harvest any dead/fallen trees? What about buying in unprocessed timber, any room for profit? Just wondering if its an option in the future.

[ash_smith123]

I bought a house about 6 years ago with a log burner, it was about December time and I couldn't find anyone locally that had seasoned firewood in stock. Bought some ash lengths off a tree surgeon because the Internet said "you can burn ash green". After the winter I had a bit left over so netted it up and put it on eBay. Had a few people come and collect that summer and though "I could be a millionaire here" [emoji23]

Roped a mate in to throw in a few grand and got ourselves a little unit, wallenstein log splitter, chainsaw and an artic load of beech. The rest they say his history!!

[Mat]

Hey folks just wondering how you started out in the processing business, I have a weird thing for logs, my wood store is full, there is a pile outside the kitchen, a pile down the garden, and now a pile in the lane running up to the house. I seem to find it very therapeutic, and people keep suggesting I get into the firewood business even on a small scale to counter balance the drop off in gardening during the winter months. I'm only talking a couple of 8x4 trailer loads a week, unfortunately most of what I bring home is conifer so would need to find a source of decent hard wood but there are a number of big estates in my area (Dunleath estate is 1200 acres and half a mile away), would it be viable to offer some sort of maintenance programme for the estate whereby I was allowed to harvest any dead/fallen trees? What about buying in unprocessed timber, any room for profit? Just wondering if its an option in the future.

 

Are you considering 'competitive pricing' in order to get market share from established suppliers?

 

Maybe go the other way, and rather than being yet another new-start applying downward pressure to the log market, charge a premium, and rise above it.....

 

[ame]

[/ame]

[timbernut]

[emoji23][emoji23][emoji23][emoji23][emoji23] brilliant!

 

 

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[flatyre]

Funny vid:thumbup: Hi Mat i'd use the same pricing strategy as I use for the other aspects of the business, landscaping, tree care, gardening. I don't try to be the cheapest as there will always be someone cheaper, I just charge the standard price but try to do a better than standard job. I don't have any fancy new ideas to bring to the table, just offer to stack the logs in a suitable place, if they don't have a wood shed then maybe supply a storage facility for an additional cost with the first load, which can be removed in the spring and the deposit returned (if it isn't damaged), that kind of thing. Its just an idea, doesn't need to be my main source of income, just bring in enough to help the business tick over during the winter.

[gdh]

My dad sold split oak stakes in the early nineties and started selling spare bits as firewood to neighbours, eventually he got a circular saw and splitter to process a bit more.

 

He got a proper processor in about 2001 and went up to 100-200 tons a year. By the time I left school in 09 the farm which is our main business was losing money so he planted all the rough land with trees and we started selling a bit more,luckily we already had 50 acres of woodland.

 

We expanded 100 tons a year every year, started buying in wood and split the firewood into a separate business so we could invest.

 

Then we bought bigger toys, I mean machinery but could still hire tractors and loaders from the farm to keep costs down. A few years ago we built a drying shed and a chipper so we could keep cutting through the winter and here we are.

 

Machinery went like this:

Splitting wedges and chainsaw

Circular saw and splitter

Palax, no indeed, push onto blade

Hakki Pilke 1x37

Tajfun 400 joy

Tajfun 480 +

[csservices]

Back before landowners decided firewood had a value I used to get any timber that came out of hedge laying jobs and any wind blown off feeding jobs and ended up with a huge stack on the yard, more than we would ever burn ourselves so put an ad in the local paper, pretty much killed myself the first month selling 5-6 loads a week while hedge laying everyday and cutting logs evening and weekend, eventually dropped on an old mconnell saw bench, for 80 quid and a mate of mine bought a browns log splitter and came in with me and away we went, then every man and his dog started doing firewood and pushed up the cordwood price and made it uneconomic so gave it up for a few years, back to basics now chainsaw and axe and just process what I get off my owned jobs or pickup at the right money.

 

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[Lancer]

Great to read peoples stories. I work on a small fruit farm, we never originally planned to have a firewood business. About 7 years back we we're grubbing out an apple orchard and one of our employees asked me if we should keep the wood and sell it. Because it was a bit out of line with what we we're focused on as a business I remember not being majorly enthusiastic but said I was happy for him to do it. It all sold quick so I bought an artic load of ash and beech which we chainsawed and split with axes. Each year after that we roughly doubled every year what we sold and this year we will process 2000 odd tonnes.

[flatyre]

Great to read peoples stories. I work on a small fruit farm, we never originally planned to have a firewood business. About 7 years back we we're grubbing out an apple orchard and one of our employees asked me if we should keep the wood and sell it. Because it was a bit out of line with what we we're focused on as a business I remember not being majorly enthusiastic but said I was happy for him to do it. It all sold quick so I bought an artic load of ash and beech which we chainsawed and split with axes. Each year after that we roughly doubled every year what we sold and this year we will process 2000 odd tonnes.

 

so there is enough room for profit in buying in the raw timber?

[Woodworks]

By accident. Live on a farm and the Devon banks are seriously overgrown with trees. Started cutting them back and laying what I could. Logged up the wood for my folks who burn a bit but had an access. Friend asked if we had we any logs we would sell. They bought some came back and said they were the best (ie dry) they had ever had and could they have more and their friends wanted some as well. Built up from there concentrating on quality and not worrying about being expensive.