How did you get into the firewood business?

[Lancer]

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

 

Yes there is but to be fair we have several advantages over someone starting from nothing.

1. We own the farm so don't have to rent a yard.

2. We already have staff and kit for other existing business on the site so don't have all ours eggs in one basket. To give an example our employees can go from busy season harvesting fruit and then when that's quiet they go onto logs more.

3. Once you get to a certain size you can be very efficient with deliveries this massively effects profitability and production speed is fast when you have the kit, economy of scale.

4. Space is another thing we have plenty of and barns.

All these factors and others make it a business that stacks up financially for us. However can very much understand how it is extremely tight to make a decent living from if circumstances are not as advantageous but

I do think if you run a tight ship and work hard there is money to be made on the small scale even if you are buying in the wood.

[Logged On]

Boss started doing logs before I joined him...

 

He's a farm business too, but he diversified into horses 35+ years ago as he was losing land due to house building.

 

Was a chain saw and cheap tractor mounted hydraulic splitter when he started, so had the tractors sitting all winter doing nowt.

 

Story goes, he only split for his and his dad's wood burners.

 

Then people started asking the 'I see you got wood - do you sell logs..?'

 

The original farm was on a main road, so people could see the wood piled up...

 

Year on year since though, he's had to expand quickly and get a processor to keep up with demand...

[flatyre]

I'll need to think about next years business plan over the winter. This year has been busy but not in a smooth organised way, pretty chaotic in fact. In order to get my business up and running I needed to take on grass cutting contracts to subsidise the landscaping work. Unfortunately its hard to run a tightly scheduled business alongside random landscaping and tree work, especially with our unpredictable weather. It also meant working ridiculous hours, working all day at the landscaping then all evening trying to maintain the grass schedule. I was coming home late at night shattered and barely able to stay awake long enough to eat my dinner. I didn't see the kids for days on end.

I'm now at a bit of a crossroads, do I invest in better grass machinery which will save time, or move into wood processing? I'll be honest I really don't like cutting grass, don't know why. On the other hand for some reason I enjoy wood processing. Also as its more of a winter business, i'll be free to spend time with the family during the summer and have something to do during the winter when the landscaping tails off.

How have you guys found juggling a multi service business? any tips welcome.

[Tree Tastic Care]

Take each job as it comes . Don't book jobs to close together and having a supporting family helps

 

Sent from my SM-A310F using Arbtalk mobile app

[flatyre]

Much appreciated tree tastic, the missus has been great which really helps. My problem seems to be booking in work, as a newish business in a fairly congested sector, people are happy to wait months and months to have the big reputable firms fit them in, but when they phone me up unless I can do it right away then they move onto someone who can. Understandable they are prepared to wait on firms with established reputations, but it will be a few years before my business is a recognised name.

[Tree Tastic Care]

To be fair I'm at that point at the moment. Trying to compete with other firms be them good or bad . Just takes time ,word of mouth and good advertising . But not ott with it just little adverts here and there .

 

Sent from my SM-A310F using Arbtalk mobile app

[flatyre]

To be fair I'm at that point at the moment. Trying to compete with other firms be them good or bad . Just takes time ,word of mouth and good advertising . But not ott with it just little adverts here and there .

 

Sent from my SM-A310F using Arbtalk mobile app

 

just have to keep plugging away, nowt else for it!

[arboriculturist]

Offering to move and stack Firewood for free is a non-starter. No professional supplier would even consider it. Charge £15 per m3 and it is worth doing - provided they have barrow access - if not £20.

 

In this business you can not afford to do anything for nothing.

 

To make a reasonable margin you need to set your sights on being fully automated, with machines replacing the human element.

 

We no longer lay a hand on the timber.

 

There are far, far easier ways to make a living that are less mundane - but Good luck.

[Tim Edwards]

Bought a cheap chainsaw and an axe with my Christmas money when I was 14 started cutting up fallen timber on our farm selling to neighbors and friends did my chainsaw tickets when I was 16 bought better kit a few different Stihl saws and hydraulic splitter and started buying timber in selling more and more each year and just invested in a old posch 300 processor to keep up with demand

[Logsnstuff]

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.....

 

 

that's how I started, priced the same as everyone else for first 3 weeks then I decided they were working for nothing went 30% higher and my sales went up.