Marko

I gave up on the local Toyota dealer after the rivets on what was left of the front pads trashed the front discs on my Colorado.....4 days after it had been 'serviced'. They were very sheepish about it all and put it right but it was the last time I set foot in the place. Local independent garage has never let me down.

I wondered if anyone else had seen this on ebay According to my calculations it works out at £21 per m3 ex works but around £47 a cube if they ship it to your door. So if anyone is passing Latvia with an empty truck....

Thanks for all the suggestions and views. I eventually went for the JCB 403. Whilst many of the suggestions have much more functionality, I couldn't justify the (significant) cost difference. Had the 403 for about a month now and it has proved invaluable both around the yard and on site. Thanks again for all your inputs.

Jojam. There are many wire mesh stillages about but we went for this design mainly because: Will flat pack when not in use!!!!! Fit on standard pallets so the bit that gets damaged can easily be replaced Galvanised rather than plated. Can be opened up to tip contents Heavy duty construction Will stack 4 high (but we only do 2 high) The cages just clip around the edges of the pallets - internal dimensions are 60cm x 93cm x 114cm: 0.64 cubic meter. An important point for us was that this volume of wet hardwood is about the maximum weight that our small tractors can handle safely. We bought the stillages in second hand from a dealer in Europe. Plenty of knocks bumps and bends but they are rock solid and will see me out. They cost around £40 each by the time vat and transport had been added so are not cheap but have been a good buy for us.

Looks great. I like tidy!

Good find. I like that!

Variation on the above theme... galvanised wire cages. Best thing we ever bought! Wood gets cut and split as soon as possible, is stacked into cages and from then on is so easy to season and handle. Some (on a deposit) are even delivered directly to customers garages.

Yes - something to do when we are snowed in!

Taking note of the above posts, changes now made to both the Firewood Sellers Guide and Firewood Buyers Guide.

Links to the poems now deleted of the Buyers Guide . This is a well made point - we need to clear the decks and start again. Sellers Guide Taking note of the parallel thread on moisture content I have replaced "Use a moisture meter to demonstrate the moisture content of a random log on delivery." with "New customers may be wary of the term "seasoned" as it is not a measure of how well the wood will burn. Use a moisture meter to demonstrate the moisture content of a random log on delivery. Best practice would suggest 20% or under to be ideal." If we are capturing best practice then it will be what we aspire to do rather than necessarily what we currently do - what does a great service look like?

A first pass is now on http://www.carbonneutralfuel.com/firewood-sellers-guide.html Constructive suggestions as to what should / should not be included and also links to any reference material that Sellers would find useful.

I am sure there are more avenues to explore but thiis might be a useful starting point http://www.carbonneutralfuel.com/documents/wm_biofuel_capital_grant_workshop_09.pdf

Sounds like a fine idea!

"I have 16 years experience in firewood, 8 of those as running it as a business, 9 yrs surfing the web to further my knowledge and i would never claim to know enough about the product as it is so full of variables".... Fantastic! Exactly the sort of experience that can really contribute. So how do we, as an industry, offer practical guidance to the first time firewood buyer? The objecctive is a guide to help the first time buyer understand that it is far from an exact science and the variables are many and significant. Many posts across the firewood forum have talked about picking up customers who have had a bad experience in one way or another. You are the good guys! but how do we arm a potential customer with a broad enough understanding of the impact of these variables to avoid the bad guys in the first place? I am happy to take on board any criticism but I had really hoped for constructive suggestions as to what should be in the guide from people such as yourself who have far more experience of the industry and its customers. However, "i do not have the luxury of owning my own farm..." LUXURY??? Perhaps you might stop and think why there is so much grade 1 arable land available to store wood on! What I do for a living, how much wood I sell and how much land I have available is of little consequence to the debate (other than to belittle). The point of this thread was meant to be a generic guide that took note of customer concerns and collated the agreed best practice in the industry. To my mind this forum is the very best place to gather it. If the concensus is that it is a bad idea then so be it. If anyone thinks it is something worth having then please lets discuss your constructive suggestions as to what the wording should actually be.

Firewoodman - Please remember I volunteered the guide as a starter for 10 and requested input and comments from those with much more experience than I to suggest what should be added or changed. To move it forward.... "you have taken it upon yourself to write the recommendations and yet you do not seem to follow them...." ????? As it happens and as explained earlier, we only sell wood that has seasoned 4-5 years so we do infact exceed this. Again this is more to do with stock control but, as it happens exceeds the suggested seasoning time. "can you tell me you never run out of seasoned wood?" I can assure you that we run out of seasoned wood most years. This seasons stock sold out before Christmas. Whilst it might be tempting to dip into next seasons supply we don't. Again we are only a small outfit and I humbly request and accept input from all the guys out there with much more experience. "tell us exactly your processing and drying method and time that you use to classify wood as 2-3 yr seasoned, my idea of the wood seasoning is from the moment it is split not from when it ceased to be a standing tree." Fully agree with your definition. Would you be happy with a change in the guuide that suggests 1-2 years from when the wood is split?

All on my own in the fields today I managed to tip over a digger - I know the drill, sit tight etc etc but as the thing was heading into a ditch I chose to get out as it rolled - exit sharp left. A real close call but as I stood there watching the thing slowly settle I noticed the Lancs Air ambulance was directly overhead. As it was flying so low I bet they saw the whole thing but hey, it is a seriously good service that can be at the site of an accident before/as it happens. Worth every penny. As it happens I recently did CS31 at the same location as the incident at the start of this thread and can vouch for the thoroghness of the safety briefing especially in respect of AA landing sites and nearest A&E. Just shows how important it is.

Would 18 months to 2 years be a more acceptable suggestion?

As I said - I am open to all suggestions. What do you think is sensible bearing in mind that the log stacks are often tucked away behind the garage etc.

We have a very simple rotation system - stuff goes in to storage the year it was cut and gets used 4-5 years later. This system is overkill for ensuring the wood is correctly seasoned but enables us to manage stock levels through mild and hard winters. What I sell is irrelevant to this debate - "if you recommend the customer dries fresh wood for 2-3 years before burning, then the stuff you sell should be of the same quality." Why should it? As long as I tell them these logs were a tree last week and that they will need to keep them for 2-3 years before they will be fit to burn then there will be no surprises and I will still have a happy customer. It is not what we sell that matters - it is how we sell it! The guide is intended to benefit the whole industry to help (primarily new) customers of wood fuel understand that this is far from an exact science and what all their buying options are such that we all minimise misunderstandings. I have advocated the use of a moisture meter as wet wood is definitly high on the list of complaints I get told about. Billy Goat Gruff notes "The amount of new customers that I have picked up this year because they are fed up with wet wood, is double on last year". Are the two of us the only ones hearing this? As I hopefully convey in the guide, buying wet wood is not a problem in itself if you are prepared to season it. It can save money if you have the space to store it. Complaints ony arise when a customer gets wet wood when the expected dry wood. As with quantities of wood delivered, the issues only arise when there is a mismatch of expectations. Alternative suggestions and further comments all welcome!

Wood is invariably cut to length and split within 12 months of being cut. We now store and stack the logs in galvanised stillages which dramatically eases the ongoing handling of stock from being split to being delivered. We have plenty of space for storage and hold around 4-5 years worth but this is small scale stuff compared to some of the other guys on the forum.

25% Farming 25% Firewood 50% IT. Depends on the weather!

If I run the logsplitter off the MF135 hydraulics with it set on constant pump the revs need to be up and it sups a fair amount of diesel in a day. On the other hand if I run the same splitter off a little kubota and a PTO pump the splitter is both faster and more powerful with the throttle set just off tickover.

Good points. I have added "Most UK suppliers prefer to sell by the cubic meter or part thereof...." and also a new section on selecting a supplier.

After one to many customer 'missunderstandings' and taking note of an earlier thread where Trading Standards had been involved on a similar dispute I decided to have a go at creating difinitiive Firewood Buyers Guide with the intent of capturing best practice so we all have something to point at. A starter for 10 is now online at: http://www.carbonneutralfuel.com/firewood-buying-guide.html Please feel free to make any suggestions at all about what is right, wrong, missing etc. All inputs are very welcome.

If I remember correctly wood burnt at 30% moisture will only give off around 50% of the heat of wood burnt at 20% moisture - so you need twice as much wood to keep warm! I got a good qualty moisture meter bought me for Christmas and it has been a bit of a surprise. Firewood that feels wet is wet but firewood that feels ok but perhaps a bit cold and damp seems to be about 30-35% and wood that feels really dry is still only measuring 20% but quickly drops to 15% if kept by the fire for a few days.