brasher

We are due to start harvesting a site in early November around 1000t hardwood predominently Birch, Ash and Oak all suitable for log processors, in 2m lengths. roadside arrange your own haulage. There is also a substantial amount of good Larch log, bar, rail and stake material, Anyone interested please p.m me for prices and i will contact you nearer the contract starting. Cheers for looking

RJ, I personally think that you are talking a bit silly, to put it mildly. Do you not think that that if there was a profitable way of doing this in the methods you have described that there would be an abundance of contractors whizzing round the countryside with six plastic tubs on trailers? The comments that have been made about this are from guys that have been in the game a long time and KNOW the costings and practicality of working methods. To compare producing chip from brash on a mechanically harvested site with a silage operation is also very silly, and would not produce chip below a bought in price as Mr Ed quite rightly says. The conditions on a harvested site are so diverse they cannot possibly be compared with a silage operation. On lots of mechanically harvested sites you just could not travel or work with pretty standard equipment , put on top of that the amount of men and machines you are now describing to do the operation, when the brash removal to roadside could be done with one machine would indicate that you are blinkered to say the least.

How would you navigate the stumps following a harvester?

I have a couple of waggon load of dry softwood firewood for sale , located Lancs. P.M me for details please

Agree with you on that one Ed , and i guess thats what people are trying to tell RJ--- people with considerably more insight ,not in a critical way , i hasten to add . I happen to know of one of the sites that is being considered, as people talk in this trade as in others , and its not one that i would want to take on using the methods described on an output basis ,because i know the outcome-- hence the comments.

But chippers for producing biomass would be allowed?

Not how i read it RJ

Sawtooth, it seems to me that youre making assumptions rather than knowing the real workings and costings on this , The very operation that RJ is talking about is in fact subsidised as he stated in a different thread that he received DEFRA funding to set this up. If it had been a self funded operation and finance costs for machiery etc had been built in then would it have been such an attractive proposition? i think not. Fair play to RJ for going through the funding application , but it does imo seem a bit of a waste allocating funds to schemes like this where the people involved have very little knowledge about the field of work they are entering , and more so the people that are allocating the funding. I cant help thinking that if one had approached the bank with the same proposition the outcome would have been slightly different.

And thats if youre lucky, a lot of estates/contractors have been subsidising or harvesting roundwood chip at a reduced rate for some time now to keep other produce moving. In a real world you could not buy small roundwood,harvest and chip and haul chip for the end price especially with the penalties on moisture content, the cost of handling and chipping brash far exceeds that of roundwood , to try and justify this by using smaller but less efficient machinery just doesnt stack up imo

I understood that 20 cube was just a comparison, i think what B.E means is forward the brash to roadside then chip direct into artic trailers, the turnaround time on lorries using the method you describe would be unbearable, as i think as said before 80-100 bins per load , youre quoting as a comparison to spuds 30 mins but obviosly chip by comparison is a different issue.

They were my thoughts too Buzz, but dont like to shoot a man down for trying. Even if you had a niche domestic market i still couldnt see it stacking up using this method-- its hard enough making a do out of roundwood, never mind trying to follow harvesting gear around.

o.k ,i stand corrected on that , its just that the chipper you were talking about is basically a hand fed model, and even with round timber in perfect conditions would have only a moderate output, and surely to fill a bulker you would be looking at around 80-100 IBCs?

Got to say they were my thoughtsB.E, What will you use to forward the bins out? also it seems a lot of bins ton to fi ll a bulker when dry chip i.e around 30% goes at about 3.5- 4 cube/t. Im not here to put the dampeners on things as youve obviously thought this through, but i can see problems achieving a profitable output chipping brash on a commercial scale unless the setup is highly mechanised. Im assuming from your past posts you will be handfeeding the chipper?

Thats interesting, what output do you think or hope you will achieve with this method? also what kind of trailers will the artics be using-- bulkers or walking floor?

Could you tell me what difference the trailer makes?