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Firewood logs
As can be seen from the Bolton example firewood may be a good potential market.
Firewood, like most low value wood products, has fairly low profit margins and to make a
viable business case relatively large quantities need to be produced efficiently.
Typical firewood production is based on forestry cord wood typically two metre poles
from 3” to 15” diameter depending on the firewood processor used. Picture 10, below,
shows a typical firewood processor with nearby feedstock run by contractors at
Croydon’s tree station. It shows a self powered Pallax firewood processor which can be
towed. Seasoned wood (one year old) is processed into the back of a trailer and
delivered directly to customers. One man with a good quality supply of timber (straight,clean and of the right diameter) can produce and deliver about six loads a day (each
load about half a tonne) with each load selling for £55. This gives a gross income of
£330 less timber costs of £84 (£28 a tonne delivered) and fuel costs/depreciation (£30)
leaving £216.
Using Tree Care’s price of £80 per transit load of seasoned logs and assuming about
2m3 of timber this would equate to £40 in Bolton per Croydon equivalent load giving a
net profit of £126 if forestry timber was used.
The other firewood market accessed from the Croydon timber station is firewood nets
with 10kg nets selling at £1.74 to B&Q and a similar price to other customers such as
nurseries. One man can cut and bag 150 10kg nets per day which equals £261 less
expenses of £42 for wood plus £20 for fuel/depreciation leaving £199. The B&Q price is
fixed nationally but requires delivery. All the above prices are for seasoned hardwood
excluding willow and poplar and in the case of B&Q the wood needs to be FSC certified.
In the south east firewood is a fast growing market with cord wood prices rising year on
year. The recent collapse of St Regis, a paper mill, at Sudbrook on the Welsh border
may change this situation with the potential for over supply of hardwood timber.
Other larger suppliers such as CPL also buy nets and they tend to pay less, typically
around £1.00 per bag collected but also accept unseasoned wood of any description.
The production levels above are based on the use of forestry cordwood which can go
straight through a firewood processor. However, arboricultural arisings are not so easy
to process, they often have rot or other defects, they arrive in various shapes and sizes
which make it harder to process uniformly and much of the material will not go through a
processor due to being too large. This makes the splitter and chainsaw used by Tree
Care the best solution for processing but this is a slower method of production.
However, the arisings cost nothing and if a gate fee is charged can bring in money,
which makes firewood an attractive proposition.
This situation would be improved by cutting material to pulp lengths where viable and not
putting smaller diameter material (3” plus) through the chipper. This would give more
material for a firewood processor or direct firewood sale (firewood is currently from £-£20
a tonne at roadside depending on quality).
E&S Fuels, a bulk firewood/fuel supplier, were contacted and were interested in new
sources of firewood as supply can be problem for them. Their specification includes
softwoods and they are currently importing bagged firewood from Northern Ireland to
supplement supply. They buy bagged 10kg logs at around £0.90p per bag for an
articulated lorry load.
Like chip a quality product will require some investment. A self powered Pallax firewood
processor will be around £5500 and machines which take a wider diameter log cost up
to £30,000. Splitters are cheaper and tractor mounted units can be bought for £1200.
Smaller cheaper chippers such as the Wessex self powered unit are often not up to the
job especially with knotty trees. An ideal set up has a machine processing logs into one
side of an open barn and being loaded on the other side via conveyor or front loader.
This provides a bank of material which is also drying out prior to delivery but presents
other cost items.
