firewood

according to this site: What is Woodworm - Property Preservation Services & Woodworm Expert ? Wise Property Care - Property Preservation Services ? Wise Property Care the beetles lay their eggs between May and Sept. They lay their eggs in cracks or crevices in the timber. the grubs then spend 2 to 5 years in the wood before pupating and emerging from the wood thru the characteristic little holes. I think the holes only appear when they EXIT. the beetles only live for a max of 14 days. so there is only a very small window of opportunity for them to exit your logs, mate and then lay eggs on fresh wood in the house. Also bear in mind that the firewood is being burnt so the potentially infected material is being destroyed all the while thus minimising the risk further so: 1. have you been supplying the customer for at least two years? exactly when did you deliver? was it between may and september? 2. any other customers reported problems? 3.have you seen any beetles in your woodpile or noticed any infected wood

and her proof is......? sounds like an attempt to have a claim up at your expense. if your firewood has come from arb or forestry sources i.e. was cut while alive and then split, seasoned and delivered within a year i would find that very hard to believe. a mould or fungal infection is another matter. if she has no proof tell her to do one!

fantastic spreadsheet. to what type of timber do the values, currently in the sheet, relate. just curious.

some farmers will also take it to use as a soil improver. they just mix it in with the muck for spreading. or use it as bedding (chip rather than dust) especially now as barley straw prices are going up and up

Old Tom Latest.............. bad news i'm afraid..... Tom has been sent down for lewd behaviour pic below from local rag...says it all. at least his two female customers got some wood.....before he was taken away. Note the big chopper!

i took this pic of him working on another job recently. note the fuel efficient saw he is using. Is that how he undercuts us all.

so it's not just me that gets enquiries like that:lol: Last year I quoted £600 lump sum to cut, split and stack up a good half artic load of larch on the basis that i could use it as a "hospital job". Customer then informed me that "old Tom" could do it for £150. I said use "old Tom"! One year later the wood is still sitting there uncut. More generally, the problem is that against processed firewood, stuff split on site appears expensive to the householder even though they own the wood. The exception being when there is at least one or two artic loads to process and you can take your processor and loader to site. Then it can work for both parties. Scale is the thing that can make a mobile service into a real business proposition.

whatever they are, leave the logs outside til the first frost. That will do for them.

any pics? single or 3 phase?

I wondered why cheryl didn't call me anymore:lol:

I have friends in Denmark who burn pellets. they tell me that pellets cost not too much more than split logs over there. If that is the case, I'm not surprised that pellet stoves are more popular in the rest of europe. as to the usa i couldn't comment. Can the torrefied pellets / briquettes be burnt just like coal i.e. on an open fire with the same efficiency as coal? or do they need a specialised burner? For those of you like me who had never heard of torrefication before here is an explanatory link: Pellets from Torrefied Wood.pdf

How many m3 of split logs did you have at the end of the 4 1/2 days? (a day being 8 hours?)

so that works out at 4 man hours per load. the same as me. would it take you longer than 4 hours if you were working alone? I'm trying to work out if I can produce more per man hour if i have someone working with me. That is, can I more than double production by adding an extra pair of hands?

Ok. it took me 8 hours to cut into 6" to 8" rings, split and hand load into truck 5m3 . this seems to be the consensus time based on replies thus far.

educated guess!

it's called buyers remorse. the customer has obviously got another quote from another supplier who appears to be cheaper hence the call to you to chivvy the price down. as to "too dry"... that easy to rectify... just run the hose pipe over it:lol:

Direct line will not insure tippers Norwich Union will not insure anything that carries fuel including firewood. In the end i went via brokers Adrian Flux : 0800 369 8590 they seem to handle the risks that no one else wants

ok how long for two of you? I never work alone either!

and shaking the pellets off the end chute by hand I presume the guy in the clip is making animal feedstuff. and whereas hay and straw may dry quickly to a suitable %mc woodchip and sawmill waste takes longer and therefore may need to be "cooked" prior to processing. This is the killer and must gobble up a fair bit of the £160 per ton. from what i can see pellets may have fantastic possibilities for power stations and large scale uses but for smaller domestic purposes i cannot see them beating wood or coal or peat if the retail price is fairly close to coal and the househoulder needs to spend several thousand pounds installing a suitable burner and feed system. I do not think that will change until the pellet cost is akin to that of ordinary logs but to achieve that you would need a pellitiser or briquette maker that could take green chip or timber waste and process it without the need for drying the feedstock. With a machine that could do that for sub £20k (or the price of a mid range firewood processor ) then competition would open up the market, bring a lot more demand and supply, and bring end prices down toward firewood levels.

Here is a question for you all: how many man hours would it take to cut and split 5m3 of hardwood (beech, ash & sycamore) and manually load into truck (2 x 2.5m3 loads) you have the chainsaw of your choice and a petrol driven splitter the lengths to be split vary in diameter from 8" to 36". there is a good mix of all sizes between these diameters. the lengths are stacked up on top of each other (not laid out on the ground 1 deep) to a max height of 12 feet no mechanical handling allowed. you are working single handed.

Can you not sell it as is to your customers? Up here in the soon to be frozen north (aberdeenshire) the sawmills sell this stuff (green and very wet) ex works (not delivered) for £30 / ton just bring your own trailer. there is no shortage of punters!

deviation from the topic but what does building the pellet plant involve construction and cost wise? what % mc does the feedstock have to be.

saw this on ebay bit pricey given the work still to do but interesting all the same AEC MATADOR DIESEL 4X4 CLASSIC FORESTRY CRANE LORRY on eBay (end time 20-Oct-10 13:13:09 BST)

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