Big J

Perhaps the education of customers needs to start with the stove retailers. Instead of specifying kiln dried hardwood only, they could explain the benefits (both in terms of cost and quality) of drying your own firewood, as well as explaining that there is no golden timber species. Hardwood, softwood, it doesn't matter. It just needs to be dry. I honestly believe that 90% of firewood customers have the capacity to store a year's supply of logs on their property. Quite why they don't is beyond me. I've not headed into a winter with anything less than a winter's worth of logs for over 5 years now.

Firewood customers really are blithering idiots in this country. If the heating oil companies offered 30% off for orders in spring and summer, they'd be inundated. I'm glad I don't sell much firewood!

No need. Yew and cedar are extremely unlikely to end check or split. Infact, I've never seen it in either species, and I've cut a lot of both. I suppose it may depend on which species of cedar it is. As a rule, never consider end sealing softwood (and yew is a softwood) and if hardwoods are cut at the correct time of year (winter) and correctly stored (under cover, away from sun, with reasonable but not excessive air flow) there is no need to end seal.

Agreed. A business needs to make economic sense regardless of whether government funding is available or not. I am slightly worried about the number of times we've agreed on things in the past few days TCD! Beyond that, all this debate as to what constitutes seasoned/kiln dried (in terms of moisture content) only reaffirms my belief that the sale of seasoned firewood is nonsense. Fell it, cut it, split it, let the customer assume the responsibility of seasoning it. They save money, you save money, everyone wins. It's only because we're a country of short termist numpties that this isn't drilled into us. Seriously though, I wonder if the lack of any understanding regarding the burning, seasoning and storage of firewood is down to the fact that it's not actually something that has traditionally been done on any scale. Forest cover is now 11.8% across the UK, which is the highest it's been since 1750 (twice what it was during the First World War). Even then, it's less than 1/3 of the EU average of 35%. The British have historically had access to abundant quantities of cheap coal, whereas our European neighbours have always had abundant access to cheap wood (and an amenable climate to dry it). Perhaps we are just used to being short termist (ie, we've run out of coal, better call the coal man). This is definitely an area where we ought to be more European!

But it is still a nonsense concept. Burn wood to dry wood. Given that wood will dry out when exposed to air for enough time, the creation of greenhouse gases to dry firewood is unnecessary and arguable morally and environmentally unjustifiable. I say this as the owner of a biomass kiln! The UK has so little forest and so little timber, there has to be a better use for it than to dry something that would dry out by itself anyway.

I think that the moisture content has to be a fair bit higher than 30% to get it to hiss. Anyway, I do agree that there has to be a consensus in the industry as to what constitutes 'seasoned', but I dispute that sub 20% is necessary. Desirable yes, necessary no. Also, not really achievable here in soggy Central Belt Scotland in winter - even planks in barns where they never see a raindrop will be just over 20% by mid winter.

I don't think much that I burn is under 25%. I'm presently sat in my pants and a shirt, it's 23c in the room, the fire is shut down fully and more than halfway up the safe operation zone of the flue thermometer. It's a big stove though. I do sometimes think that these modern tiny stoves are rather like the modern trend for downsized car engines. Yes, under strict test conditions they can perform well, but in the real world they don't. I think that a stove is best if it can effectively burn a range of qualities of fuel. Sometimes, due to either the weather, lack of supply or other reasons, the logs going in just won't be perfect.

No interest in Lawson Cypress. Just need cedar

Will consider WRC from anywhere in the UK.

I don't really use the biomass boiler much now as it's less work to sell the firewood green and sell the offcuts for biomass by the lorry load. It takes a lot of offcuts to dry firewood from green and try as I might, I just cannot reconcile the idea of burning firewood to dry firewood. It's loopy. I personally dislike dealing with more than a few customers at any one time. The idea of dealing with hundreds of firewood customers who are so disorganised as to wait until the last log before ordering more brings me out in a cold sweat. I suppose the premium price is justifiable just for that!

But £120 a cube is too expensive for it to be a (financially) sustainable fuel source for anyone. Heating oil at 39.4 pence (the present price for local delivery here on Boilerjuice.com) is 2.5 times cheaper per kwh. I don't think that firewood usage will become a realistic alternative to fossil fuels until prices come down. I also don't think that kiln operation is financially viable without RHI or unusual circumstances. I would fall into the latter category, running a sawmill I have more offcuts than I know what to do with and have a biomass boiler. I still think it's nonsense to burn firewood to dry firewood in a process that nature would do for you with a bit of patience! I have a firewood processor and intend to push bulk loads of softwood this winter. Minimum 30 cube, delivered locally £33 a cube. Two guys, 16 hours work, profit £350 without me doing the work. I make some money and the customer gets a good deal.

As someone with a large pond with largish carp (though not many koi) in it, I won't even strim the grass within a metre of the edge. It's hand shears all the way. So to answer your question, completely cover the pond with a tarp to catch all saw chips and zip line any branchwood away. Depending on the set up, there could be £10,000 or more of fish in the pond and it's not worth the risk. Koi can live for over 30 years and I personally know people who regard them as children!

This is the issue. I also reckon that ill education of customers (or indeed the customer's unwillingness to be educated|) is the most significant impediment to the firewood game being truly profitable in the UK. When you consider that every firewood customer should have a wood store, why are firewood retailers taking on the cost of storing firewood until it's dry, only for it to be transferred into a woodstore at the other end? And for the customers that regard it to be an unjustifiable expense, it's certainly going to be a lot less than the thousands spent on the stove installation. We are in a privileged position at home, I'll admit. I have a sawmill, so have an unlimited amount of firewood. I have a lot of space to store firewood at home so that is what I do. We burn about 35 cube a year, so I have at least 35 cube at home drying at any one time. 20 cube is in a dry, covered store, the rest neatly stacked in lines scattered around the front of the house. It looks great and people regularly comment on it. Anyway, as said I know we are lucky, but we also burn more than almost anyone. So a 2x2x2m store is nothing and would be enough for 90% of consumers. Why spend £800 annually on 8 cube of firewood when you could spend £480 and know that regardless of weather or seasonal demand that you have it sat there waiting for you when you need it.

I reckon that the reasons that it is so difficult to make money from the sale of firewood (and why firewood is often so very expensive as a primary means of heating) are the storage and handling implications of supplying dry firewood. Model two different suppliers. Each supply 1500 cube logs (circa 700 tonnes roundwood?) annually. The supplier than only supplies green requires only the space to accommodate roundwood and freshly split logs, that do not need to be protected from the weather. The logs can either be split straight into the tipping vehicle/trailer or a forklift shovel can load them. It's very simple and requires fairly little space or equipment. The supplier that supplies dry firewood must find space to accommodate 1500 cubic metres of firewood drying at any one time. That is also £40000 simply in the cost of the cordwood. A large barn to dry the firewood, box rotators to empty out the firewood, and additional difficulties arise when trying to deliver firewood and keep it dry. Quite often here near Edinburgh in winter, you won't have any dry weather for weeks on end. My point is, if you could educate the public into taking fresh firewood, then the retailers would make more money and the customer would save. At the other end of the market, the current trend for kiln dried firewood is only viable with RHI or imported stock. In very few instances could anyone make any money without one of the other.

As I've said many times before, the issue is the British public's unwillingness to consider taking responsibility for drying their own firewood. Most people have space for a 2x2x2m store, which if compartmentalised into four sections would allow for rotation of stock and therefor the burning of adequately dry timber. The people that seem to have the most issues with their stoves are those with the smaller burners. Given the minute size of logs required for such fires, the firewood would dry out very rapidly once split. Softwood at 20cm x 5-8cm would dry within 2 months in summer. Anyway, my point is that instead of customers bitching and moaning about not being able to find a reliable supplier, why the hell don't they take some responsibility, order a decent load (say 4 cube) at a decent price (say £60/cube) and dry it themselves. Better that than the inevitable call on Christmas Eve for a builders bag of dry logs.

Fair enough! I'd personally consider just thinning them out and growing them on to a marketable point. WRC is a good commercial crop.

Do you have a market for your cedar? I would happily take all thinnings down to 22cm under bark diameter. 3.75 and 5m lengths.

All sorts, but mostly cladding and bee hive construction.

I know it's not the easiest to find, but the last time I asked about it I did get a number of good leads. I think I need about 150 tonne before the end of the year, and then probably another 150t in the new year.

Someone must know of some somewhere!

Hate pond covers. I fail to see the point in having a pond if you are going to whack an ugly cover over it. Best to fence it off at a reasonable distance. Here is a picture of my pond (from earlier in the year, not long after putting it in), for no particularly good reason other than to illustrate the kind of fencing I mean:

I did bump an old thread to this effect, but to no avail. I'm in need of a lot of western red cedar. I need 5.1s and 3.7s, ideally a 50:50 split. A couple of hundred tonnes would see me to the end of this year. Anywhere in the country would be considered. Jonathan

It's that time of the year again. I'm getting down to my last 100 tonnes of cedar and I'm on the hunt again. Anyone with any leads? Need several hundred tonnes for the next few months.

I would say that the best time to visit Scotland is late April. The clocks have gone forward, the evenings are lighter, the midges are yet to emerge and there is still snow on the mountains. Avoid the summer. I say that because it may be summer where you are travelling from, but the chances are that no one told who ever controls the weather in Scotland. Summer is usually a crushing disappointment, which is to say that yes, you do get nice weather sometimes, but it's pretty rare. We've had quite a nice week, this last week, but in the period 1st July - 31st September, we had a grand total of 4 days of full sun here (just west of Edinburgh). But people don't come for the weather, so that is fair enough. The forest, lochs and mountains at Aviemore are nice (which is more than can be said for Aviemore itself, which is a bit of a dump). The west coast is lovely, and little can beat Glencoe and the Isle of Skye for wow factor. The best way to describe Scotland is that it's a country with spectacular scenery that the inhabitants have tried their hardest to ruin with the built environment they have created. With the exception of a few places (centre of Edinburgh/Glasgow/some villages and smaller towns), you'll wonder if an architect has ever actually been to Scotland and if so were they blind? The council housing inevitably tacked onto every village (no matter how stunning the village in question is) is almost always appalling and just ruins what could be an otherwise stunning country. Having lived here for 11 years, I have two bees in my bonnet - the weather and the dreadful housing. Can you tell?!?!

We'll be gone before Brexit comes into effect. I'm half German and am eligible automatically for a German passport. I've always been conflicted but the UK's decision to leave the EU has given us the final push. My wife has enrolled on a German Open Uni course, though she does speak some German. Planning to move to Rheinland-Pfalz, specifically the Eifel mountains, near the Belgian and Luxembourg border (and the Nurburgring, for you petrol heads out there). The countryside is lovely (forested steep hills, to 748m), the climate is much better (cold winters, hot summers), houses are much cheaper, the infrastructure is better and I like the quietly reserved nature of the Germans. Much better opportunities for our daughter (27 months) as well, as she would grow up at the very least tri lingual. The reasons the UK is going down the pan are many, and that is a separate thread, but I just don't see a sustainable future for us here. And the weather in Scotland has finally broken me. It's nice at the moment, but this is the first spell of stable, pleasant weather for just over 3 months. Good luck to all those planning to move abroad!