ash_smith123

I have thought about getting a oil heater to keep the kiln warm overnight. Our issue is we can't make the fire last all night in either of our kilns without the tank being cold in the morning so turn the fans off at around 9/10pm.

I think there is 10 times more people coming into the "buying firewood market" looking for kiln dried than people that are sceptical about kiln dried firewood. Most shops in the UK use the words "buy kiln dried firewood" not "buy wood of a moisture content of 15%" so people will just look and ask for kiln dried firewood. My split of seasoned/kiln dried is 50/50 at the moment. I was helping a guy that got shafted by a renewable energy company with a copy of my kiln design and he's been trading for 30 years only selling seasoned firewood. He Was sceptical with how much kiln dried he would sell but within 6 months he's also at a 50/50 split in sales and he can't believe it! It's not like the seasoned firewood sales have dropped for him they are just new customers that wouldn't have come to him because he hasn't offered kiln dried. That's a massive jump in for someone's sales thats been stagnant for 30 years!

If time or money isn't on your side don't bother processing anything. Find a good local supplier that you can buy processed/seasoned/kiln dried from and just buy and sell. Get a decent website, get yourself on google and you will be away. The days you would have cut/split a few cubic metres and had to wait a year for it to season you could have delivered 5+ cube and made a few quid. It's not big money but it's the best way to get going. Before long you should have a good round going, build up some money and if you did want to buy some kit you know you have the demand and customers there to pay for it in the long run. The key is to get a good supplier!!

[emoji23][emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]that was one of the best reply's I've read on here!

A bit muddy in Wales!

No its the fact we are a tiny island with lots of people. If we were self sufficient and used 100% of UK timber it wouldn't last very long! The UK timber industry in a whole only uses 33% of British wood. Just look at the planting rates since the 70's... Some years just about enough wood was planted for my yearly supply alone!! Its too late, we will have a massive shortfall soon!

Yea we are about 50% up on last years sales at the moment!

Yep my supplier said certainly wood was offering them £70+vat a ton for mixed hardwood a few weeks ago. It's good he's a honourable man and still supply us for £58-60+vat because we have been dealing with him for a good while. I think people like that are stuck, they have built there whole reputation around UK timber so have to pay big prices to keep up with their demand!

Similar with imported stuff, charge £120 a cube and buy it for around £60. When 3 goes out just tip the crate in and off you go. Quick and easy.

You my friend... Speak sense!

Thanks for the reply Scruggs, I had never heard of Bonfig or Pesci so will have a look!

Yea must be certainly wood. Not sure if people like luxury wood or Whitehorse are doing similar quantities now but just import.

Like the website and your setup Chris! The only thing I would say is to take your BSL number off the website. We have had people giving our BSL number when imputing their periodic data without actually buying anything from us!

I'm interested in fitting our transit with a hiab/crane of some sort. Obviously need something suitable for a 3.5t truck so what do you guys run or what would you recommend?

If you don't pile the logs up on the deck very rarely does more than 1 log fall in the indeed conveyor and usually if they do it's only a small one that's rolled in. Everything is easily reachable from the front of the processor. We don't usually fill the deck more than this at any one time:

I'm not quite sure what you mean? There is a door to the left of the picture so it just comes in the door and straight onto the back of the deck. The doors only 3.2M wide so is a bit tight to get some cord in but doable!

Yes it's a 350, a great machine!

A few pics of our setup!

That's fair enough. If you enjoy it just get yourself a chainsaw and an axe and make a few quid a year. A guy down the road from me has a full time job, sells about £2000 of wood a year and takes his family away on a nice holiday every year. Wood costs him nothing just his time on a Saturday cutting or delivering. Got to watch out for the tax man but if your careful and the wood is free you can make ok beer/holiday money

If you just want to make a few quid out of your 3 acres like logsnstuff said sell the timber on and save yourself the hassle. Someone started a similar thread a few weeks ago and I will say the same thing. If you have the space just import kiln dried and sell on unless you have £100k burning a hole in your back pocket to buy some serious kit. I have done the calculation a hundred times and I have always said if you want to earn half decent money doing firewood you need to be selling at least a 1000 cubic metres per full time man. Anything less you may as well go work for someone else. Buying kiln dried in gives you a lot more time to do something else to bulk up your funds.

There are so many people importing it into the uk now just ask the supplier for a few references.

I'm getting around 40-45 in the drying room and 20ft contained at the moment.

Well the British timber companies need to compete then? Simple as that! If the price of cordwood is nearly at the same price I can buy it already cut and dried, That's not my fault? Like I said they will still sell the timber, mostly to government funded MW biomass plants but they will still sell it. But even most of them buy chip from abroad now! And the way they are cutting at the moment there will be no forestry left in 20/30 years because no one has thought to plant anything since the 70's!

I read an article today about Sales of timber in The uk has increased a huge amount in 2015 and the price for cordwood will significantly increase in the medium and long term... They have already gone up 50% in the last 2 years and I'm paying £60-70+vat a ton delivered at the moment for hardwood and softwood is nearly at £45+vat. If it goes up anymore it wouldn't be viable for me to buy it so what do I do? Close my doors because importing timber is worse for the environment? No I will be buying imported Firewood in. The only thing stopping me from selling all my gear and solely importing is the RHI I get and the amount of custom length orders im getting at the moment for people with biomass boilers. The U.K. Forestry industry isn't going to struggle if I stop buying cordwood, it might if hundreds and hundreds of other firewood companies in the UK does the same (that's been increasing for years) but like any other company in the world they have to compete and the figures for me are starting to favour buying in imported firewood than buying cordwood from 10 miles away. Trust me I would rather buy cordwood from 10 miles away!

My advice would be to process as much as you can with your current setup and if you need more just import kiln dried firewood when you need. Don't go down the route of buying a processor and getting cord to try and dry it yourself. You can buy it already done for roughly £50/55 a loose cubic metre so save yourself a lot of time and hassle and be a good middle man!