ash_smith123

Yes thank you that was my point from the start that people couldn't understand. It doesn't matter what you call it, it has no relevance to the moisture content. That's why I've been banging on that I clearly advertise that it's an average of 30% so I'm not misleading anyone, not miss selling the product because "seasoned" or "kiln dried" is meaningless without a description. Maybe it's been drummed into you guys that seasoned has to be under 25% but not customers. My customers read my website and one says an average of 30% and the other 20%.

Yes and for my product I'm calling that percentage "an average of 30%". It's really not that hard to understand. Like I have said before, there is no rule, no law, nobody saying I HAVE to advertise seasoned under 25% so I'm not. If my seasoned is not up to scratch why do I sell 1500+ cubic metres of it a year, with a large percentage of that being return customers. If they are happy I'm happy, in the last 6 years of doing it I haven't had a single complaint about my seasoned firewood not burning. So to be honest, I really couldn't give 2 hoots about what most of you think! You crack on selling your superior air dried firewood that you all test the split face of and every single log you have ever sold has been under 25% moisture! [emoji106] CW seem to be selling a fair amount of timber (17,000 tons) under the banner of seasoned being an average of 40% for the last 20 years so let's all report them to trading standards....

I don't count the outside of the log. Otherwise I would be advertising my kiln dried as 0%! Just the freshly split face.

How am I miss leading them though? I've told them it's an average of 30%? To be honest most of the time it's less than 30% but I cover my own ass just encase there's a few crates out of the 2500+ a year I sell that are 30/31 in the dead middle of the log and not 26/30% like normal. They are all 10/15% on the outside of the log, how many people on here see companies putting the moisture metre on the outside of the log and saying "look all our firewood is dried to under 20%. Yes it is but it's still 30/35% on the inside! If seasoned wood is supposed to be 25% moisture and you sell it at 15% is that miss leading them then? Because I hear from customers quite often "I won't go for the kiln dried that burns too quick" so do you tell your customers if a batch your selling to them is 15% not 25%?

No I'm not. Why would that explain a lot?

Right... who says for me to advertise seasoned Firewood as seasoned firewood it has to be under 25% moisture? How is it bad marketing? I'm marketing a product at an average of 30% moisture and that's what I'm selling.?? Trading standards DO NOT have a rule for the moisture content of wood! Like I've already said IF i was advertising a product at let's say "seasoned firewood under 25% moisture" and selling it at 30% moisture then trading standards might want to get involved. Just to remind you all I AM TELLING THE CUSTOMER EXACTLY WHAT THEY ARE GETTING.

But who states I can't sell it as "seasoned"? It's not unseasoned because it's been dried. The outside is usually 10-15% and the inside is usually 26-30%. Tell me the definition of part seasoned? Only been drying for 6 months? I've read a million times that to season wood properly you have to leave it for at least a year. Well I have had oak that's still been 50% inside after a year so can I sell that as seasoned because it's been left for a year? Also this average 30% seasoned stuff I have in my stove is rubbish.... [emoji849] no heat out of it at all...

It's too expensive to be the only heat source for people but I would say 98% of my customers don't use it as a primary source of heating. They are room heaters so people don't mind paying the premium 1-3 cubic metres a year. There's no sign of the wood burner craze dying down either. All the stove installers around here are flatout. There's probably 8 in a 20 mile radius of me, then another 10/15 in Cardiff all flatout fitting stoves to people who just use it the odd night and on weekends. My main target customer isn't someone who has Woodfuel and a primary source. But even the people who rely on it for their main source of heating don't think ahead. I have domestic RHI customers that ring me asking for a delivery in the middle of winter when they have just put the last log in the boiler, it doesn't matter how many times I tell them "ring me when you get down to half a cubic metre" it doesn't work. Why don't you think a kiln option is viable without RHI? I've just broken it all down for you over 1500 cubic metre and a kiln model was £75k per year up?? So your happy to put your "offcuts" that could easily be processed into logs and sold into your biomass boiler but you still think it's nonsense why I would process softwood "firewood" to burn in mine?..... you do realise they are exactly the same thing?!?

No it doesn't, it says 25% or less is preferable to use in stoves? Im not HETAS/Woodsure registered so I don't have to stick to their guidelines. Like I've said I give my customers 2 options, one that is under 20% moisture and one that is an average of 30% moisture. it doesn't matter what I call the 2 products I have advertised them for what they are. It's upto the customer to determine what they want to order. If they think they 100% need firewood that is advertised to be under 25% moisture they can either go for our kiln dried option or try somewhere else.

I get what your saying but my point was organic as a word has a very wide spectrum. Why would a customer view it as 25% or less? I advertise it an average of 30%. It clearly states it in the description on my website. I don't think a customer has ever asked me "why do you say your seasoned is an average of 30% when seasoned in 25%". If I was advertising it as 25% or less and it was 30% then I would have a problem but I'm advertising it at an average of 30%.

We always try to have about 100/150 dry at any one time to have a buffer. Kilns turn around 68 cube a week. If you wanted to you can run hardly any dry stock and just sell when the kilns are emptied

Exactly my point, it doesn't matter what you call it. Who says seasoned has to be under 25% to be called seasoned? Nobody, that's just what I've decided to call my product that is dried to 30% moisture. I could sell all my firewood and advertise it as kiln dried to an average of 30% because it's been in a kiln so I'm not lying. Who has said to call firewood kiln dried is has to be under 20%? No one. You can only sell what you advertise! Similar to the food companies selling products as organic... organic has a massive spectrum of meanings when it comes to food but anyone actually look into how organic these products are? Most people buy it because it has organic on the packaging, again it's called marketing!

Why do you think you would make more money if you were selling unseasoned firewood? I think It is viable to run a kiln and make money in firewood. The RHI is a nice bonus but if your first business model for example charges £60 per cubic metre for unseasoned firewood and my business model bought a kiln and dried the wood and sold it as kiln dried for £120 a cubic metre I would be £90k a year better off. Ok so I have to take the fuel cost of running the kiln out of that. If I bought softwood in and processed that for only for use in the kiln at an absolute maximum it would cost £15k in the year. So at the end of if I am £75k better off per year than your first business model. I'm also supplying a quality product ready to burn that people want. Yes it would be nice to educate people into buying early but unfortunately that will never happen. You will always have the people on the morning of the first frost ringing asking if they can have a cubic metre of kiln dried, 10 bags of kindling, 5 boxes of firelighters and for us to stack it in there log store that afternoon.

It's called marketing! I have 2 products, one I call seasoned that is an average of 30% moisture and one kiln dried that's all under 20% moisture. They both go in the kiln and just come out at different times. I'm not fooling anyone because I'm telling them exactly what they are getting. Doesn't matter if i call it seasoned and kiln dried or red wood and blue wood. But for the kiln dried I charge £25 per cubic metre more so why wouldn't I split the 2 products and charge more, It's just good business.

I can recommend Woodbioma! Great company to deal with and quality timber

You can't make a living off the RHI payments. The boiler salesmen would like to tell you you can. As an example our first boiler is a 95kw log boiler, the salesman at the time quoted we could make at least 30k a year from it no problem but that's it running 24 hours a day 7 days a week 365 days a year at 95kw. For a start log boiler systems are about 50/60% efficient in the real world so you only actually get 50/60kw an hour MAX! At normal 5-15 degree outside temp we usually get 40-45kw. Also unless you want to drag yourself out of bed every 2-3 hours in the night your not going to run them 24 hours either, we normally run ours 9-12 hours a day maybe 15-16 in the summer if one of us goes back up to fill it. It also goes through basically a cubic metre of big logs per day and we get around 12k a year per boiler. We probably get about 250 burning days a year so we get roughly (very roughly) £50 a cubic metre. Obviously chip/pellet boilers are a different story and they can run 24hours a day but I can imagine on something like a 1mw system you would be using a crazy shout of wood!

Not really. Most retail products from distributor/retail are typically 20-40% margin. Buying cord to seasoned or kiln dried is 80%+ margin. Yes you need to process and dry it but there's good margin if you do the volume. The problem is a lot of people sell it too cheap.

It was for a cubic metre of kiln dried, kindling and firelighters. Comes to £145 retail.

Just put a post up saying your doing a competition. I've seen people put up £20-40 prize and get no response so it's worth doing a decent prize!

We have just done a competition on Facebook to win £145 worth of firewood. In 4 days we've had 450 shares and reached 45,000 local people. You can't do any other advertising that has that circulation for less than £150!

No sorry I meant on straight 8-12" stuff that processor is rapid!

That looks quick on the right timber!

Would mini digger and screw splitter help? Can leave everything in lengths, split it with the screw splitter into billets then through the saw bench.

Its for selling. Can do about 15/20 cubic metres a day 8-6pm with 2 of us and a Posch 350

Second load of ash and Beech today! Some lovely stuff