Fahrenheit

Yeah I've found approx 1.7 cube per tonn of freshly felled hardwood.

Get a stove shop on side. As a stove shop owner we were crying out for someone with quality wood. So much so we started doing it ourselves. We always recommended folk who seasoned their wood properly as its makes our stoves work beautifully. If your wood is wet forget it.

Doing good. Averaging around 12 loads on a Sauturday. Stacks of wood left too! How much have you sold this winter?

Hehe. He could actually run the engine on the wood gas too.

aircraft quality steel splitting blade.........as an ex aircraft engineer I've not seen much steel used on aeroplanes:)

We were busy all summer and expect to be even busier next year. I have another income but firewood was still bringing in a decent wage through summer. We send a letter out offering a summer discount and also bulk discount. You'd be surprised how many people bought 3.6 cube in one go in the middle of summer. The most important thing you will ever have is your customer database. If you don't have a customer database then you don't have much. I have names, emails, addresses, telephone numbers, stove make and model and where it was purchased for all my customers........sometimes I even have details of what hobbies they're into and what motorbike was sat on the drive when I visited. This way I can communicate with my customers to offer them deals and when they phone up I have all their details so it seems like a more personal service. Check out some CRM software called Big Contacts. It's 10 quid per month and has seriously changed our lives and our business. It also makes your business much more valuable should you ever decide to sell it.

I'm a log merchant. Started around 6 months ago. I didnt even worry about what others were charging. I just decided what kind of money I needed to make for a days work for it to be worthwhile doing. I then sought out a supplier who's quality of wood matched the price I wanted to charge. We get £130 a cube no probs. We had many customers order one load from us and then came back a month or two later and ordered three loads at once. We spent around 18k on a new truck which now takes us around a minute to deliver 3.6 cube. Forget what others are charging. Supply a good product to the right people and you'll be fine. People will only buy wet wood once. The only reason I started in logs was because all of the local guys wood was wet or they'd got lazy and started cutting the logs too long. There was also another guy who we'd been recommending to customers for 20 years or so but we never even had a thank you from him. The final straw with the miserable git was when we found out he was doing wood cheaper for the local pub! Hence we set up ourselves and took all of our customers back.

Let me know if I'm teaching granny to suck eggs but the way a site obtains good google rankings is by its content and word density. Keywords and search terms are not recognized by google. Therefore if you change it's content it will loose any ranking it has now (which is very little) and will take weeks/months to propogate and be recognised throughout the www.

It could be the door but more likely the air inlets. It stops when the door is open because it will no longer be sealed and sucking air through the vents. Things that whistle are usually circular, small diameter holes on air inlets. Large openings or slots don't tend to whistle due to the shape of them. Hence why when you whistle with your mouth you have to form a round opening with your lips.

We give a card out with every stove install and the work is piling in. Stove customers are crying out for decent wood. Give your local stove shop some free wood from time to time but make sure it's good and dry. At the end of the day the owner of the stove shop doesn't want customer moaning about blackened glass and blocked flues. If your wood is good they'll recommend you as its good for them!

Your place page shows up but as for google rankings I went through the first 5 pages of results and it was knowhere to be seen. Also unless the person is in Maidstone then that search term is useless. Also the chances are any purchaser of the website won't sell logs in sacks as you do so will have to re write the whole content of the site. Sorry to be so negative about it but I'm a realist. Good luck though.

Yeah it obviously isn't the cowl but I assumed this was obvious. It will be air whistling through the air vents or a gap in the door. Changing the cowl or pot or installing a stabiliser is the way to solve it though. It's probably due to excessive draught.

Also a way to approach this would be to measure the fue draught with a draught gauge. If draught is within the range specified by the stove manual and it's still whistling then maybe there is something wrong with the air inlets or maybe air sucking through a bad seal on the door. This can be solved either by fixing the problem with the air inlets/door or returning the stove as not fit for purpose although if not installed and signed off with building control that may be a problem. If when the flue draught is tested it is way too high then one way to fix this is to remove the chimney pot and fit a crown top chimney pot. These are the ones with the spikes on the top which are designed to disrupt the airflow over the pot in windy conditions which stops it over drawing. Another solution would be to install a draught stabiliser.

I only based my worthless comment on the fact the OP said they started a few months ago and the whole way it was worded seemed to imply the only thing worth anything was a website. I have a website. Started around 6 months ago. Have an 18k vehicle. Shift around 12 x 1.2 cubic metre loads on a Saturday and I'd say my business is only worth the second hand value of the vehicle. Apologies if I'm mistaken.

We've been rammed since April or so when I setup. Got a guy on doing deliveries now and doing some good money. Get your local stove shop onside. We're installing 12 stoves a week or so and all of these customer want wood. We still fit around 6 a week in summer and they all want wood. A decent local stove shop should be similar.

Sorry but it sounds worthless. You don't have a supplier or many customers by the sounds of it. The website is all you have which is easily created in an evening or two. Anyone wanting to set up would be best starting from scratch for free. You could sell the machinery you have.......firewood processors, tractors....etc. But then it would only be worth the second hand value of the machinery. What's your website?

It's doesn't sound great but it also doesn't sound like it shouldnt work or not be sweepable. I've installed many appliances with a couple of 45° bends and don't have problems sweeping them. I'd usually use a set of 3/4" bailey rods with a 6" brush. It should go around the bends. Otherwise nylon flexi rods. One little tip with these is to bend the brush at the end a little so it's already heading the the direction of the vertical piece. I also don't bother with balls on the end of the brushes for the flexi rods as it makes the whole thing much more rigid. Can you not get a chimney sweep in to do it?

Hmm. I don't think they're right on that. The bars are removable from a lot of the stoves without having to dismantle the flue or collar and therefore it wouldn't stop anyone from sweeping from below. All of the stoves that have bars accross the flue outlet have vermiculite baffle plates and I was told it was to stop the baffles getting bust when swept from the top. I may be wrong but it just doesnt make sense. Do you sell Nordpeis? What you reckon?

I've had a good look around online and I can't find anything to suggest that you can't sweep chimney from below in Germany or Poland. Where did you get this info from? It just doesn't make sense why there would be a reg banning sweeping from below.

What are the reasons for not allowing sweeping from below?

Is it an Esse stove?

I thought we were 90% water or something:)

Had a few weeks with the new truck now and it's brilliant. If anyone wants a similar back end building get in touch with: Metatec Unit 18, Moor La Trading Estate, Sherburn in Elmet Leeds LS25 6ES 01977 689254 Approx £1200 for the back end.

And were the petrol station logs any good?

I usually remove these bars upon installation so sweeping can be done from below. Are they fitted so you can't sweep from below though? I thought the reason for the bar was due to them having fragile compressed vermiculite baffle plates and it was stop you smashing the baffle to pieces with the brush if sweeping from the top?