gdh
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Everything posted by gdh
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Yes, sorry I meant domestic as in used for houses but still on the 20 year commercial scheme.
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I think the scheme worked, it's got a lot of old oil boilers replaced in houses and it's persuaded businesses to switch to wood. It came around at just the right time for us, we didn't have any more space to dry wood and the weather's too bad around here to get wood dry enough for what customers demand now so using rhi meant we could dry without having to raise prices. Having said that, there are certainly people taking advantage which isn't helped by boiler salesmen saying you can pay them off in 5 years if you open all your doors and windows. With a big boiler most domestic and smaller users won't hit the maximum payment without letting some heat go to waste...
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I would say closer to £10 a cube without Rhi and including other costs for drying. Electric and the boiler itself can easily add a lot. Haven't got the figures with me now but including everything - processor, labour, parts, loan interest, telehandler,diesel, tractor etc etc I think we're just under £25 for production on a fairly big scale.
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£30 a cube to small users and we use a trailer with a false vented floor and hot air to dry.
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Yes, I don't know of a chipper that doesn't make any slithers. Our heizohach has a sieve in it before the chip leaves the drum but obviously it can't stop stuff going lengthways. Saying that we haven't had a boiler blockage yet.
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If you're selling it for burning in biomass boilers it needs to be chipped to a certain size eg g30 which is 30mm maximum. It also needs to be dry.
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I would have thought it would be better to cut wood yourself and sell wholesale since in theory that would be better value. I can see your idea working on a small scale for locals but larger businesses would probably be better with their own kiln. There was a company that would give you a kiln for about 10k I think then they kept the rhi but that was was when the rhi rate was high and I didn't hear if it worked after they had some problems.
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Not a huge amount more, our other area's getting low. We aim to stay around 1300 tons, including some softwood for chip, to match our annual sales. We buy in or cut more as we sell when possible to try and keep on top of expenses. This year's been pretty good because it's been easy enough to get hold of wood. The stack on the the left is next to process. We try to season everything for 12 months but the ash often gets less.
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Don't worry, most of it belongs to the bank.
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What is the shortest logs you have been asked to supply?
gdh replied to cessna's topic in Firewood forum
Yes, horrible stuff to cut with a processor because it always falls in the chamber sideways. Luckily we only sell a couple of loads a year. -
Here's one of our stacks, I think there's about 800tons in the picture.
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It's a tajfun xe 10. It worked well for the half hour I tried it but I haven't had a day with it yet.
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Will do.
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It is. I'm tempted to sell but I want to give it a go in the summer, I know if sold it I would end up wanting it.
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We bought an extractor with the intention of selling sawdust - even if it just covered the cost it's better than dumping it. Unfortunately for most of the year sawdust is slightly damp so you can't bag it without it setting in the bag within a week or 2 and it was more hassle than it was worth when moving the machine.
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My dad started off with silage then we switched to big square baling and wrapping and a bit of spraying but we're no where near the scale we used to be. We used to replace machinery regularly but now all the baling equipment is around 10 years old and we'll just keep it going. You can find old balers pretty cheap but there's a lot of wearable parts and knotters in particular are always breaking no matter how old the machine.
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It's beef and sheep but not many cattle left now because they lose money and we planted a fair bit of our land with trees. We also do a bit of contracting which is why we have decent tractors and loaders that the firewood business can rent. The two businesses work pretty well together because they're in opposite halves of the year, only problems are we don't have time to do fencing this time of year anymore and lambing from mid February onwards is a real struggle but we normally have just enough stockpiles to see us to the end of the firewood season.
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Bit of both. My dad does the deliveries and I do the cutting with someone else helping me between 2 and 5 days a week in the winter. That's in addition to normal farm work which is why we need help.
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Sales are getting ridiculous now, been quiet for a few weeks then we did over a hundred cube last week and it looks like the same this week. On top of that we've got 2 people looking to buy wholesale, one of which will take 30 cube a time and woodchip to do. We've got empty boxes and piles of wood everywhere and are drying anyhow we can. It's brilliant but very tiring.
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Countryfile - the new front line in pollution
gdh replied to kevinjohnsonmbe's topic in General chat
It makes me laugh that countryfile always describes a story as something new. Like planting trees and fencing off rivers which farmers have been doing for years, I know we fenced off all our streams at least 15 years ago. I've also yet to meet a countryfile from the countryside who doesn't complain about it. -
If I was selling I would say £65 a cube or around £100 a ton going on the safe side with cube to ton conversion. That's roadside in Wales.
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Not sure about historical ones but the blacklist and person of interest are very good action shows and have a few series each. If you've got amazon prime then man in the high castle and the walking dead are good and free. Other shows I like are breaking bad and I could list any amount of sci-fi but I won't get started on that.
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The ones we get in are 14tons and make around 24 cube of firewood. If you're using the same lorry as normal then just divide the cubic amount by the tons to see if it's a good deal. It's going to be the same volume of wood so I would say it's the total price per load that matters.
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investment against return scale for wood processing
gdh replied to flatyre's topic in Firewood forum
I don't think it helps when people have their wood in a 90x90x90 bag and assume it's close enough to a cube whereas it's actually. 73cube (unless it's a stretched, really heaped bag). -
investment against return scale for wood processing
gdh replied to flatyre's topic in Firewood forum
I think you'll find a lot of shops work on less than that. Either way if all your costs are paid for and include labour your 'profit margin ' only needs to be tiny.
