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gdh

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Everything posted by gdh

  1. gdh
    We had a slow start as we often do but we're very busy now. Must have done 40+ cube already this week and alot booked for the weekend. We usually put our prices up £5 a cube each year (to about 67 now) depending on the cost of logs which slows sales at the beginning of winter but we still have a lot of regulars and then new customers once others run out of dry/cheap wood.
  2. gdh
    No, it's in potato boxes so there's plenty of airflow. We used to have issues with mould when air drying in large amounts in the winter which is why we went towards this system.
  3. gdh
    A drying floor is usually vented panels with a pressure fan underneath which forces hot air through the wood. Since heat rises it takes the moisture out with the air. In theory.
  4. gdh
    Yes, we dry ours and it's hard to get the inside dry. It's very satisfying when the oak all cracks open though. We went the opposite way to most people and we dry slowly at a lower heat. It takes 3 weeks at about 30 c but we do 160 cube at a time.
  5. gdh
    Ah, there's always a catch. Basically £60 delivery so ends up expensive unless you're local.
  6. gdh
    I'm not sure if it's changed recently but rhi was paid at a higher rate on boilers under 200kW so while a larger boiler would get more money overall it would cost a higher percentage to run which is why some businesses run multiple smaller boilers in sequence. In terms of efficiency I was referring to getting it under 20% moisture not peak temperature.
  7. gdh
    Yeah, I don't understand the logic behind the delivery either. They must have a huge amount of boilers there to cover it with RHI though because you can't just run 1 boiler non stop. It's limited to, I believe, 1300 hours at maximum capacity and the higher rate was only paid on boilers up to 200kW. That's 'only' around £20k a boiler in RHI per year and that's before the cost of chip and paying a 50k+ boiler off. It's possible they've got a very efficient drying system by doing it with false floors instead of a traditional kilns and on that scale they should easily be able to produce at £60 a cube but as you say pallet delivery just doesn't add up.
  8. gdh
    I think the biggest advantage with force drying wood isn't how dry it gets (as long as it's below 20% it will burn well regardless of how it gets there) but the fact you can sell more wood. Unless you have masses of storage space you can only sell what you cut in the summer, with a drying system you only need space to cut and dry so you can cut right through the year.
  9. gdh
    We're pretty much the same as lancer said, we pay £58 + vat a ton delivered in but if you're using an axe and chainsaw you might be able to get lower quality cheaper stuff. Then we get around 1.8cubic meters from a ton which we deliver in a loose load for £120 (location dependant for others) If you're not already it's worth getting vat registered as you'll be able to claim back more than you charge.
  10. gdh
    That's a really clever design. I wonder if it will cope with bent pieces or if they would skip over the knife.
  11. gdh
    Welcome to the club. It's a brilliant machine.
  12. gdh
    I wouldn't say £70 a cube is that cheap. We're less than that delivered (although that is loose tipped and 1.8cube). I'm not sure how they can afford free nationwide delivery though but it says they do 10000 tons a year so it's easier to make money on that scale. Would be very interesting to see their set up.
  13. gdh
    Who says big splitters aren't good investments.
  14. gdh
    We had a weigh ticket and it was 80/20 ash and oak.
  15. gdh
    We recently cut a 25 ton artic load into around 26 1.8cube boxes to check our workings of a ton to a box. I'm not sure where the difference could come from unless there's a big difference in firewood length. Perhaps it depends how much the load is settling, our boxes can shrink by quite a bit as their dried and moved around.
  16. gdh
    Plenty of people selling builders offcuts etc cheap around here. It doesn't really bother me to be honest, normally the really cheap wood is because they get the wood for free so they can't sell much. They'll be a good deal for someone if they can dry it but as long as you produce quality wood people will come back. If people question our prices which sound similar to yours I just direct them to one of the big online suppliers to show them how expensive it could be.
  17. gdh
    Yes, only had it in April, although the plus side is it's under warranty. It seems something's come loose inside the joystick workings so it doesn't click in one of the 4 directions. You can put your finger in and push the damaged part manually to make it work and we've wedged a piece of plastic in there but hopefully we'll have a new joystick by Monday anyway, we've just got to rewire the new one.
  18. gdh
    Hopefully we'll do a consistent 50 cube a week. That's about the most we can dry cost effectively but we've got 200 cube cut ready as a buffer if we get busier. As well as that we've got some bigger stuff for biomass and a bit of chip so we'll keep busy. Unfortunately the joystick failed on our processor today and I don't think our temporary fix is going to hold up so I can see us falling behind with the cutting if we're not careful..
  19. gdh
    It sounds like more than 5 tons but it's hard to tell. 5 tons would only be about 10cube. Can you just offer him £20 a cube as firewood?
  20. gdh

    Streamlining

    gdh replied to simonm's topic in Firewood forum

    Yeah, they can leave a bit of stringy stuff which is why we got a splitter instead and a splitter is faster. The cone/splitters are cheaper though and better on bent timber.
  21. gdh
    True, but not necessarily to hand. Most artic drivers will just give you a weigh ticket unless you ask for more.
  22. gdh
    We very rarely hire ours out because of the risk of damage but as long as you have a decent sized tractor on the front it's not too bad going out with it. It depends what tractor you have but if you have a smaller tractor you might need a front weight,we usually use 120hp deutz for ours but even when we used the 180 once it was lifting the front wheels on hills because it's so far back.Also if you use a bigger tractor for contracting with it you might need a longer pto. The other issue is, depending what you're used to, you won't have a log table or forklift with you when you go out and most people will expect you to cut wood that they've left with branches on and in random lengths which means you spend a lot of time with a chainsaw.
  23. gdh
    Products Archive | Bag Supplies we tried a few nets from here at the APF and they were good quality and cheap.
  24. gdh

    Streamlining

    gdh replied to simonm's topic in Firewood forum

    The biggest conventional firewood processors do up to 50cm diameter but they'll be 20k+ usually. If it's all oversized then for 200 cube a year it might be worth stockpiling then hiring in a big vertical splitter for a week. If you can find one with a 12 way splitter you could put them through a billet processor after or just quarter them and put them through a normal processor. If you already have a digger you could look at cone splitters and tree shears then you wouldn't have to leave the cab in theory.
  25. gdh
    It's picking up for us now - doing about 20 loads/40 cube a week plus our regular larger orders.

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