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Yes,as far as I know it's only for what you sell/use for BSL customers, that's why you need a drawing or map to show which stacks are which.

We haven't had one but I know it's more complicated now with the land criteria where you have to prove everything you buy or grow is sustainable with lists of everything that you buy in and where you stack it. It also has to be a low enough moisture for your boiler. Edit. Sorry that second bit was for RHI

Thanks, I'll take a look at the graphs to.

Out of interest do those of you drying at high temperatures in 24 hours find it only dries the outside or have you got around that? We had too many issues with drying that way so we've gone to the other extreme and dry at 30-35 degrees over 3-4 weeks. And in reply to woodworks, on our own log burner we'll burn anything up to 30, we just stack it by the side first. 15 is what I would like but we still see it as a luxury.

Also it's interesting that certainly wood who are one of the biggest suppliers that I know of market their kiln dried logs as below 20% average. I wonder if that's split and measured or not. On average I would personally want around 15 but it's easy enough to burn anything up to 25 with a decent fire.

The bark isn't too hard to dry but as you say it's the damp layer underneath that can cause problems, nature can be awkward... We like to sell our wood below 20% as a maximum but we usually read 0 on a moisture meter because we keep it in the drying shed until delivery (I know that's technically more like 6%). I found that if you dry wood down to say 14% then it's often double when split, it still burns perfectly though, I go on the surface reading myself as that seems to show what will burn well. I think the official advice is to measure across the split side of a log. And happy new year.

Nothing wrong with using some initiative to make some money. As has been said going into firewood any bigger is expensive so I would concentrate on getting the most profit out of your current wood. If you're processing by hand the timber doesn't matter so much - get as much as you can free from your main business and maybe even offer to remove it for other people. You could even try going around local farmers. If they have a fallen tree in a field or on a fence offer to remove it for them, it's hard work but could save you £50-60 a ton.

We found that without forcing air through the chip it just starts to compost. It might work with a very thin layer but I would think that you'll need air flow and heat.

I'm normally happy to have everything concreted but our drains blocked today and nothing blocks drains like sawdust...

Not sure to be honest, we looked at electric ones but we don't have 3 phase electric here. It's costing us around £1 a ton of wood in diesel so the saving wouldn't be much anyway and then there's the issue of moving the processor, it's much easier to move to a clean spot than shovel the bark and sawdust all the time. Admittedly the processor weighs around 1200kg so that tractor just takes the weight off a bit then drags it.

Yes, that tractors served us well. We just had to add an alternator to it and change a few electrics around so it would power the processor. And I can't argue with less than 20litres of fuel a day when you compare it to our bigger tractors.

We bring the logs in with a trailer then load with our kramer. If the column wasn't in the way it would be the perfect set up for us.

I can't find a picture of our firewood setup at the moment but here's some over size stuff we were splitting. I hope this uploads...

Bobcats are good machines, the main advantage over a tractor is that they can spin on the spot. I haven't driven one in years but they're easy enough once you get the hang of it. Personally I would get one that's all controlled on the joysticks since I didn't like controlling the arm with my feet. We had one with tracks to use in the woods but the bearings tend to go on concrete all day. You can also get loads of attachments. We had a bucket, grab,pallet forks, chipper and flail topper.

We deal with the contractor whenever possible, usually on a bit of our own woodland or a neighbour. It can save money over buying from someone like tilhill but the downside is you usually have to take every size of timber they cut so you can have a lot of small or oversized stuff.

That wouldn't work in practice since all logs are different sizes, if that was the case I would be going out to buy an 8 way splitter. Cubic meters is the closest to fair you can get in my opinion. We did once have a customer complain that they had 476 logs when last time they had 497 a few years ago though which we couldn't quite believe. Should have offered them a bag of kindling to make up the difference...

Not sure on the legalities of insurance but it's best to be covered in case you knock someone's shed down or hit something when tipping. No it hasn't happened to us. If you're selling to people who receive the RHI grant you need to be on the Biomass Suppliers List (BSL) which basically means proving all your timber is sustainable with a felling licence as minimum for each lot. Check the total weight of your delivery vehicle and load and make sure it's not over 3.5 tons, that can cause problems. There's recently been news of trading standards looking at load sizes but that's not an issue yet for most people. Personally I would always sell per cubic meter. If you're feeling ambitious VAT has to be charged after £75,000 turnover. If you're selling to the end user charge 5% and if it will be sold on charge 20%. Business rates... https://www.gov.uk/introduction-to-business-rates/overview Not my area of expertise, there's plenty of exemptions so just ask around. Hope that helps. Edit: VAT is worth looking at regardless of turnover as you can claim back the difference.

From what I've seen a '1 ton' standard bag is about .7 cube when properly filled. We do a few sizes of load, all tipped loose, from a pickup or trailer or some combination depending what the customer wants. Currently we charge £110 for 1.8 cube or £140 for 2.4. Everything we sell is kiln dried hardwood. We're in mid Wales, most of the prices people charge depend on area and completion.

Tempting, unfortunately there's costs to pay even then. I was just giving an idea of costs involved, we get on ok,everyone would like to be paid more but putting the prices up would lose too many customers. I expect there's quite a few businesses where the owners don't get paid.

£60 a cube delivered and tipped is break even (as part of a £110 1.8 cube load). Around here in Wales at least. Edit: That doesn't fully cover labour thinking about it but there's a lot of other suppliers around.

It's exactly the same on our machine, 2 years old/1200 tons of hardwood. I thought we were using a lot of oil. We've just started our third drive belt and third chain tensioners as well but other than that it's pretty good. Only thing I'm worried about is the main chainsaw guard which has taken a few whacks and is getting harder to straighten.

With our processors (Tajfun 400 and hakki pilke 1X37 before that) I like to change chain about every 12 tons but a brand new chain can go up to 20 tons in hardwood. We did have to to semi chisel chains for a bit though because we had a load of muddy wood in and we were only getting 2 tons to a chain with the full chisel chains. Also chain use will depend on the length of wood you cut, obviously cutting 18 inch instead of 9 will last twice as long. We did notice that when you switch from a machine that uses hydraulic oil to one that uses chain oil you use a lot less oil. We have about 10 chains in use at a time. I used to sharpen them in a vice but I've found it's quicker to screw an old guide bar to the side of the work bench (on an upright bit of wood) and loop the chain round that so that you don't have to keep undoing the vice to swap the chain around.

My opinion and accurate as far as I know. Whatever you do, make sure that woodchip is dry. Fresh chip from hedges etc won't work (that's usually way over the 20-25% recommended range). Soft wood will dry faster than hardwood. Also most boilers have a maximum chip diameter like 50x50mm so you need to get the right sort of chipper. For example a heizohack that has a built in 'sieve' to stop the big chip going through or if you don't mind the work you can get an old grain grader or similar to sort it after. For 80 tons a year it's probably best to hire someone in with a big chipper (although you should make sure that the timber is stacked ready for them so you get value for money). I personally would sell the bigger timber and just put bent and small stuff through a chipper then buy in cheap softwood to make up the difference. If you're looking at buying I think a 12 inch chipper will cost around £25,000 new depending on brand and need 100hp+ to power it. Unless you're chipping in small amounts I would also suggest a skidsteer/loader or a log trailer and crane for shifting timber to save your back on the big stuff. Hope some of that is vaguely useful. Edit: If you haven't already looked at RHI (renewable heat incentive), it might be a good way to earn some money back. Evoworld boilers might be worth a look to.

Thanks for the replies, we've just started to sell woodchip for biomass boilers so we have dry chip. We have a boiler which we're tempted to get our hot water from but it's quite far from the house and that boiler doesn't constantly run so we were looking at a the woodchip equivalent of our oil fuelled Rayburn. If it exists which seems unlikely.

Does anyone know of any Rayburn/Aga style cookers that can be fuelled by woodchip (from a store, preferably not every couple of hours)? I've seen a few that use pellets but nothing with chip which we have a supply of already. Any advice is welcome, we are looking for one that will heat water and cook like a traditional Rayburn.