Customer Unhappy With Wood Bought From Me. What To Do?

I have sold 52 full cords of firewood this year so far, with only 5 new customers, all the rest going to regular customers. I have gotten calls from many of them, either ordering more wood because this stuff is so nice, or just to tell me they are very happy with the product.

Last Sunday I had a guy come and get a cord of firewood, his first from me. We loaded his trailer with what he thought was a full cord, but I knew wasn't because his trailer is the same size as mine and I can only get 2/3 of a cord on mine. Mentioned this to him and he told me he has hauled before with it and it was always a full cord that he hauled. Told him that when he gets home and gets it stacked and finds he is short of a cord, to come and get the rest of it.

Well, last night he called, and told me that indeed, he only got 2/3 of a cord. But worse, after trying some the night before, it would not burn very well. Then he got out his moisture meter and some of it was 30% MC.(Not sure if that was a worst case scenario or the norm) As I talked to him he was burning some of it, and held the phone by the fire and I could hear it sizzling even on the phone! Not Good!

I have no reason to doubt this man's integrity. Turns out we have many friends in common, and those people would not hang with a man of lesser integrity.

Some things to know before offering advice:
1. All 52 cords were split basically in the same time frame.(Jan,Feb,March 2012)
2. All were standing dead, bark off the tree red oak.
3. I don't 100% test each piece of wood that goes in the pile. Pieces I did test were under 23%MC in September 2012
4. Since I had sold all of my stacked rows of wood, this wood was on pallets, 8 ft wide and 16 ft long, outside rows stacked and then splits were tossed in the middle. First time I had tried doing it this way.
5. Customer has an EPA insert

I have been working out of state and just got home last night. This morning I will do further testing on the pile to see what I find for MC. yes, the pile is tarped.

First complaint in over 30 yrs of selling firewood. Tough hit on the ego, for sure! I take a lot of pride in not selling low quality wood, dang it. In fact, I even hesitated writing this post so no one would know other than me and the customer. But I want some advice as you will see at the end of this long long post!

Customer is also buying 3 cords of unsplit rounds. I figure I will make up the price difference(from green wood to dry wood) at that time. Because that wood will dry, and be darn good wood, in a short time.

Now, here is where I need some advice. He is short 1/3 of a cord, so obviously he gets that wood when he comes this Saturday. It will be dry wood of course. What will be fair to both the customer and me in remedying this situation? Any and all advice will be greatly appreciated. I am hoping some of you other sellers have had this happen and can relate what you did to satisfy the customer, keep his business and still be fair to all involved.


Thanks in advance for any advice! Sorry about the long post, but I was being nice! Could have been much longer! lol

Ted

You both seem like stand up guys. As he is a new customer and you want to show a "good faith" measure, I vote that you just let him fill up his "2/3 cord" trailer again with good dry wood.

Either that say "look over there" and then kick him in the sack
:check:
(just kidding! don't do this!)

rullywowr said:

You both seem like stand up guys. As he is a new customer and you want to show a "good faith" measure, I vote that you just let him fill up his "2/3 cord" trailer again with good dry wood.
)

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If you have the wood then do this, bet he will be your new best customer, I know I would....

Curious how much a cord sells for with you??

I am thinking along that line also. Other thought is to let him get a full cord of dry wood, and the green wood he already has would be counted towards the 3 cords of unsplit rounds he is buying.
Just want to be fair to both sides, but maybe I shouldn't be fair to myself considering I must have screwed up for that wood to be in the for sale now pile and not next season's wood pile.

Ted

I bet #4 is the problem.

You know how to remedy in the future.

For now, discount the first cord, sell him another of dry?
Do like above and give him an extra 1/3 cord?

Something is odd. Dude is probably bieng straight up, but something else has to be off.

Standing dead, split and stacked for several months shouldn't hiss period. Even here, where tourists from Louisianna complain about our humidity.

Is there any chance, however slim, that some green Red oak got into the stacks?
How about the base 8' of those standing dead oaks, ending up the base of the stack, and thus on top of the delivered pile, and first burnt by the customer? The bottom rows of the stack always dry slower, and are subject to ground moisture..

I'm brainstorming here, trying to figure out how you can approach this.

Possibly running through his delivered stacks with the moisture meter, to find if it's just one bit of it, or all?

It's cool that the guy is patient and not getting huffy about it, as it allows for making a corrective action once the problem has been ferreted out.

Good luck!
And keep us posted on what ya find. It might come in handy to keep an eyeball on for the rest.

Stay safe!
Dingeryote

I think it's a combo of #4 and the tarp....it just could not get enough air to it. Your right, properly stacked the stuff he has will dry out just fine. If he is buying more, then giving him a half a load "no charge" would be a really good gesture.
Keep in mind if he is running a newer EPA stove they recommend wood that is 2 YEARS dry(I think that is a worse case scenario on drying conditions). Even your 23% is going to be a bit high for a new stove.....18-20% if I remember right is max. So you might want to give him some wood to try before you end up having a bigger mess on your hands.

MotorSeven said:

I think it's a combo of #4 and the tarp. So you might want to give him some wood to try before you end up having a bigger mess on your hands.

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While talking to him on the phone prior to buying, I offered that he could take some home and try it first if he wanted. Once he got here and saw the wood, he thought it unnecessary and bought it on the spot.

Ted

flyboy553 said:

I am thinking along that line also. Other thought is to let him get a full cord of dry wood, and the green wood he already has would be counted towards the 3 cords of unsplit rounds he is buying.
Just want to be fair to both sides, but maybe I shouldn't be fair to myself considering I must have screwed up for that wood to be in the for sale now pile and not next season's wood pile.

Ted

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Had that happen to me years ago when I filled an old wood shed full of splits and it never dried the inside wood. I see these guys stacking their split wood in big blocks and it never will dry in the center.. Seems like stacked wood dries a lot slower than if it was tossed in a pile.

Yep! Count the first 2/3 as his unsplit and you'll have anothe customer for life. Looks like a Win -Win for both.

Dont make too pretty of a deal or next year you will find out why he is your new customer.

ive heard your problem before ted first hand. somer years ago with standing dead, i put the whole tree into what will make a cord stacked or piled! the problem is the bottom 8' to10' in a larger diameter tree. puting the wet base wood(not green) into the product is not good! complaints were few but seemed like a truck full of them at the time. after the problem was figured out i will never stack,pile base wood that is to be sold with in a single year of being cut!!!!! boiler wood at best. so #4 is the way to go ... your the man with a good customer for life.

Standing dead ain't necessarily seasoned. Might need another year or more after its split.

I highly doubt that wood will hiss for long if it was properly seasoned in the first place. In this area we have had a very wet fall with higher than normal rainfall. I tell customers that the wood will burn better after being out of the rain for a week or two and if it doesn't they should call me. I have sold a lot of wood this fall with No complaints. I also use an advanced moisture meter. Even though my moisture content is less than 20% the wood is a little slow to take off.

This morning I checked 40 pieces from the pile. The worst I found(1 piece) was 23.9% MC. Lowest was 18.9%. Most of the pieces were from 19 to 21%. These were the heaviest pieces I could find in the pile.

I then checked 10 pieces that were stacked out by the road, for sale. They were all at 18 - 19%. Guess I know what the problem is/was!

Ted

chucker said:

ive heard your problem before ted first hand. somer years ago with standing dead, i put the whole tree into what will make a cord stacked or piled! the problem is the bottom 8' to10' in a larger diameter tree. puting the wet base wood(not green) into the product is not good! complaints were few but seemed like a truck full of them at the time. after the problem was figured out i will never stack,pile base wood that is to be sold with in a single year of being cut!!!!! boiler wood at best. so #4 is the way to go ... your the man with a good customer for life.

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I take the MM with me into the woods and use it religiously to check the MC as I cut the tree up. Once I get to 24% MC I quit adding it to the sell now wood pile. The rest of the tree base gets put in the next seasons pile. Have always done that. It could be that one of the helpers I used last spring wasn't so careful, I don't really know.

Ted

Send the girl in your avatar pic over to him for about 8 minutes, that will get the moisture outopcorn:

flyboy553,

I clear tarp just the top of all my stacks to shed rain but allow lots of air.
I had a stack that got some weird end mold one year.
It was a damp spring raining every day, a fine white mold ended up on one side of a sale stack of split wood.

It didn't stay long and i gave it no more thought.
When it was time to sell it over 6 months later the wood seemed very heavy compared to other stacks around it.

Everything else was cured up nice but this stack looked like 2 month cured and not 7 or 8 months.

Maybe something that simple with yours in just one section.

I think letting him keep the 2/3 as if they were rounds and selling him a new full cord sounds very good.
The customer is worth much more than the wood

Gavman said:

Send the girl in your avatar pic over to him for about 8 minutes, that will get the moisture outopcorn:

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8 minutes? What are you, a #### star?

If I were your customer I would be happy with keeping the 2/3 load as part of the 3 cord green total and getting another cord of seasoned wood. Sounds very reasonable to me.


As a side note, I cut,split,stacked what I was going to burn this year under my leanto 3 years ago. It is all red oak and is hissing like crazy in the stove. I left plenty of room between the stacks but it acts like it never dried out. Glad I only brought in a couple cords of it and have half of last years load still in the basement. Learned a hard lesson there. The 1 year seasoned oak out in the yard burns better than the 3 year leanto stuff.