Buying logs and selling firewood

[SpaceBus]

Wow, What a great thread! I can't believe I overlooked it for so long. Most everyone makes great points and a lot of the difference seem to be based on location, location, location.....and the abundance (or lack there of) of available trees appropriate for firewood and available time/sweat equity. Some of you have seen my posts before, so I wont bore you with the details.....I come at it from the opposite end and sell to a niche market consisting of a captive audience who "wants" a fire but certainly does not "need" one. I buy seasoned hardwood cut at 17"- 21" and split small and medium to give a novice a fighting chance to get the fire going..... I then bag it (2 Cu ft by volume mesh bags) and deliver and stock at State and Municipal camping and RV parks in my area. My all in cost per full cord is $600 (Wood, bags, swipe fees, transportation, cut to the park and labor involved).....I get $1200. No theft, no getting paid by store owner at wholesale and they double the price. $200k in sales last year and more parks coming on line

This is what I had in mind living here in Vacationland. For campers and such that just want an ambiance fire, I figured woods like Spruce and Balsam Fir would be great since I have them on my property in great abundance and they smell amazing. This is about the only way I could possibly make money on firewood. My body couldn't process enough to sell by the cord to people using wood for heat.

 

[SpaceBus]

He still has his machines...conveyor belt system..one product one price...don't know how many he has sold...he has other models as well. Yes, I sell from the lockers....you can vend anything that fits in each compartment...during burn bans we sell charcoal, cases of water, charcoal grills etc....but nothing sells even close to good old firewood....The parks get 10% of the gross and I am the only one selling on site and 24/7

I wish I had read all the responses before replying to you. Wow, what a great system! After I finish home renovations, perhaps I should talk to local businesses about bundles of firewood. It seems "kiln dried" firewood is quite popular and the local hardware store sells 25 lb bundles of kiln dried maple. I have two maple trees I quite enjoy looking at and log trucks can't get to my house. This is partially why I mentioned the fir and spruce in the previous post. I feel like customers buying bundles of firewood don't particularly care about species. Big box stores seem to sell exclusively pinon pine, it does smell nice, but hardly a worthy heating fuel source. Hard woods also coal for hours and hours in outdoor fire pits you find at campgrounds. Soft woods don't do this the same way, so another reason big stores don't sell hard woods for camp fires. I did the napkin math for this a while ago, and even selling at $5/25 lb bags (1 cuft of spruce or fir) I could make a tidy profit. Unfortunately it's been an extremely wet year and I don't know how many folks are having camp fires and such. I've had three so far this year, all before summer even started. I also burn firewood as my sole heat (we have electric, but too much $$$) and will have plenty of seasoned softwoods available soon. If not for house renovations I could probably process a cord a week weather permitting with just my tractor, 20t splitter, and chainsaws without killing myself.

Thank you for posting your experiences. I'm medically retired and trying to figure out how to make some supplemental income without breaking myself.

 

[Marine5068]

If someone can block, split, stack, load, drive to customer's house, and unload a cord of wood in 2-3 hours then they deserve to make $110 for their time.

When I do a cord of wood including delivery I make between 12-18 bucks an hour after fuel, oil, and chain depreciation. Nobody is getting rich off that.

Wow, your firewood goes cheap there at $110/cord.
Ours here goes for about $350 CAD a cord....not delivered and green.

 

[Marine5068]

I wish I had read all the responses before replying to you. Wow, what a great system! After I finish home renovations, perhaps I should talk to local businesses about bundles of firewood. It seems "kiln dried" firewood is quite popular and the local hardware store sells 25 lb bundles of kiln dried maple. I have two maple trees I quite enjoy looking at and log trucks can't get to my house. This is partially why I mentioned the fir and spruce in the previous post. I feel like customers buying bundles of firewood don't particularly care about species. Big box stores seem to sell exclusively pinon pine, it does smell nice, but hardly a worthy heating fuel source. Hard woods also coal for hours and hours in outdoor fire pits you find at campgrounds. Soft woods don't do this the same way, so another reason big stores don't sell hard woods for camp fires. I did the napkin math for this a while ago, and even selling at $5/25 lb bags (1 cuft of spruce or fir) I could make a tidy profit. Unfortunately it's been an extremely wet year and I don't know how many folks are having camp fires and such. I've had three so far this year, all before summer even started. I also burn firewood as my sole heat (we have electric, but too much $$$) and will have plenty of seasoned softwoods available soon. If not for house renovations I could probably process a cord a week weather permitting with just my tractor, 20t splitter, and chainsaws without killing myself.

Thank you for posting your experiences. I'm medically retired and trying to figure out how to make some supplemental income without breaking myself.

You could post your campfire wood for sale on the web as well,
It will sell.
Two years ago I had a friend drop off a large Poplar he felled on his property.
It was all blocked to length so I split it, seasoned it dry and bagged it in used wood pellet bags and the advertised it for campfire wood or kindling for $5 a bag.
I had 80 bags made up and a fellow that owned a campground came and bought them all.

 

[Marine5068]

People who burn wood for heat rather than atmosphere don’t spend money for someone else to dry their wood.

Yes but around here you still pay seasoned prices for green split firewood.
About $350 per cord.

 

[SpaceBus]

You could post your campfire wood for sale on the web as well,
It will sell.
Two years ago I had a friend drop off a large Poplar he felled on his property.
It was all blocked to length so I split it, seasoned it dry and bagged it in used wood pellet bags and the advertised it for campfire wood or kindling for $5 a bag.
I had 80 bags made up and a fellow that owned a campground came and bought them all.

That's awesome. Once I have 20+ cords CSS (we are also going with wood for cooking and DHW) at all times I'll start bundling the excess. I've been wanting to build a solar kiln just to kill bugs in my own firewood, but I'm sure that would help sell bundled wood as well.

 

[Huskybill]

There’s a local guy here selling firewood who gets bunk truck loads I’m not sure is he has a processor but I see a conveyor. He must get a discount on how much he buys from the logger.

 

[Ted Jenkins]

I delivered two pickup loads for over $500 last week. I use my Ranger pickup often because so many want 1/2 cords. The guy wanted dry Oak put in to two places. It was roughly $540 for 18'' Oak. It appears that prices will go quite a bit higher by December. Thanks

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

I disagree. Most people who burn wood for heat aren’t buying green split wood a year ahead of time and letting it season on there property. At least not around here in New England

I grew up in Maine. Most people that buy processed firewood in that area aren't buying it seasoned.

 

[Mad Professor]

I still have a few years worth of EAB killed ash.

 

[SpaceBus]

I grew up in Maine. Most people that buy processed firewood in that area aren't buying it seasoned.

I see the same thing.

 

[woodchuckcanuck]

I haven't been able to move much seasoned, full cords this year at CAD$230 (US$175). So a change in strategy. Selling 1/2 cords to cottage owners.

 

[muddstopper]

That's nice but around here every guy has a pickup truck and a saw, and wood is abundant. There's no business to go out of business. Truck and saw they would own anyway, no insurance, no reporting earnings. $50 pickup loads delivered and stacked. How dry? Doesn't matter. How much wood? Doesn't matter. They get to work away from their real job and on their own terms, doing 'manly' stuff and make a few bucks. Sure it probably breaks down to $8 an hour but that doesn't matter.

I disagree. If your running a business, you run it to make a profit. Otherwise you are running a charity. Even if that business is just to pick up some side money. Worrying about or trying to compete with another business based on price is a sure path to failure. You have no control over what they do or how they figure out their cost. Forget about what they price their wood for. Set your prices according to your cost. When your competition sells out of their under priced wood, then you will sell out of your profit based wood. You might not sell as much wood as your competitor, but you will work less and make more money. I'll say something else to, once your lower priced competitors see their pile of wood gone and you selling at a higher price, you will see their prices start creeping up.

 

[woodchuckcanuck]

I disagree. If your running a business, you run it to make a profit. Otherwise you are running a charity. Even if that business is just to pick up some side money. Worrying about or trying to compete with another business based on price is a sure path to failure. You have no control over what they do or how they figure out their cost. Forget about what they price their wood for. Set your prices according to your cost. When your competition sells out of their under priced wood, then you will sell out of your profit based wood. You might not sell as much wood as your competitor, but you will work less and make more money. I'll say something else to, once your lower priced competitors see their pile of wood gone and you selling at a higher price, you will see their prices start creeping up.

^^^ THIS EXACTLY !! ^^^

 

[Ted Jenkins]

Mudd is right again. Two years ago a guy I know lives right on the edge of USFS land with at least a acre of spare land. His wife tells me how they are going to open a firewood business. I immediately tell here how hard the work is and some of the problems. She says they have a good plan and most of the details worked out. Her husband works for the power company here and has figured out how to direct most of the trimmed trees to their property. One problem they have is that the trimmed wood is almost all cut 16'' which is not popular here. So he is getting much over time so they have some extra budget to work with. So he hires six unemployed people they know with the wife doing much of the supervising. The first six months go by with some success. Then reality starts setting in as one of their delivery people forgets to hook up the hitch to the delivery trailer as a result smashing the pickup bed and damaging the trailer. Then two of his saws disappear. As winter rolls on he advertises wood at half price which helped move a major amount of inventory. By march they realize that they have lost more than $25000 so they call it quits. In 40 years same story different people many many times. Thanks

 

[Sandhill Crane]

I haven't been able to move much seasoned, full cords this year at CAD$230 (US$175). So a change in strategy. Selling 1/2 cords to cottage owners.

Really nice looking wood.

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

I disagree. If your running a business, you run it to make a profit. Otherwise you are running a charity. Even if that business is just to pick up some side money. Worrying about or trying to compete with another business based on price is a sure path to failure. You have no control over what they do or how they figure out their cost. Forget about what they price their wood for. Set your prices according to your cost. When your competition sells out of their under priced wood, then you will sell out of your profit based wood. You might not sell as much wood as your competitor, but you will work less and make more money. I'll say something else to, once your lower priced competitors see their pile of wood gone and you selling at a higher price, you will see their prices start creeping up.

Lot of times those are the guys to stay away from. I've had customers buy from people like that and end up with a "cord" that was more like 1/4-1/2 a cord tops. Some of these guys have no clue what a cord is even, just that if they say it's a cord then they can probably get someone to buy it.

There was a guy running around for a while with a Ford Ranger with wood in it and a sign with "cord of firewood". He'd park at Walmart or Fred Meyer, etc and sit in the truck until someone walked up and bought it.
I asked him where the rest of the cord was and I was told I "didn't know what the F I was talken about"

 

[KiwiBro]

Really nice looking wood.

That written on any other site might get you in trouble ;-)

 

[Polish hammer]

Lol as long as there wasn’t a picture of this guy and then sandhill said that! Lol

 

[Camper]

I went to a fireplace store yesterday looking at the new stoves. I will have to have something for the new house. Wife says it has to look good, I said it has to work. Prices are all over the place, its definately a ouch moment. I wont even consider a OWB. I am not going to burn wood year round just to heat water and without electricity to run the blowers and circulate the hot water, they are useless setting outside the house. MY OPINION. I know several folks around that have bought one and I have never heard any of them brag on it and the one complaint I hear the most is how much wood they use. Only advantage I see with a OWB is you can burn about anything in them and it keeps the mess out of the house.

I have a OWB it supplies two houses with heat and hot water. I brag on it to everyone that asks about it. It burns quiet a bit of wood 9 to 11 cords a year. My son and I cut it off of our farm his kids and my wife hauls and stacks it in the wood shed no one complains much about the work I think it’s enjoyable to work with the family. We’ve done this for the last 7 years I don’t have any complaints there’s unlimited hot water and heat. The only downside is when we burn green wood it puts a lot of smoke out when the intake air blower kicks on.