Cord prices falling like dominoes...

[mga]

Do you all think it would be wise to put a standing order in for a tri axle load if the price drops? I don't need the wood but for the right price it may pay to buy a load pr two for 2019 and 2020. It would save me from scrounging

where in ny are you?

 

[Dumf]

To the administration, please do not


Oldman47, you are not intelligent. Oil in not wood. Oil can not be burned in a fire place, oil can not be burned in a brick oven, oil can not be burned on an out door patio fire pit. People that I sell fire wood do not use it to heat their home. They buy it for pleasure, its almost like a luxury. People that do heat their home with fire wood typically buy log lengths or they manage to find wood and split their own.

Every drop of oil you buy will be the same, whether its diesel or gas its all the same product, which is reflected in the price per barrel. Fire wood is never the same from load to load. Type of wood, length, seasoned or not, kiln dried wood ext... and people are willing to pay for a premium product, you get what you pay for.

Firewood does require labor or equipment to manufacture, it just doesn't flow out of the ground, if it did it would be cheap like oil. No matter how you slice it, one cord of wood requires energy to produce, and that isn't free.

I would say stop blabbing about how firewood should only cost the same by BTU as oil but you're ignorance of what firewood is almost comical and entertaining, it's very apparent that you have never split any wood at all. Which also begs the question why you are aloud to comment with your ignorant post on an arborist forum. I bet you're the kind of person that hires illegal immigrants to do work because you think a legit outfit is to expensive, and the fire wood they sell.

To the administration, please do not remove my post, I bet many agree with what I say.

Hey, it's firewood not war. Lighten up and give the guy some civility right or wrong. You have a point but ease off.

 

[Oldman47]

To the administration, please do not


Oldman47, you are not intelligent. Oil in not wood. Oil can not be burned in a fire place, oil can not be burned in a brick oven, oil can not be burned on an out door patio fire pit. People that I sell fire wood do not use it to heat their home. They buy it for pleasure, its almost like a luxury. People that do heat their home with fire wood typically buy log lengths or they manage to find wood and split their own.

Every drop of oil you buy will be the same, whether its diesel or gas its all the same product, which is reflected in the price per barrel. Fire wood is never the same from load to load. Type of wood, length, seasoned or not, kiln dried wood ext... and people are willing to pay for a premium product, you get what you pay for.

Firewood does require labor or equipment to manufacture, it just doesn't flow out of the ground, if it did it would be cheap like oil. No matter how you slice it, one cord of wood requires energy to produce, and that isn't free.

I would say stop blabbing about how firewood should only cost the same by BTU as oil but you're ignorance of what firewood is almost comical and entertaining, it's very apparent that you have never split any wood at all. Which also begs the question why you are aloud to comment with your ignorant post on an arborist forum. I bet you're the kind of person that hires illegal immigrants to do work because you think a legit outfit is to expensive, and the fire wood they sell.

To the administration, please do not remove my post, I bet many agree with what I say.

If you are not willing to admit you are competing with the BTU content of oil, gas or coal you are living in a dream world. Most, but not all, consumers are trying to heat their homes and will buy whatever fuel they feel is the most economic for their circumstances. No amount of railing against the things you do not want to believe will change that. Any union organizer would find your arguments very appropriate because it supports a particular way of doing things regardless of the costs. How would you feel about being told that buggy whips are no longer needed and I will not pay the going rate to produce them, no matter the difference in quality between imported and domestic buggy whips? If you want me banned for actually believing in a free market economy, so be it. This is not the forum where I spend most of my time looking at wood and wood burning anyway so I won't miss your ignorant rants very much.

 

[bck]

If you are not willing to admit you are competing with the BTU content of oil, gas or coal you are living in a dream world. Most, but not all, consumers are trying to heat their homes and will buy whatever fuel they feel is the most economic for their circumstances. No amount of railing against the things you do not want to believe will change that. Any union organizer would find your arguments very appropriate because it supports a particular way of doing things regardless of the costs. How would you feel about being told that buggy whips are no longer needed and I will not pay the going rate to produce them, no matter the difference in quality between imported and domestic buggy whips? If you want me banned for actually believing in a free market economy, so be it. This is not the forum where I spend most of my time looking at wood and wood burning anyway so I won't miss your ignorant rants very much.

Two factors contribute to fire wood in the market I'm in. Weather and available supply. After a storm there is tons of material and everybody has wood which lowers the price. During a warm winter like this one nobody is thinking about buying wood because they're not even turning the heat on, especially when its 50 degrees out side.

Buying wood, stacking wood, storing wood, buying a wood stove, maintaining a wood stove, cleaning a wood stove daily, keeping it burning all day everyday, not having a chimney fire, cleaning all the debris from the wood in the house is quite of bit of work and not very practical for most people. It's a lot easier to just flip on the thermostat to heat a home. Which is probably why nobody I sell wood to uses it to heat there home, they simply like to have the fire place going, which isn't an efficient way to heat a home. So nobody I sell to uses it to heat their home, so BTUs are not an issue.

Couple of things, I don't know much about unions, I'm self employed. I don't know what buggy whips are either.

 

[muddstopper]

A BTU is a BTU whether it comes from wood, oil, gas, or elec. What everyone is looking for is the biggest bang for the buck when it comes to paying for heat. I can very easily see where someone in a big city might just choose to turn up the thermostat and pay for the convience of the gas/oil/elec available to them. I can also see where someone that owns a large wood lot or has access to plenty of wood, would prefer to use wood and light up a fire when it gets cold. I know I can save a lot by using wood. The question becomes one of do you buy wood to heat your home or do you use the other alternatives. If you have to buy wood, the price can very quickly overcome the benefit of the high price of gas or oil. Even the type of wood you buy can pay a big part in just how economincal it really is. A pound of wood pretty much contains the same BTU value, regardless of species. Buying wood by the cord scale can very quickly become a loosing proposition. A cord of white oak can weigh well over 5000lbs where as a cord of Popular might only weigh 2500lbs. LB for LB, and BTU to BTU, its very easy to see where cord scales can work in the favor of someone buying wood and not accepting inferior species of wood to supply their heat. Also easy to see how it might not be in the purchasers best interest to accept a load of popular firewood. And its not a matter of the seller or supplier trying to rip someone off, it pretty much cost the same amount of time and money to produce a cord of popular as it does to produce a cord of whiteoak. So how do you discount a inferior product when it cost you the same amount of money to produce it as it would a superior product. When I cut my wood, if it burns it goes on my truck period. I can save money heating with inferior wood species as long as I am the one producing the wood. There are times that I do buy a load of wood, but dont expect me to pay full price for a load of maple, sourwood or popular, that you would normally ask for a load of Whiteoak or Hickory. If fact, if the price isnt around half of what it would normally be, I aint even interested, because I would much rather pay full price for a load of quality wood than I would pay half price for a load of junk wood. If i was in the business of selling wood, I would be trying to sell a quality product, at a respectable price, and try and educate my customers to the benefit of buying my high BTU content oak wood, instead of buying wood from Joe Blow who is selling a mix of the lower btu species. As a customer thats buying wood to heat my house, I would want to know that I was buying the highest BTU content wood available if I was buying someones cord scale measured wood, or that I was buying wood by the lb to eliminate the variances in weight by species.

 

[sb47]

No, people are buying BTUs.
Sellers are selling labor and similar expenses. When they can no longer justify selling in the present pricing market they need to quit spending money or time making a product nobody is willing to pay for to cover their expenses. At that point maybe you start to actually season wood for a day when the market dynamics change and a BTU is worth more than it is today. That would take a lot of working capital though and the payback is probably years in the future.

Your not thinking strait. Firewood is laying around on the ground by the millions of tons.
So if free, right?
Go buy you a splitter at at least a grand. And a saw, truck or trailer to haul it in, tires insurance. Spend gas for saw oil for saw, chain oil, chain sharpening files, gas for truck, inspections on trailer and truck.
Then cut split stack season the wood , and you say wood if free?
I did not include labor, since I get the feeling your a couch potato.

 

[dave_dj1]

where in ny are you?

I'm near the VT border, 12873

 

[mga]

I'm near the VT border, 12873

too far. I could have hooked you up with plenty of wood.

 

[Marshy]

too far. I could have hooked you up with plenty of wood.

Too bad you weren't closer to me! Webster is about 1.5 hours from me.

 

[mga]

Too bad you weren't closer to me! Webster is about 1.5 hours from me.

why...you need wood?

 

[Marshy]

why...you need wood?

I burn a 6-7 cord per year on average. Two years ago I bought 12 cord of logs (2 log trucks) and I was going to stay a year a head buy buying a truck each year but I slacked a little and bought a dump truck load instead (~3 cord). I'm looking at buying a truck and trailer(pup) or two fukl trucks between now and March.

 

[mga]

I burn a 6-7 cord per year on average. Two years ago I bought 12 cord of logs (2 log trucks) and I was going to stay a year a head buy buying a truck each year but I slacked a little and bought a dump truck load instead (~3 cord). I'm looking at buying a truck and trailer(pup) or two fukl trucks between now and March.

let me know in march, I should be able to get you some wood if you don't mind the drive for it. it's all ash tho. probably a two hour drive for you.

 

[Marshy]

Nah, not worth the drive but thanks anyways. Besides, might run into trouble with transporting firewood over 50 miles. I dont have equipment large enough to make it worth while.

 

[dave_dj1]

Well heck! Thanks for the offer but distance is such a barrier. LOL Stay warm my friends

 

[Oldman47]

Your not thinking strait. Firewood is laying around on the ground by the millions of tons.
So if free, right?
Go buy you a splitter at at least a grand. And a saw, truck or trailer to haul it in, tires insurance. Spend gas for saw oil for saw, chain oil, chain sharpening files, gas for truck, inspections on trailer and truck.
Then cut split stack season the wood , and you say wood if free?
I did not include labor, since I get the feeling your a couch potato.

You are absolutely right. I do not own a splitter so that is not a part of any calculation and I never sell any wood so you are right that I have no idea the perspective of someone who does that for a living. Now, do you really believe that anybody who buys wood from you cares even the slightest about any of that stuff? I seriously doubt it. They have a price they are willing to pay in the open market and you had better get it through your head that they care not one bit what it takes you to produce a cord of wood. As a typical couch potato that only has hand split wood I can definitely understand your frustration with the present market but it is reality and if you rely on it for a living you had better be willing to accept reality because fairy tale wood markets do not exist in most places.
Yes, I know that is way harsh but get caught up and figure out why you are having more trouble this year than last year. It is not only the warm weather. Some of your potential customers are not just ambiance burners. Anybody buying a whole cord or more is probably using wood as a heat source and they do care about alternatives to wood. With oil at multi-year lows, wood is starting to make no sense at prices that would make it profitable for a provider like you.

 

[sb47]

You are absolutely right. I do not own a splitter so that is not a part of any calculation and I never sell any wood so you are right that I have no idea the perspective of someone who does that for a living. Now, do you really believe that anybody who buys wood from you cares even the slightest about any of that stuff? I seriously doubt it. They have a price they are willing to pay in the open market and you had better get it through your head that they care not one bit what it takes you to produce a cord of wood. As a typical couch potato that only has hand split wood I can definitely understand your frustration with the present market but it is reality and if you rely on it for a living you had better be willing to accept reality because fairy tale wood markets do not exist in most places.
Yes, I know that is way harsh but get caught up and figure out why you are having more trouble this year than last year. It is not only the warm weather. Some of your potential customers are not just ambiance burners. Anybody buying a whole cord or more is probably using wood as a heat source and they do care about alternatives to wood. With oil at multi-year lows, wood is starting to make no sense at prices that would make it profitable for a provider like you.

No problem getting costumers and keeping them. Been selling firewood for 15 years. I don't hike up my prices when it gets cold.
My price is the same in July as it is in Jan. Hand splitting is not saying much, depending on the wood spices.
I can promise you your not splitting live oak or hickory by hand. All your conifers are very easy to split by hand.
Like I said earlier, it's not the wood but the labor to convert it into firewood is where the cost is.
Every year some big high roller drives in and offers to buy every stick of wood if I give them a discount.
They must be thinking with there ass instead of there head.
I simply and promptly turn them down . They try to make an argument that I could do better by selling all my wood at once.
I just laugh and point to the exit.
It's almost Feb and I'm almost out of wood. I had over 200 cords on the lot 3 months ago. I have less then 10 now.
All sold at full price to my regulars that come back every year.
I sell my cords at 250 each, everyone sells theirs under 200 each. Why do you suppose they keep coming back if they can get it cheaper somewhere else?
In fact, I can drive just 10 miles down the road and the firewood sellers are everywhere at cheaper prices then mine.
I've all but stopped selling firewood for heat this year so I can have BBQ wood for the spring and summer.
Down here BBQ is king, and there is a BBQ joint on every corner. No problem selling every stick I can produce. At full price!

 

[Dalmatian90]

Every drop of oil you buy will be the same, whether its diesel or gas its all the same product, which is reflected in the price per barrel. ...

Firewood does require labor or equipment to manufacture, it just doesn't flow out of the ground, if it did it would be cheap like oil.

1)
Diesel or gas may be essentially the same because it has been refined to meet industry standards.

The "price per barrel" however varies with what is coming out of the ground, and it may be even more variable than firewood.

Do you want to buy Brent from the North Sea? ($35/barrel today), the very similar and traditionally same price West Texas Intermediate which today was selling for $31 because we're producing so much oil flooding refineries in the Americas? Or Gulf Sour -- $27 because it takes more refining and produces a lower amount of higher-value products after refining? Gotta know what you have to work with, because the refineries that can refine sour can't refine the higher priced sweet crudes.

That's a 30% difference in the price of crude per barrel.

2)
Takes a lot more legal, engineering, finance, and equipment to get that oil -- but the product can be handled in an industrial manner. It also can be converted to maximum profits as fast as it can be pushed through the system from wellhead to gas pump; sitting on firewood for two or three years is a lot of money tied up (or spent to force it to season).

If nothing else, oil will have in about 25 cubic feet the BTUs you'd get in 128 cubic feet of wood...cutting your transportation costs across the board by 1/6th.

Firewood is a local, owner-operator game trading high labor and transportation (and often flying under government radar and avoiding insurance) costs for low barrier to entry.

Oil is an international, high-finance game requiring big businesses running enormous volumes to deliver it as cheap as they do.

 

[jrider]

You are absolutely right. I do not own a splitter so that is not a part of any calculation and I never sell any wood so you are right that I have no idea the perspective of someone who does that for a living. Now, do you really believe that anybody who buys wood from you cares even the slightest about any of that stuff? I seriously doubt it. They have a price they are willing to pay in the open market and you had better get it through your head that they care not one bit what it takes you to produce a cord of wood. As a typical couch potato that only has hand split wood I can definitely understand your frustration with the present market but it is reality and if you rely on it for a living you had better be willing to accept reality because fairy tale wood markets do not exist in most places.
Yes, I know that is way harsh but get caught up and figure out why you are having more trouble this year than last year. It is not only the warm weather. Some of your potential customers are not just ambiance burners. Anybody buying a whole cord or more is probably using wood as a heat source and they do care about alternatives to wood. With oil at multi-year lows, wood is starting to make no sense at prices that would make it profitable for a provider like you.

Who ever said they were having trouble selling wood this year? I see every seller in this thread saying just the opposite. Maybe in your market, it's bad but those aren't the reports from other sellers. I also agree with all those saying people will spend more no matter what for quality. And guess what...those sellers are selling clean, seasoned hardwood, full cords. I sell a lot of my 100-150 cords per year to people living in homes that cost between $400k - $1million. They buy full cords and run through their fireplaces mostly for the ambiance of it all. I sold out faster than ever this year and am still getting calls from people wanting more.

 

[sb47]

Who ever said they were having trouble selling wood this year? I see every seller in this thread saying just the opposite. Maybe in your market, it's bad but those aren't the reports from other sellers. I also agree with all those saying people will spend more no matter what for quality. And guess what...those sellers are selling clean, seasoned hardwood, full cords. I sell a lot of my 100-150 cords per year to people living in homes that cost between $400k - $1million. They buy full cords and run through their fireplaces mostly for the ambiance of it all. I sold out faster than ever this year and am still getting calls from people wanting more.

My experience has taught me that the more they have, the tighter the wallet.

 

[jrider]

My experience has taught me that the more they have, the tighter the wallet.

That is my customer base and I have no complaints.