How is there any money in firewood sales?

[sb47]

I know some tree company’s will have there workers split wood when there not working a tree job. If there on the clock they should be doing something.
I split in my spare time and do about 50 cords a year. There no way to compete with a wood processor that puts out 7 to 8 cords an hour.

 

[SierraWoodsman]

Know what your saying , often think the same thing .

Perhaps this is good income for people who have limited job skills and cutting wood offsets living costs but on average it's not a huge profit area for most.....like to think of heating with wood more of a lifestyle with many benefits , factor in money and profit and then this whole process becomes less attractive to me .

I Completely agree with this statement. I have sold a cord here and there for a little extra money, and it always sold quick, but it's the one thing that i can say that i have "sellers remorse" with.
I have to travel considerable distance 60 miles to get to the cutting area. With fuel costs as they are it leaves little room for profit when you can only haul 1 cord at a time and factoring in all other cost considerations. I do however enjoy the liberating feeling you get by providing heat for your home and family off the grid, and the ambience it brigs as well.
this is reason enough for me.

 

[Wood Doctor]

Big Money is Usually Not the Motive

I made a $100,000.00 last year making / selling firewood.

Problem is, I started with $200,000.00 :msp_sad:

That says it all. :msp_tongue:

There is a mom/pop bar and grill not too far away from me that I like to visit. They heat the building with wood but can't collect it. That's where I deliver and split firewood, primarily for them and myself. I also bundle and sell the surplus to local park visitors to help cover my expenses. So, it's a great hobby for me and really good exercise. The park visitors also stop in and buy supplies from the bar and grill, so the synergy is excellent.

Last year I sold about 400 bundles and this year it might reach 600. I wrap using heavy twine and a short length of garden hose for a handle. My per-bundle price is less than the commercial stores and my bundles are bigger. I could expand the business, but then you are talking a ton of work, time, and cost rather than good exercise and fun.

 

[Preston]

Watching real pro's at work taking down a tree is something to see. I watch 2 Arborist and a sawer take a very large red oak down some 20 years ago on the Emory University campus near Atlanta. I had never seen so much rigging, limbs being lowered to the ground, and guided to where the ground man wanted. Nothing dropped and no ground tore up. By the time the man in the tree had repositioned himself and had another limb to drop, the 2 on the ground had the previous one cutup, the little stuff ground up and on the truck. I don't think I've ever seen any job as choreographed in it movements. I was amazed.

And around here wood sells for about $125 dollars a cord. So unless you sell a tremdous amount not a lot to be made. Most I see is cut pretty short. I guess that's to make more of it. :msp_smile:

 

[sodbreaker]

I'd call it limited employability. I think you all know the type. They're usually the "truck and a saw" guys selling green wood as seasoned, trying to make money for the next bag of weed or bottle of hooch.

Not referring to the side job guys like Ted, at least that's how I took it.

Or food in the cupboard because their too proud to get on food stamps......

 

[sodbreaker]

So my respects to you hard working and well educated arborists out there ........now to the lame brain's with a wood shark or wild thing who sell firewood for a $150 a cord sober up , fill your station wagon with gas and go apply at mcdonalds .

Food stamps would pay better....


But satire a side I just think it's funny that we condemn those on govt. help. yet when they are working for pennies on the dollar just so they don't have to be on govt. help. we condemn them as hacks weekend warroirs or what ever name you want to call them. Personaly I think ithas more to do with market competion then anything else. Alot like those who condemn the mexicans for "taking our jobs." I'm sure someone will come along and try to justify attacking the mexican labor force but ultimately, all of us go to school or take up a trade and then want our $50 $100 or what ever an hour and then we whine because the guy doing the same thing for $5 an our gets more work. It's the same old mentality that the labor unions have tried to shove down our throats for years. The bottom line is the customer will almost always take the bid that is the best value for the money and as I've said before, this is cutting firewood, it's not mixed proper portions of highly explosive chemicals. (i.e. rocket sceince)

Sod breaker

 

[Steve NW WI]

Sod, I never implied that the fellow doing what he had to in order to keep meat (or even beans) on the table was remotely related to the bums I referred to.

Thankfully, it was long ago, but I've been in the "where is my next meal coming from" boat before. It ain't fun.

On the next post, I have a friend with a 500 cow dairy that would lock the doors and start selling lots if he lost his Mexican workers. They show up every day, sober, ready to work, and do a good job. Most of the people I was referring to would be doing this type of work, when they made it there, if not for them. He has a couple ... lets be politically correct for once "Caucasians", that keep the equipment running and do field work, but you can't get em in the barn. I milked a lot of cows growing up, it's a good starter job, but no one wants to start smelling like snit anymore.

 

[ponyexpress976]

I could expand the business, but then you are talking a ton of work, time, and cost rather than good exercise and fun.

and there is the trade off...make some beer money and be happy or make a living but be stressed and aggravated.

 

[Wood Doctor]

Let's Look At Some Numbers

and there is the trade off...make some beer money and be happy or make a living but be stressed and aggravated.

I'm not sure that you could ever make a large income selling firewood unless you got really big and had a huge customer base to serve. It would take 2000 cords of wood sold at $200 each to gross $400,000 in sales. Think of the machinery and staff it would take to obtain, process, and deliver all of that to 1,000 customers buying an average of two cords per year.

The numbers just don't seem to be there. :msp_sad:

 

[zogger]

I'm not sure that you could ever make a large income selling firewood unless you got really big and had a huge customer base to serve. It would take 2000 cords of wood sold at $200 each to gross $400,000 in sales. Think of the machinery and staff it would take to obtain, process, and deliver all of that to 1,000 customers buying an average of two cords per year.

The numbers just don't seem to be there. :msp_sad:

Why do you need to go that big to make some decent money? Couldn't you cut expenses down and be happy selling less cords, but at a higher net and keeping all the money for yourself? 2,000 cords, egads thats a ton of overhead and dealing with employees and so on.

I guess we all have different notions of what is good money, to me, if I was to make say an extra 20 grand a year that would be a HUGE raise for me. Heck, an extra ten grand would way more than double my current take home. At that theoretical price, that is 40 cord a year, given that you had access to the wood for cheap, that is less than one cord a week to cut/process/deliver. Get that to a cord a (working) day..starting to talk a reasonable decent living then, 50 grand, just from firewood, and a single cord a day seems doable with real modest levels of equipment and no outside help needed.

 

[redheadwoodshed]

Know what your saying , often think the same thing .

Perhaps this is good income for people who have limited job skills and cutting wood offsets living costs but on average it's not a huge profit area for most.....like to think of heating with wood more of a lifestyle with many benefits , factor in money and profit and then this whole process becomes less attractive to me .

If you mean limited in the same sense that the universe is limited, O.K. I know 3 brothers who earn there entire living from firewood.They have 2 old splitters and a tractor(old loghog) they have a deal with a barbque chain and they sell for heating as well.This is in semitropical Louisiana.I could just imagine how much better it might be were it actually gets cold in the winter for more than a minute or 2.Oh and they do this at $150 a cord.

 

[BrokenToys]

It's a side job and extra $$$'s for myself to pay bills, gas up my truck, and get stuff for the kids really; I can not see making a daily living off of firewood sales. Even seeing a local arborist here who prob has about 200 cord on his property he will be selling this year...going by the 200 dollar a cord price to make the math easy...it's about, 40 grand. It is all wood he has taken down which I am sure 50 grand is a small percentage of what he made doing the actual tree removals. I guess it's more on monopolizing what he is doing to get the money out of it?
Myself; breaking it down I get 60% of my firewood from the municipal yard up the road from me [mostly locust]; 35% from a local arborist who is good friends with my brother who lets me take anything that's not oak [lots of fruitwoods, locust, walnut, cherry, and mulberry], and 5% from trees I take down myself. I have about 16 cord in my yard from 2 years worth of collecting.

In perspective - I figure I have made more money picking up scrap metal on the side of the road for recycling.

 

[spike60]

Interesting discussion. Most comments concern the selling of the wood, but I'd think the sourcing of the wood has as much to do with profitability as anything. It's the old saying, "It's not how you sell but how you buy." In firewood that doesn't just mean whether or not you pay for the wood. Some guys feel it's better to buy the log lengths than to chase the wood one truckload at a time. There is some logic and efficiency to that view if you think about it.

I know plenty of guys who sell wood, and I think that everyone settles on a method that works for them. I think that every one of them do it as a side/supplement deal.

Most arborists that come in my store don't like to screw around with firewood. As one guy puts it, there's a lot more money in the next tree job than in doing firewood from the previous job. Sometimes they will just let the guys on the crew take the wood whether for their own use or to sell it. Most loggers are only interested in selling log lengths. If it can't go out on the log truck, they don't want to screw with it. So the tops and drops are left for guys like me.

I think there's a little lesson to be learned there in the sense that loggers and arborists, who have practically unlimited access to wood, don't see selling firewood as being profitable enough to bother with.

 

[blades]

Might depend on their process of disposal. Landfill disposal fees are getting pricey.

 

[zogger]

Interesting discussion. Most comments concern the selling of the wood, but I'd think the sourcing of the wood has as much to do with profitability as anything. It's the old saying, "It's not how you sell but how you buy." In firewood that doesn't just mean whether or not you pay for the wood. Some guys feel it's better to buy the log lengths than to chase the wood one truckload at a time. There is some logic and efficiency to that view if you think about it.

I know plenty of guys who sell wood, and I think that everyone settles on a method that works for them. I think that every one of them do it as a side/supplement deal.

Most arborists that come in my store don't like to screw around with firewood. As one guy puts it, there's a lot more money in the next tree job than in doing firewood from the previous job. Sometimes they will just let the guys on the crew take the wood whether for their own use or to sell it. Most loggers are only interested in selling log lengths. If it can't go out on the log truck, they don't want to screw with it. So the tops and drops are left for guys like me.

I think there's a little lesson to be learned there in the sense that loggers and arborists, who have practically unlimited access to wood, don't see selling firewood as being profitable enough to bother with.

I think it is more they can make *more* money doing saw logs and trim work, not that there's no money to be made with firewood.


Firewood is a little down the economic ladder, but it is still on that ladder.

 

[arlen]

additional income

I sell some firewood to make a little extra money and for the exercises, also as an excuse to own so many saws and a couple of tractors. My goal is earn a little extra money doing what I like to do. I try to get firewood for free usually in rounds than I split and sell some of it, and save some for heat in the winter. I also sell some bundled wood last year two to three hundred bundles to mostly one store, this year I have another store and hope to sell more. I probably make more money on scrap metal at about $180 a ton for steel. I enjoy the firewood and sharing my hobby with a few close friend who also burn wood and sell some David

 

[Steve2910]

I figure I end up making about $20/ hr for the wood I sell on my (limited) scale. Sometimes the wood is "gravy" to get & process, sometimes just the opposite, but $20/ hr seems to be where it averages out. I enjoy making firewood, If it was just another chore like dragging the garbage cans to the road every Tuesday night, I wouldn't sell a single stick. I use the $$ to buy something for myself (saws), or the family that I wouldn't otherwise. A previous post summed it up pretty well... (paraphrasing) "it's a lifestyle w/ benefits"

 

[Wood Doctor]

Why do you need to go that big to make some decent money? Couldn't you cut expenses down and be happy selling less cords, but at a higher net and keeping all the money for yourself? 2,000 cords, egads thats a ton of overhead and dealing with employees and so on.

I guess we all have different notions of what is good money, to me, if I was to make say an extra 20 grand a year that would be a HUGE raise for me. Heck, an extra ten grand would way more than double my current take home. At that theoretical price, that is 40 cord a year, given that you had access to the wood for cheap, that is less than one cord a week to cut/process/deliver. Get that to a cord a (working) day..starting to talk a reasonable decent living then, 50 grand, just from firewood, and a single cord a day seems doable with real modest levels of equipment and no outside help needed.

Thanks for responding and please allow me to comment.

You will likely need to hire employees to even sell $40,000 worth of firewood, let alone selling $400,000 as I posted above. Even sixty cords a year would be very difficult for only one man to handle by himself. Your expenses to cover the truck(s), your saws, your splitting equipment, and your fuel will quickly erode away your profit. Add the cost of your help, and nothing is left.

That's the way it is. However, if you want to give it a try, by all means proceed. Just don't plan on making big money. It's great exercise, will keep your mind active, and that's why I do it today.

 

[zogger]

Thanks for responding and please allow me to comment.

You will likely need to hire employees to even sell $40,000 worth of firewood, let alone selling $400,000 as I posted above. Even sixty cords a year would be very difficult for only one man to handle by himself. Your expenses to cover the truck(s), your saws, your splitting equipment, and your fuel will quickly erode away your profit. Add the cost of your help, and nothing is left.

That's the way it is. However, if you want to give it a try, by all means proceed. Just don't plan on making big money. It's great exercise, will keep your mind active, and that's why I do it today.

I am just cutting and splitting for myself now, I decided I had the means and opportunity to get some years ahead..and ain't getting any younger or spryer.

I *might* in the future give it a "whack", selling some, not sure yet.

I don't see one cord a week to be much of a problem really for one guy, especially using a powered splitter and knocking it out faster. And with a full size pickup and trailer, one cord a trip or two half cords a delivery..again, not that bad.

Now I think much beyond that, ya, then you'd need skid steers, wood processors log grapples all that expensive stuff, and an employee or employees, then accountant, yada yada, but there has to be a sweet spot in there for lower expenses and still some profit. Tons of guys do it, it must make them some money.


If your truck is paid off, (and stick to buying used, the same make/ model so you can accumulate parts, and only get 1-4 grand used trucks), saws paid off, splitter paid off, trailer paid off, and you are capable of your own maintenance for most things....that seems the way to do it. Bank loans and having everything leveraged so you must come up with a huge sum every week, plus your payrolls and etc..naw, not interested in that level. Never been interested in having a company and employees.

Anyway, just theorizing at this point. I think there's a level between all out top of the line expensive stuff and pushing mass quantities and just one saw and a clapped out truck. Someplace in the middle there might be able to work for most people doing it small scale but large enough so it makes some beans.

Right now I really just putz at it, really, it is real low key and starting to have some impressive stacks. If I made a concerted effort to seriously cut (fell and block) one morning a week then process and sell the rest of the week, I have no doubt whatsoever I could do a cord a week in my spare time, given a clientele. *Most likely* I would pop for a splitter then, that's it, by way of further investment. So for another grand over what I already own I could go from casual cut for myself to some sort of commercial scale, and most likely, even after expenses, double my take home yearly.

Believe me, I have thought about it a lot. Haven't made the jump yet, but considering it. Once I get my five years ahead, then some more..I'll consider it then.

 

[flyboy553]

Last winter I sold just over 100 full cords. Except for about 20 cords, I did it all myself. I am not going to sell as much this coming season as that was just too much work for one person. Tried to hire one guy, but when you get him, you also get his brother so that was costing too much per cord. Plus, they couldnt judge 16 inches if their lives depended on it!

This season I am aiming to sell around 60 to 70 full cords, but charging more than last season. If I dont sell it all, I dont sell it all. Last season it became a job and then it isnt as fun anymore. Right now I have around 45 cords cut and split, not stacked.

I do have a couple skidsteers, a couple splitters, a couple saws, all paid for, and an unlimited supply of free red oak to cut so that sure helps.

Also, someone earlier had mentioned buying loads of logs already cut. That would be dumb on my part, because cutting wood is what my hobby is. It sure as heck isnt splitting and stacking it! :msp_scared:

Ted