ICB totes

[sb47]

SB I continue to find your story very impressive. I have years where I do quite well then there are years when I barely scrape by. When the time comes I often put a minimum of ten to twelve hour days for months just to survive. My business has always depended on my ability to haul and transport goods or wood. Unless I am delivering the job will not get done. A major part of my budget is to maintain trucks. Hauling trucks and delivering trucks. Haveing some good four wheel drive trucks is essential in that if I want to capitalize on an extra $200 or $300 a cord it has to be done in the snowy conditions. So why do you not have a delivery route with a radius of two to three hundred miles bringing in four times the business. Then have you considered the use of a garden tractor to aid in your prodction instead of a skidsteer tractor. Thanks

Making deliveries cost me profit. Lets say someone orders a cord of wood. I have to hand load the wood on my trailer. Then haul it to the location. Most of the time they want the wood in the back yard and want and sometimes expect me to wheelbarrow it back there and stack it. By the time I get back I've lost 4 hours of yard time. And it always happens, while I'm out on a delivery, someone will show up at the wood lot for wood. So I lose 4 hours plus a customer. It cost me time and money to make delivery's. By making everyone come to the yard they can inspect the wood first and see it stacked in a measured amount. I will help them load or load it myself and I'm done with that wood. The goal is to set up and work as efficiently as possible and reduce handling of the material as much as possible. Every time you have to touch a piece of wood, it cost time and money. I don't get in a big hurry. At my age, I try to pace myself. That blowin and goin is for youngsters.
I picked up 16 more baskets and I would love to have a skid steer to load them with. I may try to find a good used one in the future. It would be nice to set a basket next to the splitter and load as I split, then move the basket and fill another. Then charge a deposit on the basket and just load the whole basket in a truck or trailer. a lot of people will stuff as much wood in there car, van, suv so using a loader wont work for them. I can get just shy of a half cord in a basket. I have stuffed a half cord in a suburban with the back seats down many times. I walk out my front door and walk 200 feet and I'm at work. I produce as much as I can without busting my ass like I did when I was younger. I have my yard laid out so I can easily rotate inventory as it gets seasoned out. I sell as much as I can produce at my own pace.

 

[sb47]

Ya I have been waiting on some of those . Had to build a chunky wood container out of pallets and some 6 foot pine that came off the mill . Definitely nice not having them all over the ground. Them pieces are ankle Twister's
View attachment 825117
.View attachment 825116
View attachment 825115

I used to make a box out of pallets but they rot and only last about a year in my location.

 

[Ted Jenkins]

Making deliveries cost me profit. Lets say someone orders a cord of wood. I have to hand load the wood on my trailer. Then haul it to the location. Most of the time they want the wood in the back yard and want and sometimes expect me to wheelbarrow it back there and stack it. By the time I get back I've lost 4 hours of yard time. And it always happens, while I'm out on a delivery, someone will show up at the wood lot for wood. So I lose 4 hours plus a customer. It cost me time and money to make delivery's. By making everyone come to the yard they can inspect the wood first and see it stacked in a measured amount. I will help them load or load it myself and I'm done with that wood. The goal is to set up and work as efficiently as possible and reduce handling of the material as much as possible. Every time you have to touch a piece of wood, it cost time and money. I don't get in a big hurry. At my age, I try to pace myself. That blowin and goin is for youngsters.
I picked up 16 more baskets and I would love to have a skid steer to load them with. I may try to find a good used one in the future. It would be nice to set a basket next to the splitter and load as I split, then move the basket and fill another. Then charge a deposit on the basket and just load the whole basket in a truck or trailer. a lot of people will stuff as much wood in there car, van, suv so using a loader wont work for them. I can get just shy of a half cord in a basket. I have stuffed a half cord in a suburban with the back seats down many times. I walk out my front door and walk 200 feet and I'm at work. I produce as much as I can without busting my ass like I did when I was younger. I have my yard laid out so I can easily rotate inventory as it gets seasoned out. I sell as much as I can produce at my own pace.

I have one in ten call me to ask if they can pick up wood for a discount and of course no. Here in the mountains most places are illegal for people to pick up wood. Grocery stores are some what except from the code violation. My answer to that particular issue is to deliver wood to other resellers in bundles and bulk wood in trailers. If the resellers wants to check out towing vehicle that it is safe then they can take a deposit and have customer take trailer and return empty trailer. Or customer can buy wood and take how ever much time they want to haul their own wood. Then I also sell bundles for those who just want a few night worth of fire, but they go to a reseller to buy. I make great money moving and stacking wood for customers at least fifty bucks an hour. Most of my orders are half cords so for forty bucks I stack the wood and another forty bucks if they need it moved up or down some stairs. I promote to the customer on my web site and again in person if they need wood stacked. Also many customers are not always available when I deliver so I deliver super early or quite late so as not to miss customers calls. Thanks

 

[sb47]

I have one in ten call me to ask if they can pick up wood for a discount and of course no. Here in the mountains most places are illegal for people to pick up wood. Grocery stores are some what except from the code violation. My answer to that particular issue is to deliver wood to other resellers in bundles and bulk wood in trailers. If the resellers wants to check out towing vehicle that it is safe then they can take a deposit and have customer take trailer and return empty trailer. Or customer can buy wood and take how ever much time they want to haul their own wood. Then I also sell bundles for those who just want a few night worth of fire, but they go to a reseller to buy. I make great money moving and stacking wood for customers at least fifty bucks an hour. Most of my orders are half cords so for forty bucks I stack the wood and another forty bucks if they need it moved up or down some stairs. I promote to the customer on my web site and again in person if they need wood stacked. Also many customers are not always available when I deliver so I deliver super early or quite late so as not to miss customers calls. Thanks

Sounds like what your doing is working for you. I would not rent or let someone take one of my trailers because it might come back damaged or they could hit someone and your lichens plate number would track it back to you. People are sue happy these days and you have to protect against it as much as you can. If I were younger and had the energy and stamina I once had, I would probably make some delivery's. I do make a few delivory's to resteraunts that have a nice easy to get to place to unload. I have let a few buy wood and haul it off at there connivance but many times they will wait weeks or months to come get it. I'm not in the wood storage business. Everybody has there own way of doing things that work for them and over the years I have figured out what works best for me.

 

[nathan4104]

I can get just shy of a half cord in a basket.

i'm curious the size of the totes you get!
the ones i'm finding here are 42"x44"x36" high, inside the frame. that worked out to just over a 1/4 cord for me. i fill rhem
with cut-offs and ends and hope to sell them for sauna's, campfires etc. having pallet forks/tractor makes moving them a cinch if you can find a conveyor to set up near your splitter, then you can fill the totes without having to touch the wood. mind you it'd be loose and not the same volume.

 

[sb47]

i'm curious the size of the totes you get!
the ones i'm finding here are 42"x44"x36" high, inside the frame. that worked out to just over a 1/4 cord for me. i fill rhem
with cut-offs and ends and hope to sell them for sauna's, campfires etc. having pallet forks/tractor makes moving them a cinch if you can find a conveyor to set up near your splitter, then you can fill the totes without having to touch the wood. mind you it'd be loose and not the same volume.

These are 48''x40''x42'' high. I took a 4'x8'x18'' measured stack and it filled the basket up almost perfect. It came out just about one layer above the top rail, stacked in nice and tight. If you were gonna stack them you would have to eliminate the top layer so they will stack properly.

 

[GeeVee]

SB 47- Have you thought about a trolley hoist for your trailer and delivering TOTES? I see you have a nice dump trailer. You could have a Beam Trolley built like Septic tank guys have to get the big cement tank off their flatbed trucks. You might need to get the trailer staged up pretty close to where the full tote needs to live, but a pallet jack isn;t a bad thing either, also liftable with the hoist.

 

[sam-tip]

Interesting people want the inside tub of a tote. I still have 40 tubs I need to get rid of. I wonder what people are using them for?

How are you wording your CL add?

 

[kyle1!]

Sam, What was in the tubs that you have? I might be interested in a few.

 

[sam-tip]

Sam, What was in the tubs that you have? I might be interested in a few.

From ethanol plants. Cleaners, emission control chemicals, some were Kosher corn food ingredients (green handles with FDA sticker)

 

[sb47]

Interesting people want the inside tub of a tote. I still have 40 tubs I need to get rid of. I wonder what people are using them for?

How are you wording your CL add?

I simply posted "free totes" Then I said "NOT FOR PALATABLE WATER" then I posted a picture of the tote tubs.
I got instant responses and had about 50 calls wanting them. They were gone in a few days.

 

[sb47]

SB 47- Have you thought about a trolley hoist for your trailer and delivering TOTES? I see you have a nice dump trailer. You could have a Beam Trolley built like Septic tank guys have to get the big cement tank off their flatbed trucks. You might need to get the trailer staged up pretty close to where the full tote needs to live, but a pallet jack isn;t a bad thing either, also liftable with the hoist. View attachment 825739

I only get about a dozen calls wanting delivery's. I have tried doing delivery's but there more trouble then they are worth.

 

[farmer steve]

@sb47 . Just want to compliment you on your nice ,neat looking operation. I don't sell near the quantity you do but I do like having customers come to pick up. I only have 2 senior customers I deliver to but only because they have been buying for over 20 years. You mentioned you sell bags of wood. Any pics of the bags.I've tried mesh bags but I guess I'm to dumb to figure out a good way to fill them. Thanks.FS.

 

[sb47]

I use mesh bags the hold about 50lb cut to 14''
I hand load them one at a time. I get $15 dollars for regular wood with bark and sap wood, and $20.00 for premium center heart wood with no bark.
I also sell chunk wood in bags. I sell cords for $350 but when I bag it I get anywhere from $1,250 to $1,500 a cord.I make most of my money on bagged wood. I pay $0.33 a bag when I buy in bulk bails of 1000.
The bags are clean and can be put in a trunk of a nice car without leaving wood trash in the trunk. The only draw back is they are porous and are not UV resistant so the sun will degrade them in about 30 days.So I have to keep them out of the sun and rain. My goal is to produce the highest quality bbq wood available.
Everyone says I have the best quality wood in town. Thanks for asking and dont try to corner the market. Best regards SB47.
I offer red oak, live oal, post oak, pecan, mesquite, hickory.
14'' seems to be the ideal size to fit most fireboxes. I sell mostly bagged wood over cords, 1/2 cords, 1/4 cords.
Most people don't have a place the store a large quantity so the bagged works best for them. I keep about 300 bags ready for sales. It's my biggest mover. Bags hold about 20/25 pieces.
.

 

[Polish hammer]

I’m getting 16 ibc totes with liner on Thursday I pay 6.25$ delivered to my house!! Lol I just pull the liners out put out by the road and watch the people try to tie them strap push them on or into anything they can.. I’ve been told people use them to catch rain water and some use them for moveable gardens seen the gardens before slick idea less bending

 

[kyle1!]

I am going to try to garden in the tubs I get from sam tip. I am at the point in life that I hate bending over to garden. I figure cut the top off the tubs, add soil, paint the outside to slow UV degradation and plant. There is very little time/material invested if it doesn't work. I heard of one person picking up old hot tubs that are listed for free/you haul and converting those to gardening tubs.

 

[Polish hammer]

16 of the plastic linear I call them tubs all gone less then 24 hours one couple took 6 to bring to there land I asked where it was and they said they have land in Alabama I live in Wisconsin!