Starting a firewood business - what to know

[Ontario Firewood Resource]

 

[ihookem]

I saw a guy with 20 ac of land he had and started a firewood business. He lasted 1 year. I stopped in and he had one guy running a homeowner Husky and the boss was running a skid loader. After paying taxes, fuel , and everything else, he was done. He chipped the small brush and sold the chips and likely did better with that than the firewood. I dont see how you can mke more money doing that than cutting the trees themselves. I get all my wood from a tree company that used to sell firewood. They dont bother anymore. The tree company down the road sells wood, and sells chips too. However, they have a chipper and must cost $250K , a dump truck likely $100K, a loader, $20K? two guys out there all the time plus a driver. I just dont see how they make money, and if they do, is it more money than just cutting down the trees? I doubt it.

 

[sawfarmer]

I saw a guy with 20 ac of land he had and started a firewood business. He lasted 1 year. I stopped in and he had one guy running a homeowner Husky and the boss was running a skid loader. After paying taxes, fuel , and everything else, he was done. He chipped the small brush and sold the chips and likely did better with that than the firewood. I dont see how you can mke more money doing that than cutting the trees themselves. I get all my wood from a tree company that used to sell firewood. They dont bother anymore. The tree company down the road sells wood, and sells chips too. However, they have a chipper and must cost $250K , a dump truck likely $100K, a loader, $20K? two guys out there all the time plus a driver. I just dont see how they make money, and if they do, is it more money than just cutting down the trees? I doubt it.

I have made a fine living for many years doing firewood !Its like any other thing in life it requires work and effort .You are a very negative person !

 

[ihookem]

I am not a negative person. I look at everything from a profit margin perspective. Again, how do you make money with that kind kind of machinery . This tree company I see has so much money just in firewood and mulch that if he sold the machinery he could retire well. The only thing I can think of is for years energy was so cheap that buying firewood for heat made no sense, so they mulch it to get rid of it. There are tree companies that pay to get rid of wood. Dont be so hurt over a comment or someones reasoning. Geez. I still think there is more money cutting the trees and this is why so many tree cutting companies give away the wood.

 

[ihookem]

My mom grew up in Utica by the way.

 

[unclemoustache]

There are a lot of factors to consider in all of this.
It’s a lot of work, and the more you spend on equipment, the less you work.

But I agree with ihookem. Investing all that money just to sell firewood isn’t going to fy. Start small with what you have. Invest in a good splitter and cheap or homemade stuff to help.
Build a reputation as a good seller. Learn how to build the business for your area.
Upgrade your equipment as you go.

There’s an AS member here in S Illinois and he only sells bundles, and he does very well for himself. But he’s close to campgrounds, so that works well for him.

I used to sell a bit of cordwood, but now only sell bundles. Less work, more money, but not enough to overwhelm me.
My day job keeps me plenty busy.

 

[Patrick62]

There is not a lot of money in firewood. I have done this to a certain extent for quite a few years.
Keep track of everything, Cranked it all in, and the CPA said we made money one year.
$250... over and above expenses. But the bills were paid, the fuel was paid, the yard monkeys were paid.
That required over $50,000 to flow thru the operation, and around 250 cords of wood.
That was a good year... don't ask what a "bad year" looks like.

The trucks are running on a prayer, better tires are optional, Sharpen chain until there is nothing left.
And now with the labor market? For-get-about-it.

I am back to a one man operation. I work fairly cheap, and will only do what I personally can handle.

Firewood bundles is where there is better money, but local fire bans are about to put that on hold.

 

[ihookem]

Patrick, I hope you payed off a lot of saws and equipment for the $50,000 that went through the company. That is one way of looking at it. Many times as a carpenter , I would buy a tool, and make sure I had enough work lined up to use that tool to pay for it real soon. At least then, you have the tool and got a tax writeoff from it.

 

[Ontario Firewood Resource]

I saw a guy with 20 ac of land he had and started a firewood business. He lasted 1 year. I stopped in and he had one guy running a homeowner Husky and the boss was running a skid loader. After paying taxes, fuel , and everything else, he was done. He chipped the small brush and sold the chips and likely did better with that than the firewood. I dont see how you can mke more money doing that than cutting the trees themselves. I get all my wood from a tree company that used to sell firewood. They dont bother anymore. The tree company down the road sells wood, and sells chips too. However, they have a chipper and must cost $250K , a dump truck likely $100K, a loader, $20K? two guys out there all the time plus a driver. I just dont see how they make money, and if they do, is it more money than just cutting down the trees? I doubt it.

I'm in the city of Toronto, there are at least 4 million people within a 40 mile radius in 400 square miles of territory, including bordering surrounding cities/ towns. I sell firewood a premium, city price. There isn't much competition. I sell smoker wood at double price. I don't have a skid steer and I have about 15000 in business assets. I get side business from selling totes and some of my assets I've gotten for free. My wood hauler is diesel and is part of my other business. I get a lot of cash for deliveries. I get 100% of my wood for free. I do scrap recycling and it is 5 times better paying and 10 times easier so it helps counter the offsetting in the firewood business. I put a lot of time into the firewood, but at the end of the year, it is a good chunk of money that I can't fill with my other business

Happy fishing!

 

[Ontario Firewood Resource]

There is not a lot of money in firewood. I have done this to a certain extent for quite a few years.
Keep track of everything, Cranked it all in, and the CPA said we made money one year.
$250... over and above expenses. But the bills were paid, the fuel was paid, the yard monkeys were paid.
That required over $50,000 to flow thru the operation, and around 250 cords of wood.
That was a good year... don't ask what a "bad year" looks like.

The trucks are running on a prayer, better tires are optional, Sharpen chain until there is nothing left.
And now with the labor market? For-get-about-it.

I am back to a one man operation. I work fairly cheap, and will only do what I personally can handle.

Firewood bundles is where there is better money, but local fire bans are about to put that on hold.

It depends how you run the business, but mostly competition and customer base matter a lot

 

[Patrick62]

Oh yeah...
I had to "seed" the operation with splitter(s) trucks, saws, etc. You learn pretty quick NOT to let yard monkeys do the "cutting".
If they don't cut themselves (they did that a couple times, nobody died) they will for damn sure be very hard on the saws.
The splitter is a little harder to break (gas and diesel is the same, right?). One yard monkey was actually trusted with a saw.

One of the worst years... we broke the saws, one splitter, a couple trucks were heavily wounded. Emptied the bank account, and broke my attitude. At this point... I said "leave". I will do this myself after I fix a few things.
"we can help with the bundles..."

At that point I said "nobody is messing with my bundle business. If you feel that you have to get involved in that, I will shove the bundle wrapper, and all the bundles up your back side".

That got the message across.

Last year I had to buy the skid steer. 600 pound logs are too much to handle by myself at 60. I am not as tough as I used to be.
And... that created the modified rules to live by:

Don't loan your Chainsaw, pickup, motorcycle, skid loader, or woman.
all of the above would come back screwed up.

 

[ihookem]

I'm in the city of Toronto, there are at least 4 million people within a 40 mile radius in 400 square miles of territory, including bordering surrounding cities/ towns. I sell firewood a premium, city price. There isn't much competition. I sell smoker wood at double price. I don't have a skid steer and I have about 15000 in business assets. I get side business from selling totes and some of my assets I've gotten for free. My wood hauler is diesel and is part of my other business. I get a lot of cash for deliveries. I get 100% of my wood for free. I do scrap recycling and it is 5 times better paying and 10 times easier so it helps counter the offsetting in the firewood business. I put a lot of time into the firewood, but at the end of the year, it is a good chunk of money that I can't fill with my other business

Happy fishing!

Real good post. I too have noticed that out in the country it is almost impossible to get free wood, but tree cutters in the city can hardly give it away. This is how I get my wood for my outdoor wood boiler. There are very few tree services that bother with firewood , but some do and they seem to get a premium. Later, Ihookem.

 

[sawfarmer]

I have made a fine living for many years doing firewood !Its like any other thing in life it requires work and effort .You are a very negative person !

I guess the money and time spoent on my masters in business was a waste also!

 

[Wombat Ranger]

I love getting firewood. One of my favorite things to do. I would never sell it. Because it's not worth enough to turn it into work. Makes a great fun weekend activity.

I am self employed w/more than one business and my 3y/o construction business has grown enough to employ and feed 3 families, modestly. Still growing.

If you really want to start selling firewood, just start selling it. See what your current process can do, don't go into it trying to spend a bunch of money before you are making anything. Just, go get wood. And sell it. See where it goes.

 

[Greenie]

We sold bundled firewood at a state park I managed. Hardwood, split small, 16" long and the round bundles about 16" across. We charged $7 (could keep $5) and sold approximately 50 cords a year. In an average year we cleared about $15,000 after taxes and fees. The bundling took the most time and effort. We used poly twine because the sisal twine would either rot or get chewed by mice over the winter. Bundles that sat over the winter dried (shrank) even more so we had to drive a few sticks in to each bundle to tighten them up so they wouldn't fall apart when handled. $15,000 a year sounds reasonable until the man-hours were estimated which equaled 2 40 hour 52 week positions or about $3.50 an hour. We used prison inmates mostly that didn't cost other than transportation. Everyone hated the bundling process which we never were able to streamline or make easier/quicker. Just dumping or stacking the firewood and allowing people to get an armload didn't work because people took huge armloads and it wasn't good public relations to try to limit the size of the armload. We did this for about 15 years and with the money we purchased a 35 & 46 Kubota tractor, 2 Kubota zero turn mowers, a disk mower, used golf cart, and a Kubota 900 RTV - about $100,000 of capital equipment we would not have been able to buy otherwise since money was tight.
Free labor and the ability to harvest firewood off the park made it work for us but I don't see how anyone could make a living from it.
When I retired the program instantly ended - correctly supervising convicted felons isn't for everyone. Personally I enjoyed that part (supervising inmate crew) of the job the most. It was mutually beneficial.