Storing campfire wood bundles

[sb47]

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We do both bags and the traditional .75 bundles. Our bags are a bit bigger 32 x 21 and I get them 10,000 at a time from Vietnam for 22 cents a piece. They are a tighter weave than the smaller ones from China and last 3 times as long in the sun before they breakdown. The bags fit 1.4 to 1.5 cu ft at 18' and we sell about 5 to 1 bags Vs Bundles at 15 State parks in the DFW area. Making larger bundles is a bit cumbersome for campers to carry and they like the bags better. We have all our local firewood suppliers toss the splits into these bags (get them for $5 a piece used) and they last a long time. The big bags hold right at .25 Cords (true cords). We are constantly checking the bag yields to get the average and then pay accordingly. We sell the bundles for between $5.99 and $6.75 plus tax and the bags from $10.99 to $11.99 plus tax (the closer to a city the park is the more campers will pay). From the 15 Parks (kept adding parks as the year went on) we grossed right at $175,000. Selling retail by the stick in state parks gets us at about $1200 a cord and the campers and park staff are happy.

I like yore set up. How many bags can you get out of a cord?

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

Not sure if you can see them or not but we had a pair of slip on forks made that have hooks welded to the bottom of them for moving the bags around. That way you can just hook each strap in to the hook as opposed to having to thread the fork through both loops. They just have a pair of chains that wrap around the forks to hold them on.


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The pictures are only about 1" across on my computer so no, can't make out much. Looks like some kind of mini shoot boom forklift?

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

He slides out the front

We only use the skidder to load and unload the trailers and dump on the table and the wood does not stay in the bags long enough to get moldy...but we do have the vented ones as well

You mean skid steer? We have 2 skidders as well, but I can't see how they would move bags around very well?

I tried putting wood in the regular bulk bags. It was growing mold already in just 4 or 5 days of being in the bag!

Looking at other options though, I just went to order bags and they went from $7.85ea last year to $14ea from the place I was using!

 

[T. Mainus]

The pictures are only about 1" across on my computer so no, can't make out much. Looks like some kind of mini shoot boom forklift?

Its a JCB Teletruk. 7,000 lb forklift with an 8' extendable boom. I'll take some better pictures tomorrow of the slip on forks that we had made.

 

[woodshax]

Its a JCB Teletruk. 7,000 lb forklift with an 8' extendable boom. I'll take some better pictures tomorrow of the slip on forks that we had made. View attachment 633135

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Nice!.....one of our suppliers does it pretty much the same way....he has a double splitter and conveyor ......Here we just transport, move the bags around abd bag and bundle....and sometimes re-split the ones too thick for the campers. I am mostly interested in streamlining the bagging side of things and optimizing my routes to reduce transportation costs

 

[woodshax]

You mean skid steer? We have 2 skidders as well, but I can't see how they would move bags around very well?

I tried putting wood in the regular bulk bags. It was growing mold already in just 4 or 5 days of being in the bag!

Looking at other options though, I just went to order bags and they went from $7.85ea last year to $14ea from the place I was using!

Valley...yes skid steer....typo......looks like you have a lot more moisture at your place than we do here in Texas.....I would really like enough to grow some mold so we can get some of our parks out of burn bans

Brad...will take close ups and the barrel info is For Steel Drum uline.com Item# S-19411 16 Gallon. they last a long time and the bags slip right over. once the barrel is filled then it pivots upside down, the bag slides off and we tie... the smaller bags are pretty tight though depending on the manufacturer.

SB47 we get 95 to 97 bags per cord so a little less than 1.4 Cu ft per

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

Its a JCB Teletruk. 7,000 lb forklift with an 8' extendable boom. I'll take some better pictures tomorrow of the slip on forks that we had made. View attachment 633135

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That's pretty much how I do it as well, just I use an 80s Lift All 10k "lumber yard" forklift. I put the bags on pallets and then use the skid steer to move them into the shop to make the bundles (forklift boom is too tall to fit in the 12ft door).

Those Woodland bags look like they breathe well. They are quite expensive though. I got a quote for 50 at about $1500 with the shipping, so almost $30 each.

I just talked to the Flex Bag guys (they are ebay, based out of CA) and they are at $780 for 50 bags shipped. Not too bad.

 

[T. Mainus]

That's pretty much how I do it as well, just I use an 80s Lift All 10k "lumber yard" forklift. I put the bags on pallets and then use the skid steer to move them into the shop to make the bundles (forklift boom is too tall to fit in the 12ft door).

Those Woodland bags look like they breathe well. They are quite expensive though. I got a quote for 50 at about $1500 with the shipping, so almost $30 each.

I just talked to the Flex Bag guys (they are ebay, based out of CA) and they are at $780 for 50 bags shipped. Not too bad.

I buy the woodland bags a pallet at a time I can get them down to about 16-17 a bag. I just bought all they had so when we are out of them we are switching over to the Dino bags.


To the original poster, we use those same orange bags for our kindling. We give 2 bags of kindling with every order. We just use a 5 gallon bucket. Fill it full, put the bag over the top of the bucket and then tip it over. That works for us but we are only doing a couple of bags a week. If I were doing a large scale bundling operation, I think I would invest in a wrapper using the shrink wrap instead of the bags. The first year we used the bags I just left them on top of the stacks of wood, by the time we started doing deliveries in the fall, the bags were just about junk from the sun.

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

Dino quoted me about $1200 for 50 bags with shipping. Bags were $10.75 each, the rest was shipping (they are darn expensive to ship!) So far the Flex Bag guys have been the cheapest. I've been using 6 bags since last year, reused them easily a dozen times and they are still holding up fine.

 

[woodshax]

I buy the woodland bags a pallet at a time I can get them down to about 16-17 a bag. I just bought all they had so when we are out of them we are switching over to the Dino bags.


To the original poster, we use those same orange bags for our kindling. We give 2 bags of kindling with every order. We just use a 5 gallon bucket. Fill it full, put the bag over the top of the bucket and then tip it over. That works for us but we are only doing a couple of bags a week. If I were doing a large scale bundling operation, I think I would invest in a wrapper using the shrink wrap instead of the bags. The first year we used the bags I just left them on top of the stacks of wood, by the time we started doing deliveries in the fall, the bags were just about junk from the sun.

T. We make our own bundlers... this one allows you to make anything from .5 to 1.5 cuft but anything over 1 cuft gets cumbersome for the camper to carry and our bags outsell bundles 5 to 1.....we store the bagged wood in a tent and then they sell pretty quick...that and the bags we have last longer in the sun than the ones from China