Buying firewood

[rob39]

Hi all
What's the best value way of buying logs. Some companies sell by the Builders bag (bulk bag)softwood KD (kiln dried) £65-£75 Hardwood KD £90-£105, (roughly 0.9m3 per bag) though one company in the s/w Scotland sells hardwood logs 1m3 bag for £70 softwood for £60 1m3, another delivers loose trailer loads from 2 to 10 cubic metre loads from £140-£700. Palleted birch KD 1m3 £160 2m3 £250 or a S/W Scot company 1.6m3 pallet £110 Softwood £95

http://southwestfirewood.co.uk/store/
http://woodlogsscotland.co.uk/buy-logs-delivery/
http://www.clydesdalelogs.co.uk/kiln-dried.html
http://balticfirewood.co.uk/products.asp
http://www.gartlove-logs.co.uk/?page_id=12
http://www.gartlove-logs.co.uk/?page_id=18

Also the Forestry commission do supply permits to collect timber for a price and time limited

Any thoughts

[Wendelspanswick]

I am pretty sure they have put a stop to the FC permits.
I am selling air dried dumpy bags of hardwood logs with kerbside delivery for £90 at the moment. It takes me about an 45 minutes to move, cut and split a dumpy bag load and about 30-45 minutes to deliver one bag, I offer a discount for more than one bag and at the moment demand is outstripping supply!
All the timber I am selling is windblown or dropped limbs as I haven't felled anything yet and its just a part time thing when I have some spare time but 18 bags have sold in the last month alone.

[oldclaypaws]

I suppose the facetious answer would be small woodland owners don't buy logs, they sell them ! Before I bought a wood I scrounged scrap wood such as demolition timber and old window frames from my chippy neighbour, but with the growth of woodburners and the cost of heating fuel a lot of people have cottoned on to the benefits of them and free timber has dried up, even old pallets are now sought after. Prices have also increased quite significantly over the last few years as more timber is going for pellets and biofuel. I read a Telegraph article that even if buying wood, its still about half the cost of gas as a means to heat a home, and the lowest carbon emissions.

I currently bag up hardwood logs in 18kg net bags and am happy to let them go wholesale at £3 or £4 direct. They're bigger than what some shops sell at £8, which is a rip. Its a bit of a fiddle though filling the bags, and once I've got the kit to make it all a bit more mechanised I'll probably use dumpy bags and a trailer.

Interested to hear WendelP's prices, I've got room for a price increase ! There aren't many woods in the SouthWest, so we have less competition than some regions. In Northumberland my brother pulls everything he needs out of the river !

I guess its very localised what's charged. I let a guy take away a cubic metre of uncut logs for £40 several times a year, but he brings a trailer and cuts it himself, so its no effort for me. With the amount of unmanaged woods, a determined scrounger with a chainsaw may find someone happy to let you 'tidy' their wood for free if you ask around....

[rob39]

The FC still provides permits up here, had a scavenger permit earlier this year but only allows very small pieces of wood left after foresting. Mainly for woodworking. Lasts 3 months

[rob39]

I am pretty sure they have put a stop to the FC permits.
I am selling air dried dumpy bags of hardwood logs with kerbside delivery for £90 at the moment. It takes me about an 45 minutes to move, cut and split a dumpy bag load and about 30-45 minutes to deliver one bag, I offer a discount for more than one bag and at the moment demand is outstripping supply!
All the timber I am selling is windblown or dropped limbs as I haven't felled anything yet and its just a part time thing when I have some spare time but 18 bags have sold in the last month alone.

Thanks for the advice guys

How big is a dumpy bag??

And where can I get the 18kg net bags from.

[rob39]

Useful piece of kit

http://mlarge.com/news/featuredfirewood ... r-78788-2/

[Wendelspanswick]

I was using used bulk/dumpy sand and ballast bags which I was melting ventilation holes in but I have a very useful farm contact now who supplies me with free ventilated seed potato bulk bags. Each is about 900mm cubed. Before I took them they were burning or burying the bags!
This is what I was using:


viewtopic.php?f=11&t=2066&p=13504&hilit=Dumpy+bags#p13504

[oldclaypaws]

The log nets are available on Evilbay. I get 100 at a time and it works out at 9p a sack. I found the 46cm x 60cm are the best, being a little wider it makes it a lot easier to get the logs in and out.

[rob39]

I am pretty sure they have put a stop to the FC permits.
I am selling air dried dumpy bags of hardwood logs with kerbside delivery for £90 at the moment. It takes me about an 45 minutes to move, cut and split a dumpy bag load and about 30-45 minutes to deliver one bag, I offer a discount for more than one bag and at the moment demand is outstripping supply!
All the timber I am selling is windblown or dropped limbs as I haven't felled anything yet and its just a part time thing when I have some spare time but 18 bags have sold in the last month alone.

You talk about collecting windblown and dropped limbs. Is this with the permission of the land owner. ???

[Wendelspanswick]

All the timber is from my own land. In the past, before we bought our wood, I used to inquire about fallen trees that were visible on other people's property but they were few and far between.

As an aside I pass through woodland owned by the National Trust to get to our wood and they have had problems with people stealing timber and not just fallen stuff. This is people with 4WD's and trailers driving into the woods with chainsaws and taking their fill. Chatting to the ranger they are now going to have a zero tolerance policy and will prosecute anyone found stealing timber.
Luckily we are too far from any tarmac road to be affected as well as having secure gates but they have asked us to record/photograph anything we see while enroute to our wood and they are looking into having covert cameras installed.
For the NT it's not so much the value of the timber but the damage being done in the process.