Firewood Business
- Thread starter DOOLEY
- Start date
- Location
- New Fairfield, CT
My firewood business this year consists of delivering 1/2 a cord of wood to somebody for $300... dropped in the driveway, grab check and leave. Rather not do it, but at this price... I'd be a fool not to.
DOOLEY
New member
- Location
- BOZEMAN MT
[ QUOTE ]
My firewood business this year consists of delivering 1/2 a cord of wood to somebody for $300... dropped in the driveway, grab check and leave. Rather not do it, but at this price... I'd be a fool not to.
[/ QUOTE ]
Good job . No way the wood could sell for that here.
My firewood business this year consists of delivering 1/2 a cord of wood to somebody for $300... dropped in the driveway, grab check and leave. Rather not do it, but at this price... I'd be a fool not to.
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Good job . No way the wood could sell for that here.
- Location
- Longmont, CO
[ QUOTE ]
$225 to $250 a cord delivered.
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Mixed hard woods. Ditto that over here. However, have sold unsplit (only cut into length) Locust for $250 per cord. One tree removal generated 2 cords of that stuff for me this Fall.
I've got the Timberwolf TW-6 Just my 7 year old son and I can do a cord in one hour
He runs the hydros while I muscle the logs to the splitter. --He's a slave driver.
But, I think it would be a good investment (if the local firewood demand is great) to by a Cord King.
$225 to $250 a cord delivered.
[/ QUOTE ]
Mixed hard woods. Ditto that over here. However, have sold unsplit (only cut into length) Locust for $250 per cord. One tree removal generated 2 cords of that stuff for me this Fall.
I've got the Timberwolf TW-6 Just my 7 year old son and I can do a cord in one hour
But, I think it would be a good investment (if the local firewood demand is great) to by a Cord King.
- Location
- Longmont, CO
[ QUOTE ]
I just will do a better job every time offer more to the customer such as custom cutting and earn a large part of the market share'. We Have about 350 cord of wood in the shop yard now to process.Not the first time I have added a new service. I know it will take time that's ok. I can wait
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I think Wade has a knack for business models. He knows how to get'er dun! We should all pay attention to what he does. It would be like having insider trading tips.
I just will do a better job every time offer more to the customer such as custom cutting and earn a large part of the market share'. We Have about 350 cord of wood in the shop yard now to process.Not the first time I have added a new service. I know it will take time that's ok. I can wait
[/ QUOTE ]
I think Wade has a knack for business models. He knows how to get'er dun! We should all pay attention to what he does. It would be like having insider trading tips.
jim454
Participating member
- Location
- The land of Utopia
Maybe Wade should have his own business EXPO.
DOOLEY
New member
- Location
- BOZEMAN MT
We did 300 cords. 08-09 Not bad for first season.
jim454
Participating member
- Location
- The land of Utopia
ok, now hows bout them pics?
DOOLEY
New member
- Location
- BOZEMAN MT
I will get them just have not had time sorry
Serf Life
Been here much more than a while
- Location
- Maine Island
Bump
southsoundtree
Been here much more than a while
- Location
- Olympia, WA
I used to sell 1/3 of a cord loads, only, in my target market, to get onto ambiance-burners property, to gain tree customers, until I got too busy.
- Location
- Buffalo
I’m on here learning all about tree work and machines. I have a firewood business. I’ve been doing it in western New York since we had a mid October ice storm in 2006 where we got 23” of heavy ice/snow that just decimated the area.
Last two years took on a partner and started adding equipment. Grew 4x over in that timeframe.
Actual log splitters the best are Wolfe ridge (out of Wisconsin) which we have, and eastonamade out of Ontario Canada. Ours has a six way wedge with auto cycle, 700 pound log lift, and a six second cycle time. We can fill a 14’ dump trailer with added two foot boards on it in about two hours. That is with a conveyor and one guy loading the wood to split. These splitters are around 5x faster than what you’re buying at say Home Depot with a single wedge. We generally do around 4 face cords an hour with our machine.
If you need one of these splitters for this year it may be too late to plan for this year, unless you can find a used one. Wolfe ridge is on a four month wait, while eastonmade is around a year. 20% down to build it. Eastonmade will actually contact and setup a meeting with someone who bought the machine in the past with a new prospective buyer. You can go meet them and test it out before you prop down that much money.
Where the mixup is in talking about size of wood is regional. Here a face cord (or Rick some people call it) is 1/3 of a full cord. Face cord is 4’ high, 8’ wide, and generally 16” pieces. A full cord is 3 of them. A full cord equals to 128 cubic feet.
Face cord is generally about the size of a 6’ bed on a full sized truck flat.
Overflowing our dump trailer will hold a max of 6.5 face cords.
We do too much to worry about stacking. We generally count the pieces if we don’t have something we know the size of. If the pieces of wood are split to about the size of your fist a face cord is 250 pieces. A little bigger maybe 220-240. We just may measure five face cords on a rack and make an average and go with that number.
Half our business is firewood and half of it is firewood bundles. 75% of our firewood is sold green as we have two whole sale customers who buy a lot of wood. They resell it to customers at a profit and/or bundles. Bundles are more profitable but the money trickles in. We get around 35 bundles to a face cord $5 each so $175 a face cord. Face cord is going between 90-110 each depending time of the year and how much people buy from us.
We get a good portion of our wood from tree services and have never paid for wood (up until a little this winter). Sometimes it’s log length other times it’s just a dump truck with random sizes. It is why we went with a commercial splitter. We have a road made of millings where they can back up and just dump. They know they won’t get stuck.
We’re not full time my partner nor I. Probably do have the ability to do it though. It’s an average of 15 hours a week each we put in. When the pandemic hit last March I was off for a few months though and did it full time. Still never ran out of things to do. We have always sold as much as time allows with no advertising just word of mouth.
Feel free to ask questions on this part of the business be glad to help out with our experience anyways.
Last two years took on a partner and started adding equipment. Grew 4x over in that timeframe.
Actual log splitters the best are Wolfe ridge (out of Wisconsin) which we have, and eastonamade out of Ontario Canada. Ours has a six way wedge with auto cycle, 700 pound log lift, and a six second cycle time. We can fill a 14’ dump trailer with added two foot boards on it in about two hours. That is with a conveyor and one guy loading the wood to split. These splitters are around 5x faster than what you’re buying at say Home Depot with a single wedge. We generally do around 4 face cords an hour with our machine.
If you need one of these splitters for this year it may be too late to plan for this year, unless you can find a used one. Wolfe ridge is on a four month wait, while eastonmade is around a year. 20% down to build it. Eastonmade will actually contact and setup a meeting with someone who bought the machine in the past with a new prospective buyer. You can go meet them and test it out before you prop down that much money.
Where the mixup is in talking about size of wood is regional. Here a face cord (or Rick some people call it) is 1/3 of a full cord. Face cord is 4’ high, 8’ wide, and generally 16” pieces. A full cord is 3 of them. A full cord equals to 128 cubic feet.
Face cord is generally about the size of a 6’ bed on a full sized truck flat.
Overflowing our dump trailer will hold a max of 6.5 face cords.
We do too much to worry about stacking. We generally count the pieces if we don’t have something we know the size of. If the pieces of wood are split to about the size of your fist a face cord is 250 pieces. A little bigger maybe 220-240. We just may measure five face cords on a rack and make an average and go with that number.
Half our business is firewood and half of it is firewood bundles. 75% of our firewood is sold green as we have two whole sale customers who buy a lot of wood. They resell it to customers at a profit and/or bundles. Bundles are more profitable but the money trickles in. We get around 35 bundles to a face cord $5 each so $175 a face cord. Face cord is going between 90-110 each depending time of the year and how much people buy from us.
We get a good portion of our wood from tree services and have never paid for wood (up until a little this winter). Sometimes it’s log length other times it’s just a dump truck with random sizes. It is why we went with a commercial splitter. We have a road made of millings where they can back up and just dump. They know they won’t get stuck.
We’re not full time my partner nor I. Probably do have the ability to do it though. It’s an average of 15 hours a week each we put in. When the pandemic hit last March I was off for a few months though and did it full time. Still never ran out of things to do. We have always sold as much as time allows with no advertising just word of mouth.
Feel free to ask questions on this part of the business be glad to help out with our experience anyways.
- Location
- Toronto
Here's my operation, I do use slow splitters because my home made one broke (hindsight is 20/20). I will get it sorted out soon. I make up for the SpeeCo slowness by selling smoker wood, smoker pellets, kindling and deliveries. I even advertise to bring pellets or smoker wood to people further away when I need to go somewhere in off duty hours. I do a few other things for work for easier money as well.
I remember the October 06 storm very well @Convict charlie , CHA-CHING!
- Location
- Buffalo
It was pretty wild. I was in Syracuse a few hours away that day and it was 63. Back home a few hours later and never seen anything like it. That storm kept me sustained for a few years until my buddy started climbing. We have a variety of options now.
It was surreal. My partner at the time and I went to his aunts in the suburbs to get a tree off her driveway so she could go to work, and she sent us to another neighbor in the same situation. Was dark out, no power anywhere, and we’re just hearing and watching trees, limbs, and stems failing all over. No wind, so the quiet in between the huge cracking noise was eerie.
Had to walk down the middle of the street, since it was the only route that was mostly safe from getting smacked.
Next morning someone had to walk most of the way to the jobs so they could lift wires with a pole to allow the bucket and chip truck to pass. The way back home was easier, someone else came through and didn’t bother so all the wires were on the ground.
Had to walk down the middle of the street, since it was the only route that was mostly safe from getting smacked.
Next morning someone had to walk most of the way to the jobs so they could lift wires with a pole to allow the bucket and chip truck to pass. The way back home was easier, someone else came through and didn’t bother so all the wires were on the ground.
- Location
- Toronto
We had an ice storm in Toronto on Dec. 22nd, 2013. The city's warmer temps enabled this while outskirts and beyond were a little too cold for the same effect. Lots of Christmases were ruined as some didn't have power restored on Christmas Day. I got lucky, my building is normally a dry sauna so it didnt get cold til the second day and if it wasn't, I was heading to Calgary. .People bought all my wood, no matter how long it was seasoned. What I don't get is how people let their food spoil considering outside was a natural refrigerator.
