DWittenbreder
ArboristSite Member
If your paying for bulk logs you will never clear a profit. Firewood is VERY labor intesive and takes alot of time. Bottom line is to make any money doing firewood you must get the wood for free!!!
firewood profit
- Thread starter DWittenbreder
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Stumper
One Man Band
Get it free or be a middleman buying salaeble wood and reselling it. I know one guy who made some money buying it hauled to his yard and then reselling to someone who picked it up by the semi-load. He only made about $12 per face cord but never touched it and sold heaps of wood.
spencerhenry
ArboristSite Operative
free wood or no wood!
sedanman
Just cut the piano!!
There's profit in firewoood? Where? How?
LogRite
ArboristSite Lurker
I busted my ass trying to make money on firewood. After all was said and done, cutting, splitting and delivering. I might have cleared $5 and hour. At least I didn't have to join a gym to get a workout!
Gypo Logger
Timber Baron
There is money in firewood if done correctly. Most wouldbe firewooders simply lose out by handling the stuff to many times.
The best approach is to buy it on the stump from private woodlot owners or government forests, where the trees have been marked for a lowgrade thinning. Expect to pay at least 10$/crd. You need at least a 4wd tractor with loader and 3pt hitch logging winch. Fall the trees one at a time, block the crown, load the pieces in a bucket, spin around and hitch up the body wood log length, skid to landing, dump bucket in truck, block body wood, split with axe and load. Then repeat till truck is full. No piling, no playing around with the wood. Sell to rural homeowners who heat their house predominantly with wood who don't mind buying green. Three full cords can be processed this way in 6-10 hrs., if the timber is reasonably good, ie, 8-16" dbh. You must have a good grasp of the chainsaw, falling, blocking and using a 6# maul and make every second count.
With the way wood prices are going, it may be less labour intensive to sell 10'- 16' firewood logs to customers who want to cut their own, if the trucking distance isn't too far.
Getting your timber this way is a good way to gravitate towards logging if you do a good job in the woods. I already did my 5000 crds by hand this way between 1983 and 1994, so I think I've had my fill, other than for recreational purposes.
John
The best approach is to buy it on the stump from private woodlot owners or government forests, where the trees have been marked for a lowgrade thinning. Expect to pay at least 10$/crd. You need at least a 4wd tractor with loader and 3pt hitch logging winch. Fall the trees one at a time, block the crown, load the pieces in a bucket, spin around and hitch up the body wood log length, skid to landing, dump bucket in truck, block body wood, split with axe and load. Then repeat till truck is full. No piling, no playing around with the wood. Sell to rural homeowners who heat their house predominantly with wood who don't mind buying green. Three full cords can be processed this way in 6-10 hrs., if the timber is reasonably good, ie, 8-16" dbh. You must have a good grasp of the chainsaw, falling, blocking and using a 6# maul and make every second count.
With the way wood prices are going, it may be less labour intensive to sell 10'- 16' firewood logs to customers who want to cut their own, if the trucking distance isn't too far.
Getting your timber this way is a good way to gravitate towards logging if you do a good job in the woods. I already did my 5000 crds by hand this way between 1983 and 1994, so I think I've had my fill, other than for recreational purposes.
John
WHOA!
Let's see 5000 cords/12 years (1983 through 1994)= 417 cords per year.
At the rate of 3 cords a day, then a person would have to work 138 days, without pause, to move this amount of wood. Also stated was that this three cords of wood would have to be felled, bucked, skidded, SPLIT BY HAND, loaded into a truck and delivered in the same day.
I've split wood for week's on end, by hand (using a saw for the gnarly pieces), but I just don't see having the time to do anything else with splitting 3 cords a day by hand.
Now, there are some exceptions: if a fair amount of this wood was delivered tree-length, then, yeah, I can see someone moving that amount of wood.
I think the only way to make a decent living selling firewood is by getting paid to take the trees, and having a totally hands-free operation: 8+ cords per day processor, conveyor belts, and big trucks. YMMV.
Let's see 5000 cords/12 years (1983 through 1994)= 417 cords per year.
At the rate of 3 cords a day, then a person would have to work 138 days, without pause, to move this amount of wood. Also stated was that this three cords of wood would have to be felled, bucked, skidded, SPLIT BY HAND, loaded into a truck and delivered in the same day.
I've split wood for week's on end, by hand (using a saw for the gnarly pieces), but I just don't see having the time to do anything else with splitting 3 cords a day by hand.
Now, there are some exceptions: if a fair amount of this wood was delivered tree-length, then, yeah, I can see someone moving that amount of wood.
I think the only way to make a decent living selling firewood is by getting paid to take the trees, and having a totally hands-free operation: 8+ cords per day processor, conveyor belts, and big trucks. YMMV.
Al Smith
Addicted to ArboristSite
Fire wood
During the early 70's, I sold fire wood for $40. per pick up load.Cut,split stacked .A pick up,is about 1/2 cord .The wood was free. I had around 50 customers,and avearaged about 3 to 4 cords per week.At that time,I made around $10. per hr., as a journeyman electrician,and about the same,selling the wood. Ironically ,the price of fire wood,has not kept up with inflation,or at least,not in this neck of the woods. Again,as has been stated,it is labor intensive ,back breaking work.You can put beans on the table,but not much steak.
During the early 70's, I sold fire wood for $40. per pick up load.Cut,split stacked .A pick up,is about 1/2 cord .The wood was free. I had around 50 customers,and avearaged about 3 to 4 cords per week.At that time,I made around $10. per hr., as a journeyman electrician,and about the same,selling the wood. Ironically ,the price of fire wood,has not kept up with inflation,or at least,not in this neck of the woods. Again,as has been stated,it is labor intensive ,back breaking work.You can put beans on the table,but not much steak.
Gypo Logger
Timber Baron
My story reads like Klondike Mike carrying a piano over the Chilkoot Pass, but it's true.
I remember in 83' struggling to do 1.5 crds on a 69' F250, all by hand when a forester told me of a firewood producer doing 3 crds/day. I thought this claim was outlandish, but made it my goal and that's what I did. I think I was 130# soaking wet in those days. My best year was 580 crds and 10,000 ft. of sawlogs.
So it can be done, but it's all between the ears.
John
I remember in 83' struggling to do 1.5 crds on a 69' F250, all by hand when a forester told me of a firewood producer doing 3 crds/day. I thought this claim was outlandish, but made it my goal and that's what I did. I think I was 130# soaking wet in those days. My best year was 580 crds and 10,000 ft. of sawlogs.
So it can be done, but it's all between the ears.
John
ehp
Addicted to ArboristSite
Gypo in the early 1990's when you could not give a log away we also was cutting firewood , I got $ 36 to cut , split and load a bush cord 4 ft by 4 ft by 8 ft, cut 16 inches long , that was the going price to cut wood for somebody . So to make any money you worked your ass off.
Wilson_tree
ArboristSite Operative
There is one secret to firewood profit that everyone seems to overlook. In the mid-70s through the mid-80s my dad made decent money on firewood. My two brothers and I busted our butts for about 2 bucks a day cutting, loading, splitting, loading, delivering, and unloading sticks of wood. We used a one ton pickup, a small JD tractor, a hydraulic splitter and mauls to process about 30 cords of wood (say 100+ face cords) each summer. If your labor costs are low and you scrimp on equipment you can make out okay.
Marky Mark
Hell's Kitchen Trapper
There is another way to make money. I own a Timberwolf Splitter and conveyor. Tree guys will line up to drop logs off at my house. Here they pay to get rid of wood. All I do is saw the log next to the splitter and away it goes. After that I load it in a dump trailer with my tractor and dump it at the house no stacking or I will drop my trailer off and you can unload it. I go back in say 3 days and pick the trailer up. In my area I can get 200-250 a cord but my wood is dry. Right now I am sitting on about 40 cords split and aged for 6 months right now.
There is a landscaper here who sells about 150 cords a year for 300 bucks delivered and stacked. DO the math. There's money if you do it right and a KD385.
There is a landscaper here who sells about 150 cords a year for 300 bucks delivered and stacked. DO the math. There's money if you do it right and a KD385.
150 cords X 300 per cord is $45,000. That's some nice change! What makes it even nicer is that it is a cash business. Clearing 45k after taxes probably requires anywhere from 60 to 90k depending on your state. A sad state of affairs in the "Land of the Free" but until we change it, that's the deal.
John Stewart
ArboristSite Guru
Oh Ya!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Crofter
Addicted to ArboristSite
Around here firewood goes for $ 50 Can. a face cord or the equivalent of about $ 100 US for a full cord. Take all your operating expense off and all capital cost and its not too much more than minimum wage. A local fellow has been doing it full time for about 4 years but he and his equip are about worn out. The department of Transportation stopped him a few weeks ago. His trailer was pulled off for no brakes, overweight, inadequate license on truck etc. Everything is parked and all the wood is cleaned up out of his yard. Hear he has applied for welfare. You can't make it that way any longer. Around the city where the yuppies will pay two or three times as much and you get mechanised and have a bit of dollars saved for emergencies, you might make it, but you ain't getting fat at it.
ehp
Addicted to ArboristSite
Frank we went the other way cause we were logging any way so the wood logs were pretty much free plus you cleaned the bush up alot better, we built and ran a fast wood processer, with most things on micro switches, so as you cut your next block it split the other one so a normal cycle was 6.4 seconds, we cut 2 loads a day , 5 or 6 days a week . a load is 12 bush cords , so 24 bush cords a day , sold them to wood yards in Toronto at $165 per cord so $1980 per load. it took 3 guys to run this part and a truck driver. yes there is money in wood but you have to work your ass off but if you have to buy your wood logs that makes thing alitter tighter
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