How much do you charge for a cord of wood?

[cantoo]

Fireaxman, couple more people to add to your overhead when you are selling bundles to a store. More handling and more material cost etc. Due to my crappy heating firewood sales last fall it looks like I'm going to have to build another bundler to sell any wood. My good ash last year mostly went into campfires anyway. Ads around me right now are selling wood for $75 a face 16" so that's $225 a cord. Local delivery included and I bet they want cash too. Or better yet they charge you tax and pocket it.

 

[Fireaxman]

I am tempted to try it. Two state campgrounds within 30 miles of me, one within 5 miles. Mild winter last three years means I have ten cords of seasoned inventory on hand and another five cords on the ground, and Randy puts up couple hundred cords a year for $200 a cord. I took 17 cubic feet into Fountainbleau State Park last week to enjoy an evening fire with a friend and several campers ask me to sell them some of our wood, so the market is ready. I am retired and this is just a hobby for me. Cut out the middle man, sit out on the road with a trailer and a good beer for a couple of hours, shoot the breeze and pick a few tunes on guitar with an old friend who has property fronting on the highway near the park, this could be a pretty good gig.

 

[sb47]

Came by one of the local stores down here that sell bundled wood today and thought about this thread. Checked out one of their "Bundles" just to see what I would be paying them for a full cord. They sell 0.75 cubic feet for $7. Gentlemen, correct me if I am wrong, is that really $1,194.67 a cord ? Man in Bedico near me sells a full cord for $200. sb47, did you say:
? Dang. Sure looks like SOMBODY has a pretty good profit margin down here.

I don't bundle, I bag. I don't sell by the cubic foot. I sell my bag wood by the pound.
Each bag holds 50+ pounds so as long as my weight is correct, it's legal.
Each bag holds approximately 18 to 20 splits cut to 13".
I also separate the heart wood from the sap wood and bark wood, and I offer small chunk wood as well.
My regular sap wood bark wood sells for $10.00 each.
Premium heart wood sells for $15.00.
Chunk wood sells for $15.00
I get an average of 120 bags per full 128 cubic foot cord.
I get an average of $1,300 to 1,800 per cord for bagged wood.
This varies a bit, some bags hold a little more or less depending on split diameter.
Here is an example of my bagged wood.
The women driving there nice cars love the bagged wood because it keeps there trunk clean.
It does take a bit more work cutting and splitting and bagging smaller wood to fit the bags.
But the size is perfect for small or large fire boxes. Many people like the smaller size splits.

 

[cantoo]

Fireaxman, I built 2 of these wagons last year. My son's boss sells slabwood and I figured this would help make things easier for them. Each space is about 20"x 20", takes about an hour ti fill it with slabwood, takes longer for body/limbwood of course. They sold a lot of wood out of it. I made one for myself but never bothered using it because I had too much crap to do already.

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

I don't bundle, I bag. I don't sell by the cubic foot. I sell my bag wood by the pound.
Each bag holds 50+ pounds so as long as my weight is correct, it's legal.
Each bag holds approximately 18 to 20 splits cut to 13".
I also separate the heart wood from the sap wood and bark wood, and I offer small chunk wood as well.
My regular sap wood bark wood sells for $10.00 each.
Premium heart wood sells for $15.00.
Chunk wood sells for $15.00
I get an average of 120 bags per full 128 cubic foot cord.
I get an average of $1,300 to 1,800 per cord for bagged wood.
This varies a bit, some bags hold a little more or less depending on split diameter.
Here is an example of my bagged wood.
The women driving there nice cars love the bagged wood because it keeps there trunk clean.
It does take a bit more work cutting and splitting and bagging smaller wood to fit the bags.
But the size is perfect for small or large fire boxes. Many people like the smaller size splits.

What wood are you using that weighs 6000lbs a cord dry?

 

[Fireaxman]

Ooops. Show stopper.

...as long as my weight is correct, it's legal.

Wonder what kind of hoops I would have to jump through to be "Legal" in St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana. I am definitely going to be "Honest" in my dealings with all people. But "Legal" puts a lot of extra bureaucracy into the equation.

 

[sb47]

Ooops. Show stopper.

Wonder what kind of hoops I would have to jump through to be "Legal" in St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana. I am definitely going to be "Honest" in my dealings with all people. But "Legal" puts a lot of extra bureaucracy into the equation.

It's sold as advertised. 50lb bag starting from 10 dollars a bag.

 

[sb47]

What wood are you using that weighs 6000lbs a cord dry?

I did say it varies a bit. It's just an average, I haven't really done an accurate count, I have counted a few cords and it varies a bit. I would have to average 10 to 20 cords to get a better average.

 

[sb47]

What wood are you using that weighs 6000lbs a cord dry?

Post oak dry cord is around 5,500 lbs according to the weight tables on the internet.
This is also BBQ wood, not firewood. I live in the deep south where moisture percentages tend to be higher because of the humid climate. Getting lower then that with air drying is impossible down here.
All my competition cookers like it a bit on the moist side. If it's too dry they say it burns too fast and too hot.

 

[Fireaxman]

...I built 2 of these wagons last year.

Sweet! Customer sees exactly what he or she is getting, easy and quick to load, highly visible ... Good marketing technique! But a lot of work to set up and some expense for the frame I imagine. I have two 18 foot and an 8 foot flat trailers, pretty easy to just throw some wood on and go sit by the road. Most of the men I see around here selling on the road sell by the wheelbarrow load off of an open trailer. I'm thinking I could just make a single "One Cubic Foot" bin or "Two Cubic Foot" bin and sell it by the cubic foot straight off the trailer. "Legal", however, adds a lot of Overhead! Don't think I am ambitious enough to satisfy the bureaucracy.

 

[sb47]

Fireaxman, I built 2 of these wagons last year. My son's boss sells slabwood and I figured this would help make things easier for them. Each space is about 20"x 20", takes about an hour ti fill it with slabwood, takes longer for body/limbwood of course. They sold a lot of wood out of it. I made one for myself but never bothered using it because I had too much crap to do already.
View attachment 561184

I like that trailer idea, unfortunately folks around here are not that honest. If they didn't steal the wood, they would steal the wood and the kitty too.

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

I did say it varies a bit. It's just an average, I haven't really done an accurate count, I have counted a few cords and it varies a bit. I would have to average 10 to 20 cords to get a better average.

I was just curious. The heartwood, etc I guess makes more sense with cooking? Wood is wood to me, but I cook with a microwave haha!

Post oak dry cord is around 5,500 lbs according to the weight tables on the internet.
This is also BBQ wood, not firewood. I live in the deep south where moisture percentages tend to be higher because of the humid climate. Getting lower then that with air drying is impossible down here.
All my competition cookers like it a bit on the moist side. If it's too dry they say it burns too fast and too hot.

 

[cantoo]

The trailer sits in front of their Harley motorcycle shop, wouldn't be a real bright place to rip off. 2 noisy German shepards are housed about 80' away. Most people don't get out of their car after shop hours. Owner lives in part of the shop. Police station is just down the road too. Road traffic is busy enough that if someone was stupid enough to steal the wood they would get a crowbar thru the rear window before they got onto the highway. Trailer frame was $200 and wood was left over from work so pretty much free. I buy garbage bags at auctions cheap so if customer wants to bag it they can. Campgrounds are only a couple of miles away. The also sell larger amounts off of a pile but it's a pain and takes time to deal with. Owners Dad is there most weekends and he looks after the wood sales to keep him busy.

 

[Marine5068]

Came by one of the local stores down here that sell bundled wood today and thought about this thread. Checked out one of their "Bundles" just to see what I would be paying them for a full cord. They sell 0.75 cubic feet for $7. Gentlemen, correct me if I am wrong, is that really $1,194.67 a cord ? Man in Bedico near me sells a full cord for $200. sb47, did you say:
? Dang. Sure looks like SOMBODY has a pretty good profit margin down here.

Stores near me sell one cubic foot of bagged hardwood for $10 a bag. That's $1280 a cord.
I sell some campfire wood in used pellet bags from time to time for $5 a bag and I sell out quick every time.
Last year I think I only made up like 75 of them. It puts a little money back in my pocket for saw chain and oil/gas.
I was thinking of buying log lengths and processing them for my heat and some sales.

 

[woodshax]

I have said it before.....selling bags of firewood inside state parks it the way to go....if you sell to gas stations or convenience stores they will take your price and double it so you are down to $500-600 a cord. We only sell our firewood at state parks and for the right to be the only firewood sales on the park I pay them 10% of the gross......We are up to 10 parks in the DFW area and expanding to 13 next week..... I have 6 more parks in North East Texas that want our machines and service but they are too far away and I can't find any reliable firewood guys to fill them for us. We get between $1000 and $1200 a cord and are looking at gross sales of between $150,000 to $200,000 for 2017

 

[cantoo]

I forgot to mention that the trailer is the same on both sides so it holds about 48 bins worth and takes an hour to load from empty. He hardly ever lets it get empty but leaves 3 or 4 bins empty so people think the wood is always moving. The other side faces the highway. Has a big sign on it for summer and even sells some campfire wood to snowmobilers in the winter. My big dump trailer sits about 50' away and is loaded with split ash and has a sign on it for $xxx per load delivered. That's how I sold most of my wood last fall.