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Shawn Farmer

ArboristSite Lurker
Joined
Feb 18, 2019
Messages
11
Reaction score
24
Location
Sand Springs Oklahoma
I'm glad to have found this forum via the lawnsite forum I'm a member of. I'm in Oklahoma and generally slow November- Feburary and recently decided to try selling some firewood just from fallen timber on the 10 acres we bought last year. Needless to say it's a hot seller here and is generally sold within an hr of posting online. I thought next year it would be a great opportunity to keep my guys working a bit through the winter and make a little $ . I have mostly oak and other hardwood trees so I guess now I can ad axe-man to my list lol. Thanks for having me guys!
 
Welcome!
(If you can actually make money at firewood, please let me know how? My tax accountant said I can't run a loss for ever.)
LOL I know right! I guess maybe I need to clarify a tad bit... not so much trying to make money as just not come out of pocket so much money.... that's probably a better way of putting it. I generally only run a couple employees in the winter time. The ones that I keep are very valuable to me, and if I can keep them busy an extra 10-15 hours a week in the offseason the more likely I am to have them come April 1st. Not to mention I have so much Timber on my property that I need to clear anyways. I'm not saying I want to make a living at this stuff... this is hard work you guys do. However, it's got to be done and I might as well make a buck or two if I can help keep my hands around..... HUGE BONUS!!
 
I'm not sure that a firewood only setup would/could make for a year on year profit we find a selection of other services connected to it works as a banker in lean years ,depends I guess on set up /outlay but if you have kit that can be pulled into/pushed to other uses rather than just dedicated equipment for fire wood it is probably the difference between success/failure money wise There are a lot of variables Weather, Amount of product available ,how many guys at the same game in the near area & are they willing to reduce prices for a sale ?
 
Hey Al, man I just noticed that you're in France and I got to read your message here in Oklahoma in the United States of America!!! Man that is freaking cool.

Just so there's no confusion I say again, I am not trying to do firewood as a way to earn a living I make a good living, owning and running a lawn service/ Landscaping Company. I do very well for myself.I have two kids attending Oklahoma State University which I (along with my wife) pay cash for so I'm doing okay but, I think doing firewood is something else that I can fill up empty spaces of time with throughout the 4- 5 months that I can't mow in the state of Oklahoma in United States because everything is dormant .
I'm actually toying with the idea of providing only my current customer base with the firewood that we cut... just keep it stockpiled and ready to go on my property and they could simply go online and order a rick/ truckload whatever. Firewood is simply yet just another service that I can offer my customers, as well as another thing we can do a few hours a week while slow to keep my employees busy. Primarily, when we don't have nothing else to do because it's raining or it's too windy or whatever. They have families that they have to feed, so they need hours... and if I can provide them more hours they stick around and they keep making me money... and that my friend is how small businesses work.
 
I think you have the right mindset and welcome to a really great forum.
 
Welcome! and lots of great info and learning from the people here. I am 9y on a 10+ acre property and burn for myself. To me, it was win/win in that I cleaned up a long-neglected old growth forest and dropped my oil bill to misc.

I considered selling in that I have literally unlimited wood, but that is an entirely different game as others have stated. As a supplemental side you will do fine and your customers will appreciate it as well.
 
I think they will... like I said here in the Midwest we have about four or five months that we don't really mow. Should I learned early on, to offer every service I could to my customers, because if I don't they'll find somebody who does. Thus, giving my competitors a chance to tell him what a crappy job I do and how much cheaper they could do the same job for. So we do it all, Christmas Lights, weed control and fertilizing, all of it. The only thing we don't do is irrigation and that's just because that's a freaking headache but when asked.... I know a guy LOL

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Welcome Shawn, I was a lawnsite guy for many years. Spent hours talking to the Originals on there such as the stripping King Eric Elm. Bunch of great guys, I do go back once in awhile just to see who's still there. I'm sure lots of my pictures are still on there as I built just as much lawn equipment as I do firewood stuff now. My wife runs the lawn cutting business now and my son fixes the equipment, they kind of phased me out so I play with wood. If you have some time here is on oldie of mine from 2007 on Lawnsite. There are a couple of other guys from lawnsite on here too. And of course you can't link to there from here. Just do a search on the site for the thread title and it'll be there.
https://www.************/threads/if-you-dont-have-a-steiner-you-wont-understand.185239/
 
That's cool! I dont see me getting out of the lawn Business anytime soon, but I sure do enjoy playing with the firewood, especially when I can't do anything else... its actually been a surprisingly good way to gain more lawn accounts.

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