Buying Lots for Firewood?

[lsylvain]

Hello everyone,
My main line of business is lawn care but as you can imangine my winter income is quite small. I plow snow in the winter but you can only get so much done with one guy and I don't have enough other work to keep someone on durring the winter. He is my idea.

Go out and buy small lots for Under $10,000 (atleast at first) and clear house seats on them. I would basically go through first and take out any logs good for timber, then take the rest for firewood, chip everything too small for firewood. Then from there I might go ahead and grade out the lot and put in a driveway, and then depending on the zoneing of that lot of course I might try to sell the firewood directly from that lot, saving me from moving it from the lot back to my regular shop then on to the customer.

Here is my thinking. I would like to earn enough off the firewood and timber to keep one employee in work during the winter months, then I have someone already working for me that can help with the snow plowing and other work. I can then increase my Snow customers because of the extra help. I'm not seeing really any profit off the firewood for me because these will be relativly small lots, but I figure I can increase my plowing profits by about 25% or more with the extra person. I have already ruled out doing this on other peoples property because I need the "freedom" of being able to plow snow and take care of my other landscaping related work. I don't want to be in the position where the lot client needs it done by next week and I can't finish it in time because it snowed for 3 days and I was out plowing.

As the property owner I am seeing my return in the end when I sell the lot for a markup because of the lot clearing and driveway already being put in. I may even go in and put in the basment or slab, but that's for another forum.

OK, so here is my question #1. How many man hours on average with two guys would it take to get a cord of wood, cut, split, and left on the site to season.

Question #2. What kind of market is there for "junk" wood. Will people actually buy pine for firewood, or wood under 2" in diamiter or should I just toss it all in the chipper? Or if you can't really sell it will people load it up and take it for fee? what about the chips, is there a market for woodchips or should I just forgo all that and just burn everything on site?

Thanks for all your help in advance. I'm sure I will have more questions as things progress.

 

[Husky137]

I would suggest that a more financially secure way to do it would be to concentrate on expanding your plowing business. It would take a lot less $$ in advertising and labor to double your plowing, than to tie up money in land that you may or may not be able to sell for a profit. I imagine you know a thing or two about plowing but are definitely way behind the learning curve in land clearing and firewood operations.

Please don't take this a slam against, because it isn't intended that way.

 

[treeman82]

I've known a few builders and real estate people who specialize in vacant land. You won't make money by clearing the land... you will however make money on land by getting all the approvals in place. Then you will make plenty of money.

 

[daemon2525]

cord of wood time

I always have a friend help me cut, because it's more fun that way.

So, for me , 2 guys can cut and split and stack 1 pickup truck load (1/3cord) per hour. So it takes me 3 hours to cut/split and stack a cord.

LOL! Thats because we take a lot of breaks!! So eveyone elses reply will be faster!

Junk wood. Folks around here will take junk wood for free. I personally would pay a little for it because I burn bonfires in the yard and actually prefer pine because it flames better. So If i had to pay 150$ per cord for seasoned Oak,
I would be happy to give you 40$ for a full cord of "JUNK"

Lastly, Make sure that if you stack it on the lot, that no one steals it!

 

[lsylvain]

No offense taken,
My problem with the plowing is that I'm only one man and it only snows when it snows. So just for example I can get 20 clients plowed in one day so that is all I can have is 20 clients since I can't exactly make it snow today on these 20 and then tomorrow on the other 20. If I had an employee then I could do more. Problem is I don't have enough work to keep someone busy durring the winter months so that they can make some money and I have someone to help me plow. If they get a job with someone else doing whatever there employer isn't going to let them off so that they can come work for me plowing snow when it does snow.

I guess the biggest benifit I see with this lot clearing idea is that it gives me the freedom to plow snow, or do other landscaping work when I want to. If I own the lot and my employee wants a week off or whatever it is no skin off my back, beacuse I'm not in any hurry to get the lot cleared or anything. If we only want to work 20 hours a week we can. If I pick up a big job doing something else we can drop the lot clearing for a couple weeks or whatever and do this other job. This could also run through the year so on rainy days I could take some guys from the mowing crew if they didn't want to miss a day of work and go cut some wood or whatever, or not, it doesn't matter.

As far as tieing my money up in Real Estate, I do that anyway, this is how I got the idea. I have two lots right now that I have been thinking about clearing out and selling them off. I have taken all the classes and I am waiting for state aproval for my Real Estate licence so I don't have to pay any commissions on my properties.

I have cleared property before, just always kept the wood for myself and family so we never kept up with how long it took us to do it or anything. Never worried about trying to get anything out of the junk wood, if it wasn't good firewood or big enough for the saw mill it would just get tossed on the brush fire.

 

[lsylvain]

Thanks daemon. Yeah I did think about the stealing part. I figure I will have to make it difficult to do, put up a gate or something so if they are really desperate they could lug it all by hand out to the road or something.