ICB tote baskets

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sb47

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I have over 60 baskets so far and looking for more to keep firewood in. I'm curious as to what people are paying for them. I don't want or need the blatter just the basket. I have seen prices for clean food grade totes with blatter that go for as much as 100 bucks each. I'm paying a fraction of that for mine but I'm limited to about 8 a month from the place I get them from. I would like to have at least 200 or more so I can let people take them and bring them back. Of course I will charge 3 times what I pay for them so they will come back.
 
We pay about 15 till 20 euro. Depending on delivery and quality.
 
I'm paying 10 dollars each but the blatter is not food grade. I pull out the blatter and post them free curb allert on CL and they disappear in a few days. If I can get enough of them I will charge 50 bucks deposit and they can chose to keep them or bring them back and get there deposit back. But at only 8 a month it's gonna take a long time to collect several hundred.
 
I'm in northwest PA and they are hard to come by for less than $35 around here. On average, food grade are $100 and anything else is $50. I know of one limited source for $25 but they have a wait list that is a year out.

Seems like they are virtually free in the midwest due to all the farming products that are sold in bulk containers.
 
I like using the plastic tank, cut up for a roof overtop the tote. I’ve chopped a few up and used as covers for the wood splitter, seasonal car tires that sit out behind the building. Some of that plastic may find its way into the snowblower chute as a coating. I don’t like stacking wood in the totes but they are handy to toss all the odds into.
 
I'm paying 10 dollars each but the blatter is not food grade. I pull out the blatter and post them free curb allert on CL and they disappear in a few days. If I can get enough of them I will charge 50 bucks deposit and they can chose to keep them or bring them back and get there deposit back. But at only 8 a month it's gonna take a long time to collect several hundred.
What's a blatter?
The IBC totes I'm familiar with are a plastic tank with metal frame and pallet.
 
I pay $10 a piece and can get quite a bit I put the plastic liners on
My front lawn n watch the show with people trying to shove them in vans or trucks with caps then some people come with big trailers and don’t strap them down and they end up in the ditch comical stuff all non food grade I cut the front partially out for easy stacking
 
Totes make nice deer stands for rope climbers. I have three of them out as high as 40ft.

We use a dozen for rain water storage. Some are 300 gallon and some 275.

It seems like a lot of work stacking wood in them to me.
The bigger totes are 330 gallon. They are a PITA to stack in, but I have a narrow space (85 ft wide) and have to make an effort to conserve space. For the first time this year, I'm filling some loose. Might as well after January so that the wood can dry faster that way than stacked wood with less than a year til next winter's sales, so that I have a bit more to add to next season's inventory. I still do like the stacking, it is too much, because its a good way tp measure face and bush cords when its time to deliver.
 
Unfortunately around here they go for between 50 and 100 a piece. I’ve started using cattle panels and fencing on top of pallets. They hold more than the totes and cost a fraction of what a tote does around here. There’s room for improvements with this system but I’ll always let the forklift do the work when I can.
 
-I started out with 1/3 cord wooden firewood racks I could lift with forklift. Great for staging and seasoning. Lots of stacking time, and hard to wrap for transport and delivery. I put a sheet of osb on both sides and strapped.
-Then I improved the wood rack making them 4' x 4' x 6' tall. Same issue however with lots of stacking and osb for delivery. More easily covered in winter, and 3/4 cord. Which lead to lots of time explaining, the odd quantity.
-Between the two styles there were seventy cord, until they began to rot and something different was needed.

The choices seemed to be use bulk bags with pallets under them, ICB totes, something custom made or converted like stackable racks, and wrappers like the Posch PackFix, which also needs pallets.

I eliminated stackable ICB off the list for a couple reasons.
They require stacking the wood. Not doing so would require a huge, huge number of them.
As for stacking, I could stack two high. Beyond that would require a very level hard surface to work from. I have gravel, but not flat enough for stacking three or four high.
Cost per tote, or actually cost per cord. Which varies of course where ever you are and the demand for them.
Empty totes, like my wooden firewood racks, take up a lot of room. I have limited space.
And the last factor for each choice was, would it have a resale value when I'm done doing firewood?

The main question for me is does it eliminate stacking?
And is it affordable per cord? X 70-100 cord. Thats a lot of stacking, and that's a lot of totes.
In my case I season for a year, so the turnover is slow, unlike some selling green firewood. And that leads to even more totes because I start processing now, in the spring, before I start selling and emptying totes.
-As most of you know, I went with pallets and the Posch PackFix. Bulk bags may be a better way, as I'm still figuring out how to load a dump trailer efficiently for deliveries. I love the Posch. Saves me a ton of work. Just figuring out the last piece of the puzzle. Put license plates on the trailer yesterday.
EDIT: I like pallets because as shown, I have a couple hundred to start this year with and they take up little room. As I unload pallets, the same, they take up little room. They last about four years with ground contact. I'm beginning double stacking, so only a little over half have ground contact and fewer covers.
ICB totes would work well for a limited number of cords or higher turnover frequency. They certainly last longer and that's a cost factor for sure at five, ten or twenty years.

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Monday got a few of these totes minus the plastic tanks , using them to keep cut offs and other odd pieces off the ground
Still up in the air if these are going to be worthwhile in the long run but for free we will give it a go , cut one side out for easy unloading of the wood

They seem to be popular with guys who have outside boilers and equipment with forks to shuffle them around
 

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