Selling bundled firewood

[memory]

We are looking into trying to sell bundles of firewood. We own and run a crop farm, used to be dairy farm so we have access to plenty of trees. We are starting to sell produce in a self serve style, just getting into selling produce so not really all that big, we grow everything ourselves. We also grow and sell pumpkins in the fall time and been doing that for a long time, doing really good in that area. We have a building set up for this. We got plenty of trees that need to be cleaned up and figured try to sell some. We are not looking to get real big into this, don't plan on delivering, just selling from the farm.

For those that sell bundled firewood, how big in diameter do you make your pieces and how long? Is smaller the better or is too small a bad thing? How do you wrap the wood? We figured on tying with bale string starting out, but I would imagine that would be a PITA and get old real fast. Another thing is with string tying, that could make a mess in vehicles and would imagine people don't want to deal with that type of mess. Want to keep costs down since we just starting and no idea how well it will go. Any advice and pics of your setup would be great. TYIA

 

[CentaurG2]

My neighbor sells camp fire wood. He runs a saw mill and cuts all of the scraps at 16” or smaller and dumps them in piles them out by the road. Our grocery stores and big state liquor stores have mountains of boxes that they give away for free so he just puts boxes near the scraps and lets the consumer load the wood. I think he charges $5 a box, $20 for a trunk load and $50 for a pickup load. It is self-serve, honor system with nothing but a cash box.

If it were me, I would do something similar. You will figure out pretty fast what size wood the consumer wants and the less times you handle the wood the more $$$ you make. I would just cut up the whole tree into 16” pieces including branches down to about 2 or 3”, split anything over 6” in diameter and see how they sell.


If you are handy with a chainsaw you can also make Scandinavian candles and sell them for a premium. Spruce works great for this but any wood will do.




You can also make good money selling washed and dried stump grindings. People use them as fire starters and they sell like free beer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnxwJvlIxas


Good luck with your business.

 

[svk]

I’d echo the 16” length. Some folks have smaller fireplaces and this length will normally accommodate everyone.

String works to tie them. Or shrink wrap/industrial style Saran Wrap. The best situation I’ve seen are the “onion sacks” that are then tied or sewn shut. Really reduces the mess as well.

 

[woodshax]

So.....we sell only bags and bundles of firewood to state parks....about 20,000 bags and bundles a year (bags are 2 Cuft by volume and bundles are the traditional .75 cuft......bags outsell bundles by about 8 to 1). This is camp fire wood and we can charge a premium because we have no competition at the parks and have 24 hr cashless sales. For campfire wood we use all oak cut at 18", split medium and small and below 20% moisture, so they can get the fire going and keep it going). If your market is primarily for camping then I would suggest that approach....if the market is mostly for home fireplaces the 14"-16" works as suggested and you can use a little larger splits.

Mesh Bags, I get shipped in from overseas at .25 a piece.....I get them from Vietnam as they are higher quality than the ones I used to get from China (take longer to break down in the sun)

Bundles.... 12" #80 rolls of plastic wrap....4 wraps...stretch and rip. String and Knots takes too long (unless you are doing very low volume) and the wood shifts easily and the bundles fall apart (just my experience). Key to success is speed and material cost.

These are what we built to do that

 

[memory]

Ty for the responses.

woodshax, what website do you get the mash bags from? Do you have to buy a certain amount to get that price? Can you get them in different sizes? I am thinking the same thing on the string. Right now we are low volume, just started doing this. Is that a homemade wrapper?

We are just starting to try this and no idea how well we will do, so we are trying to keep costs down as much as possible for now. But also like to be efficient as well.

As for the market, we are not sure about that yet. We haven't tried to sell any yet, still working on trying to get this figured out. Our local gas stations sell bundles for 5 bucks I believe and the pieces are 13-14" in length. Not sure how many cubic ft they are.

 

[Huskybill]

Here the local supermarkets and gas stations sell bundles of firewood. It's another outlet for sales.

 

[woodshax]

Ty for the responses.

woodshax, what website do you get the mash bags from? Do you have to buy a certain amount to get that price? Can you get them in different sizes? I am thinking the same thing on the string. Right now we are low volume, just started doing this. Is that a homemade wrapper?

We are just starting to try this and no idea how well we will do, so we are trying to keep costs down as much as possible for now. But also like to be efficient as well.

As for the market, we are not sure about that yet. We haven't tried to sell any yet, still working on trying to get this figured out. Our local gas stations sell bundles for 5 bucks I believe and the pieces are 13-14" in length. Not sure how many cubic ft they are.

I get them Directly from Vietnam when they ship over the metal parts of my machines, 10,000 at a time. They have smaller Purple bags but I have not got any in a while they hold about .8 cuft. We make our bundlers from the metal square stock they use as a frame to hold our cages during shipping

 

[memory]

What would be the simplest way to make it easy to shrink wrap the bundles?

 

[woodshax]

We dont use shrink wrap because it costs more and adds another step (heat). We just load, wrap, rip, stack

 

[memory]

I have been searching homemade firewood bundlers. I came across a thread that was posted here a while back with some pics of a bundler stand. https://www.arboristsite.com/community/threads/cheap-homemade-firewood-bundler-wrapper.314918/ But I don't quite understand how it works. On the gray piece, what keeps the wrap from going over the bottom grey piece? Am I missing something? Nvm about that,, realized it just slides out, overlooked the comment.

woodshax, on your bundle stand, what are the two pieces of metal for? The ones halfway up the V. Do you have any more pics of it?

 

[Polish hammer]

This is the picture of what I
Made mine from pretty simple and cheap I have over 600 bundles through it I know that isn't a lot but for the little I do it's better then tieing

 

[unclemoustache]

Here is where I get my bags. It's the cheapest I've found (except for enormous bulk orders overseas).

https://www.harrisseeds.com/collect...ons-corn-potatoes-18-x-32?variant=28921293073


I have a couple metal buckets (a bit thinner than 5-gal buckets and no taper) that I cut the bottom off. Turn it over, pull a bag over the end, set it upright, fill with wood, slip out the bucket, jam in a few more sticks in the middle and throw it on the pile. I only sell a couple hundred a year, so the kids and I do about 1 every minute, and we do it for a couple weeks each morning. I wouldn't mind doing about 500, but not much more than that.

 

[Wood Doctor]

Here is where I get my bags. It's the cheapest I've found (except for enormous bulk orders overseas).

https://www.harrisseeds.com/collect...ons-corn-potatoes-18-x-32?variant=28921293073

I have a couple metal buckets (a bit thinner than 5-gal buckets and no taper) that I cut the bottom off. Turn it over, pull a bag over the end, set it upright, fill with wood, slip out the bucket, jam in a few more sticks in the middle and throw it on the pile. I only sell a couple hundred a year, so the kids and I do about 1 every minute, and we do it for a couple weeks each morning. I wouldn't mind doing about 500, but not much more than that.

I sell about 500 bundles a year using baling twine and a 6" length of thrown-away garden hose for a handle. It works, but I like the bags better, especially if I can get 8 to 10 logs stuffed inside. Jamming logs into the middle looks like it would pack it tight, especially with smaller logs that I can set aside just for that. Campers really appreciate any fire starter logs that I include in the bundle.

My twine and scrap garden hose handle is cheaper, but your idea is excellent and might save a bunch of time.

 

[Circle B MN]

I sell about 500 bundle a year using baling twine and a 6" length of thrown-away garden hose for a handle. It works, but I like the bags better, especially if I can get 8 to 10 logs stuffed inside. Jamming logs into the middle looks like it would pack it tight, especially with smaller logs that I can set aside just for that. Campers really appreciate any fire starter logs that I include in the bundle.

My twine and scrap garden hose handle is cheaper, but your idea is excellent and might save a bunch of time.

I've had a wrapper for bundles and it was OK but seemed like they got loose with handling. Twine could be better if one used the right knot, one that could be sinched as needed.

 

[Mustang71]

I was in topsail NC in June for a vacation and we bought 2 bundles at a publix and they came in a red bag. No idea what kind of wood it was and being on vacation I didn't bring any axes just my usual pocket knife and a lighter. 1 thin piece of wood would have gone a long way in starting the fires but being a wood burner I got it started with dead grass.

Around here people have wood by the road for like 5 dollars a bundle and it's in some sort of rack to hold the bundle or wrapped in plastic wrap. There is a camp ground on the road I live on. For that small market I dont see it worth it to make 20 dollars.