Selling firewood mixed or unmixed?

[unclemoustache]

I prefer to burn oak, so I save that for myself whenever I get it. I have lots of silver maple, and I've been selling that. Of course, I make it clear on my add that it is silver maple, and when they call I make sure they understand, and I tell them I price it lower because of this. I've had a number of people back out when they realize this, but that's fine - I just want to make sure my customers know what they are getting.

Anyway, I've been pondering mixing the maple with some other hardwood and calling it 'mixed.' Some people around here do that. 15 years ago I bought a cord of 'mixed.' It was 98% Sycamore with a couple sticks of oak thrown in. Idiot. I should have told him to take his load of wood back home.

So then, for those of you who mix (and are honest sellers, not scammers or jerks), how much do you mix? I was thinking of mixing half to 2/3 of the wood being hardwood. and pricing it almost as high as unmixed. Your thoughts?

 

[amberg]

We always liked to burn maple here, It dried down pretty fast, so we would try to burn it up the first year. not as good as oak but it made a nice hot fire. as for the sycamore I would leave it in the woods. I think that some people wait until the maple dries down to much then wonder why it burns up to fast.

 

[Marshy]

We always liked to burn maple here, It dried down pretty fast, so we would try to burn it up the first year. not as good as oak but it made a nice hot fire. as for the sycamore I would leave it in the woods. I think that some people wait until the maple dries down to much then wonder why it burns up to fast.

Sycamore has more BTU's than Silver Maple. You are probably thingking of a different maple. Silver Maple has slightly less BTU than Log Pole Pine.

I never like getting Silver Maple in my firewood but the reality of it is I do burn a lot of it. The last load of logs I got was probably 25% silver maple but I knew that when I bought it and it was also $150 cheaper per truck load because of that... Unc, I dont see why you couldnt slip 20-25% silver maple into the pile if its mixed with hard maple, oak and black cherry etc.

 

[beentown]

Yeah, not a fan of silver maple. I wouldn't buy it if it was in it.

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[CentaurG2]

Log length firewood is very hard to get out here. You take what comes in or you don’t have any wood to sell. Its mixed hardwood is as it comes off the truck. Not worth sorting out individual species as I don’t think you could command a premium for “all oak” around here. Most loads are usually mostly oak and maple. Occasionally you get some hickory, ash and locus. Seldom do you see beach, birch, elm and poplar. It all burns.

 

[Oldman47]

If you are going to sell mixed, why not mix approximately equal amounts of different woods and then list those wood types when selling it? You would be about as honest as can be expected and people would know exactly what they were getting. Good customer relations all around.

 

[autoimage]

I dont sell anything to people that i dont want myself so i use it for my firepit and sell it as firepit bundles

 

[jrider]

My mixed hardwood has everything that is a hardwood but isn't oak, cherry, or locust. When people ask I tell them it depends on where in the pile I am but I tell them every species that could potentially be in there. Some loads are better than others but there's no way I would go through and select a certain % of each wood going on the truck.

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

I mix it however much they want. 50/50, 75/25, 25/75, etc.

 

[olympyk_999]

Log length firewood is very hard to get out here. You take what comes in or you don’t have any wood to sell. Its mixed hardwood is as it comes off the truck. Not worth sorting out individual species as I don’t think you could command a premium for “all oak” around here. Most loads are usually mostly oak and maple. Occasionally you get some hickory, ash and locus. Seldom do you see beach, birch, elm and poplar. It all burns.

im in central MA....the only way firewood is advertised around here, is..."firewood", and "pine firewood"
when your pulling logs out of 200+ cord piles to load the processor, you get what you get...

 

[TreeswingerPerth]

I always sell my wood , hard mixed and soft mixed , that way I get rid of the good and bad . Never really had anybody complain , I do always make sure it's well seasoned.

 

[svk]

Mix it by btu range. Straight run the good stuff like oak, sugar maple, locust, etc. "Hardwood" would assume a mixture cherry, walnut, ash, birch or better. Firepit mix would be aspen, cottonwood, boxelder. Straight pine as you will find folks who like the smell and are smart enough to realize that seasoned pine won't actually burn your house down.

 

[unclemoustache]

I only sell about 10 cords a year, and have access to plenty of silver maple, so that's mostly what I sell. I don't get much oak, so I'm not interested in selling "oak only" and jeopardize my personal cache.

 

[WoodTick007]

There are people that sell "ironwood". . . I asked: what's ironwood? Their response was a mix of various wood and hard woods. I took that as it was boxchs elder.
And Silver Maple is better than being cold, but not much better.

 

[svk]

A year or two back I found a local ad for a guy selling "golden oak". No lie. Posted it in the CL Laughs thread.

 

[WoodTick007]

You ever think about painting that silver maple black? You have a bunch of kids...Home Depot / Lowes sells cans of black spray paint for 99 cent a can. You could market it as "seasoned Black Maple". . .very rare, limitted supplies. Charge double or tripple for the Black Maple and offer it in like 1/4 facecords for $80
Just something to noodle over.

 

[cantoo]

Most places around here that sell logs usually sell it by the load and one type of tree only. I used to buy either ash or maple, they might have the odd cherry log in it but not often. I have a bunch of silver maple but will likely put it in the owb and not sell it. I sell ash only because that's pretty much what everyone around here sells. Next year I'm planning to sell bundles of poplar just to get rid of it because I have access to so much of it. I'll burn lots in the owb too, just to use it up before it rots. If you are cutting trees down and selling it then you might as well keep it separate if you have the room. I try to keep all the woods separate if I can. Some people can't tell what type of wood it is just by looking at it.
I think this one is softwood now?

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

im in central MA....the only way firewood is advertised around here, is..."firewood", and "pine firewood"
when your pulling logs out of 200+ cord piles to load the processor, you get what you get...

We really only have 3 species of wood here, Poplar (cottonwood, aspen, etc), spruce, and birch so we pile the logs in seperate piles. Have about 2 acres of space for log storage and can stack about 25ft high so usually have enough room.

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

You ever think about painting that silver maple black? You have a bunch of kids...Home Depot / Lowes sells cans of black spray paint for 99 cent a can. You could market it as "seasoned Black Maple". . .very rare, limitted supplies. Charge double or tripple for the Black Maple and offer it in like 1/4 facecords for $80
Just something to noodle over.

We have joked about using a staple gun to cover up cottonwood pieces with birch back to get $100 more a cord hahaha. I've had a few folks that really didn't care what the wood or how much as long as it was firewood and it burned. Probably could have sold a few wheelbarrow loads as a cord. Course I'd never be able to sleep at night doing something like that!

 

[066blaster]

I like silver maple. There I said it.