Sold Out

[computeruser]

I don't sell, but I am definitely seeing fewer CL ads than in past years.

What is the deal with folks waiting until now to buy wood? I can see the recreational fireplace burners (raises hand) not being as concerned (I've got 2.5 cord on hand anyway and a massive white oak set to be taken down on my property), but for the folks who heat with it and for whom it really matters, they seriously wait until September to start looking for wood?

Do any of y'all sell split stuff in the spring? Or green rounds earlier in the year? Or is there just no good economic model for doing that? Because if I were buying, I'd sure as heck want to have my winter's inventory on hand by early summer.

What about the tree service companies? Are the smaller ones processing up their cutting, or just dumping it all for biomass or into a landfill, as they seem to be doing here?

 

[sweetjetskier]

On the Cape, not much firewood available, but pricing is where it is generally this for the season.

$275 and way up for a cord, but like elsewhere, supply and demand comes into play.

 

[stihly dan]

Looks like I'll be burning pine the end of this year.
I have about three cord hardwood but that wont last much pass December.
But I do have about twenty cord pine, some dead , some still green.
All I can do is split it and hope it seasons.
The last couple cold nites, I've been burning uglies and chunks to knock off the chill.
Plan "B" is Kerosene, but @5.50 a gal, it could get expensive real quick.
My main wood gatherer is banged up with cracked ribs. be a couple weeks more healing.
Being 80, has slowed me down alot, just don't have the energy for the long haul. One day of work, two days rest.
All I ask of my boys is being me wood, I'll get it manufactured into firewood eventually.
I do have some wood stashed, but need help getting it home.

FREDM, Oxford, CT

Gettin' old ain't for sissies

Wouldn't it be best to burn the pine till dec 15th then your 3 cords of hard wood from then until you run out. I would want my best wood when its the coldest.

 

[066blaster]

I don't sell, but I am definitely seeing fewer CL ads than in past years.

What is the deal with folks waiting until now to buy wood? I can see the recreational fireplace burners (raises hand) not being as concerned (I've got 2.5 cord on hand anyway and a massive white oak set to be taken down on my property), but for the folks who heat with it and for whom it really matters, they seriously wait until September to start looking for wood?

Do any of y'all sell split stuff in the spring? Or green rounds earlier in the year? Or is there just no good economic model for doing that? Because if I were buying, I'd sure as heck want to have my winter's inventory on hand by early summer.

What about the tree service companies? Are the smaller ones processing up their cutting, or just dumping it all for biomass or into a landfill, as they seem to be doing here?

I think most people that rely on wood for their only source of heat have thier own supply. Most I sell to are occasional fireplace users. And some city folks with wood stoves. I'm starting a business relationship with a tree service to help remove trees/wood he cuts down. He is not set up to deal with large quantities of wood.

 

[Dalmatian90]

Firewood usage has more than doubled in each New England state in the last decade -- RI (near me & Swamp Yankee) is up more than 150%.

http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=15431&src=email

Late 70s oil was 80 cents a gallon, and a cord of wood was $100.

Today oil is $3.60 a gallon (4.5x), and that cord is $225 (2.25x)

Cord of logs delivered last year was running $100 here.

The $75 (this year) and $55 (last year) prices per ton Spike quoted above for chips works out to $200 and $150 per cord if it's red oak, which is one of our heavier woods. And those chip burners aren't going to be sitting on inventory for 1, 2, 3 years waiting for it to "season."

Do we see a problem with the math here?

 

[spike60]

To first answer computeruser's question, the logistics of firewood sales simply don't mesh well with people who wait until it gets cold to decide it's time to buy firewood. Most firewood, even if the logs have been down for a while, is produced as it's sold. Very few suppliers have the space or resources to split, store, and season wood until people decide they need it. Very few people want to think about buying wood in the Spring for NEXT year. So, it's the annual mad scramble as the weather changes. What's different this year is that the supply is much tighter than normal. Many of those people are unfortunately going to be out of luck.

You can break this wood burning down into two basic categories. Those who cut their own, and those who buy the wood. Folks who buy log length, kind of have a foot in each category. What distinguishes us scroungers from those who are now frustrated in trying to find wood, isn't just that we cut our own wood. It's the mentally that we are "on it" all the time. When winter ends, we're getting ready for next winter. Not putting the whole thing out of our minds until it gets cold again. But I gotta add that an awful lot of cut for yourself types put it off also. People come in this time of year saying, "It's getting cold out; gotta start cutting some wood." So, yes the shortage is certainly real, but much of this could be prevented by thinking ahead.

One more comment: On the way home from that radio thing i did, I stopped at the local pub for a beer. In comes a local logger. (Same guy who brings me the wood for the GTG, and he's been hammering out firewood all summer long in addition to the real logging) Was out of cell range for a while today, and as he drove back in cell range, his phone starts going nuts with calls and texts looking for firewood. Beep, beep, beep. When it got up to 12, he turned the thing off and threw it in the glove box.

 

[stihly dan]

To first answer computeruser's question, the logistics of firewood sales simply don't mesh well with people who wait until it gets cold to decide it's time to buy firewood. Most firewood, even if the logs have been down for a while, is produced as it's sold. Very few suppliers have the space or resources to split, store, and season wood until people decide they need it. Very few people want to think about buying wood in the Spring for NEXT year. So, it's the anual mad scramble as the weather changes. What's different this year is that the supply is much tighter than normal. Many of those people are unfortunately going to be out of luck.

You can break this wood burning down into two basic categories. Those who cut their own, and those who buy the wood. Folks who buy log length, kind of have a foot in each category. What distinguishes us scroungers from those who are now frustrated in trying to find wood, isn't just that we cut our own wood. It's the mentally that we are "on it" all the time. When winter ends, we're getting ready for next winter. Not putting the whole thing out of our minds until it gets cold again. But I gotta add that an awful lot of cut for yourself types put it off also. People come in this time of year saying, "It's getting cold out; gotta start cutting some wood." So, yes the shortage is certainly real, but much of this could be prevented by thinking ahead.

One more comment: On the way home from that radio thing i did, I stopped at the local pub for a beer. In comes a local logger. (Same guy who brings me the wood for the GTG, and he's been hammering out firewood all summer long in addition to the real logging) Was out of cell range for a while today, and as he drove back in cell range, his phone starts going nuts with calls and texts looking for firewood. Beep, beep, beep. When it got up to 12, he turned the thing off and threw it in the glove box.

Even the scrounge has been tough around here, people keeping there wood, or you see something and by the time you get there its gone. If it stays like this for a few years I my be in trouble.

 

[Jutt]

Looks like I'll be burning pine the end of this year.
I have about three cord hardwood but that wont last much pass December.
But I do have about twenty cord pine, some dead , some still green.
All I can do is split it and hope it seasons.
The last couple cold nites, I've been burning uglies and chunks to knock off the chill.
Plan "B" is Kerosene, but @5.50 a gal, it could get expensive real quick.
My main wood gatherer is banged up with cracked ribs. be a couple weeks more healing.
Being 80, has slowed me down alot, just don't have the energy for the long haul. One day of work, two days rest.
All I ask of my boys is being me wood, I'll get it manufactured into firewood eventually.
I do have some wood stashed, but need help getting it home.

FREDM, Oxford, CT

Gettin' old ain't for sissies

Aint nothing wrong with pine assuming its seasoned. I burn around 50-60% pine depending on how much hardwood I can scrounge from the city. I know a lot of other folks further west of me that burn ALL pine.

 

[STLfirewood]

If I sold out that quick I would raise my prices. The price your getting is still to cheap (I think). I have been buying unsplit hardwood rounds from a guy for $75 a cord. I split and season them (or kiln dry) and get between 330-500 a cord for it. He's able to get the block from a mill he works at. So his wood cost and trucking is pretty much nothing. He has to go to work anyway.

Scott

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

I did about 300 cords last year and expect about the same this year. Plenty if customers, just only so many hrs in a day.

 

[wudpirat]

Reply to stihly dan and Jutt:
I plan on burning mostly pine, with a couple sticks of hard wood mixed in to get some longer lasting coals.
This should streach my hardwood supply. I'm not a wood snob, I'll burn anything, (no telephone pole or railroad ties).
I have wood stashed but getting it on the truck and home is my problem. As I mentioned before, my Grandson, Mikey is on lite duty with couple cracked ribs for another month. Mikey is my main mule and he has a stash of ash and maple somewhere. Getting it home where I can work it, is the rub.
When I works, I works hard.
When I rests, I rests eazy.
And when I sits, I falls asleep. ......... anymouse

FREDM

 

[Royalrooter77]

Looks like I'll be burning pine the end of this year.
I have about three cord hardwood but that wont last much pass December.
But I do have about twenty cord pine, some dead , some still green.
All I can do is split it and hope it seasons.
The last couple cold nites, I've been burning uglies and chunks to knock off the chill.
Plan "B" is Kerosene, but @5.50 a gal, it could get expensive real quick.
My main wood gatherer is banged up with cracked ribs. be a couple weeks more healing.
Being 80, has slowed me down alot, just don't have the energy for the long haul. One day of work, two days rest.
All I ask of my boys is being me wood, I'll get it manufactured into firewood eventually.
I do have some wood stashed, but need help getting it home.

FREDM, Oxford, CT

Gettin' old ain't for sissies

Where abouts in Oxford are you? I am in Oxford as well off of Riggs St.

 

[Dalmatian90]

Wolf Den Road in Brooklyn --

If we're having a log shortage this year when they've just clear cut at least 600 acres to replace the 20 mile long high lines that cross our county from RI to Willimantic...jeepers.

I thought that was also a great picture of what our woods look like when Swamp Yankee says we're in the middle of one of the most productive Oak-Hickory Forests in the nation.

(For the power geeks, it's part of a southern New England wide capacity expansion. They're putting up Corten steel monopoles with a higher voltage circuit to replace the existing ones, with the ability to add a second circuit to the new towers.)