To Maximize your profits, consider bundled firewood

[Busy Beaver Lumber]

When I bought my first mill, I was determined to put every piece of the log to use and minimize waste. Some of this planning was profit based and some of it was to reduce the waste I had to haul away from my building. I have a unique operation in that everything I do is done from the inside of a 32 foot by 48 foot building. I have no room or ability to store anything outside of the confines of the building.

As I started to cut lumber, the flitches started to pile up pretty quickly and take up valuable space. To solve that problem, I bought a Stihl chainsaw and built a 8 foot tall wood rack. I cut the flitches into 18" long pieces and stacked them into the rack. It was not long before the rack was full. To compound the problem, A few friends bought me some free logs that were not worth milling so I wound up running them through my wood splitter, but this just made the firewood stack even bigger.

Then I found the solution to my problem. I purched a firewood bundler and started to make .75 cubic feet bundles out of the wood and got my DNR certification to sell firewood in Indiana. Next I made a few phone calls and added the bundled firewood to my website.

This wound up to be one of the best series of business decisions I ever made. Within a month or so, I landed over a half dozen customers, one alone that is buying 80 cords ( about 13,600 bundles) per year to supply a 300 site campground. I also added another smaller campground and several convienience stores as well. My problem quickly went from having too much wood to not having enough wood, but this was a much easier problem to solve. A few ads in craigslist, and a call to a few friends that cut and sell firewood and I found all the wood suppliers I needed and they all deliver the wood already split right to my building as I need it. On average every month, I am also lucky enough to get my hands on 5 or so pickup truck loads of free wood as well just for going to pick it up.

This has wound up to be a source of great profit for my wife and I and gives her something to do when we go to the mill building. She loves bundling the wood and seldom lets me get near the machine, claiming that it is now hers. On the days that she does not come to run the bundler, I hire one of my unemployed friends to fill in for her that day and they are more than happy to get a good days pay. By the way, it is pretty easy and fast to bundle wood. It is not uncommon to be able to do 50+ bundles per hour.

I would high suggest you consider adding a bundler to your operation and a few pieces of support equipment as well. Basically here is what you will need to get started. I am not endorcing any one brand of equipment, but simply mention which brand I have and what it cost to acquire:

stihl chainsaw $400
Husky 35 ton Log splitter  $1600
Twister Industries Firewood Bundler $2000
Stretch wrap film $14 per roll - enough for 150 to 175 bundles

For about $4000 investment you add a whole new profit center to your operation, plus you get to put you flitches and less than sawmill worthy logs to use rather than send them to the burn pile or chipper. In our case, we made that investment back in less than 2 months. The bundler is very easy to operate and could easily be run by a teenage or two that you may just have sitting around the house.

Hope this information is found to be helpfull

[bandmiller2]

Busy Beav,thats quite a story,my hats off to you sir, I hope it inspires outhers here. Frank C.

[sdunston]

Good idea. Here in the great tax state of NY fire wood can olny travel 40 miles unless it is kiln dried. It is to cut down on the long haired bettle or sum bug
Sam

[Banjo picker]

I googled it up and watched their u tube...it is a neet system....Tim

[campy]

Thank you for your nice piece of writing here.
It has given me a lot to study and think about.

[Ironwood]

I have just worked out a deal to provide to an outlet here. I am haviing my one kiln certified to have USDA labeling. This is all to give my kids something to make money on in the future. I will have a system to not have handle it too much, this includes customized pallets and a hydraulic arch to lower the pallets once I am at the store. I am marketing it to them as a "total marketing solution" as they are WAY too busy to mess with the details other than collecting the $$$.

 

 Ironwood

[Busy Beaver Lumber]

Bandmiller

Thank you for the positve feedback. I do hope it inspires other to look for additional profit centers within their operations and helps more people to prosper with their milling operations. For us it has been a blessing.

We went to the mill today and between my wife and I we split and bundled 261 bundles of wood in under 5 hours. We sell each bundle for $2.50 so that is $652.50. Subtract the $125 it cost me for the firewood itself and about $20 in shrink wrap and we still have a nice profit of over $500 for the day. We have a goal to bundle 750 bundles this week.

[Busy Beaver Lumber]

Good idea. Here in the great tax state of NY fire wood can olny travel 40 miles unless it is kiln dried. It is to cut down on the long haired bettle or sum bug
Sam

Sam

That 40 mile restriction can actually be an asset to you. It basically gives you the equivalent of a protected territory 40 miles in diameter from where you operate your mill. Don't have to worry about competition from anyone closer to you than that radius. I used to live in NJ and camp in NY state in middletown and wurtsboro and know there are a lot of campgrounds in a 40 mile radius in NY

Have a similar deal here in Indiana. A good portion of lower Michigan and Northern indiana is infested with the Ash bore. Both USDA and Indiana DNR have imposed restrictions on the movement of firewood across boarders and within the state of Indiana. You much have DNR certification to sell and transport wood and must abide by the rules set forth. Ironically this works to my benefit because people wanting to buy bundled firewood must buy it from DNR approved sources like me and each bundle must be labeled showing that it came from me. Most campgrounds will not buy from anyone that is not DNR approved since they know campground firewood supplies are frequently inspected in this state.

[Busy Beaver Lumber]

Thank you for your nice piece of writing here.
It has given me a lot to study and think about.

Campy

You are more thn welcome. If you have any questions feel free to contact me and I will help you any way I can.

[Left Coast Chris]

If you could get the shirnk warp equipment with the WIFE..... then you would really have something.....  Hmm.... for me two wives could cause some real problems.  Im going to have to think this one through a little more.  

Great info.... thanks for sharing it!  

[Tom]

That is quite an impressive operation, Busy Beaver.   I'm not sure I would have the organizational skills to do all that you do in such a small space.     Kudos!

[Meadows Miller]

Gday

Nice thread Beaver    I have done firewood on and off since i was about 13yo but down here its mainly a bulk market Downhere im getting roughly $400 a cord for bulk loads delivered to Melbourne and that includes my harwood mill trash  so the moneys getting better and i decided to get back into it this year i already have about 200 ton 100 cords to do 

with pine you cant give it away in aus so it gets burned atm untill i get a chipper  i just torched about 50 ton of it the other day    i have another pile im still thinking of doing bagged kindeling out of it but most of this lot is alittle rough to do that with  i think asfar as easy splitting goes  a 15lb bag of kindiling will set you bac about $9 at the servo here 

Regards Chris

[okie]

Gday

Nice thread Beaver    I have done firewood on and off since i was about 13yo but down here its mainly a bulk market Downhere im getting roughly $400 a cord for bulk loads delivered to Melbourne and that includes my harwood mill trash  so the moneys getting better and i decided to get back into it this year i already have about 200 ton 100 cords to do 

with pine you cant give it away in aus so it gets burned atm untill i get a chipper  i just torched about 50 ton of it the other day    i have another pile im still thinking of doing bagged kindeling out of it but most of this lot is alittle rough to do that with  i think asfar as easy splitting goes  a 15lb bag of kindiling will set you bac about $9 at the servo here 

Regards Chris

  $400 per cord!!!  WOW! Here in Oklahoma we don't use the cord measurement, we measure by the "rick" which is, near as I can tell, what others call a face cord or a stack of wood 2'deep by 4' high by 8' long. Half a cord if I am correct? Local prices go from $35-$65 per rick delivered and go up in the more urban areas but the most I've heard of was $85 a rick.
Most folks that cut wood locally cut in 16" lengths because of many customers stoves won't take 24" lengths and they measure the rick 16"x4'x8'.
Reckon if I could get $200 a rick for firewood I'd be pretty darn well off.

[Meadows Miller]

Gday

Okie i know mate all these different units of measurement Mate i have always thought a cord was about 2 m3   

 We run by the Ton or cubic meter m3 to what i can gather a cord is 1.2x1.2x2.4 meters which acc comes in at 3.45 m3 stacked  our Box and ironbark around home here comes in roughly 1 to 1.2 ton per m3 stacked dry weight and i get $200 a ton deliverd to Melb which  would work out at $690 a cord   

a 25 ton or 56000lb payload semi will get you about $5000 del to melbourn these days i remember cutting and loading loads when i was younger and thinking i was making a killing at $90 per ton ($2250 a load)  del down there 

In Melbourne people will pay between $220 for lighter wood (red gum and common wood) and $330 for box/ironbark per m3 delivered to their home Mate 

I have an 8 ton load to cut tomorrow to go down on friday which will gross me about $1600 which aint bad for a couple of days work Im looking forward to getting back into it Nice clean & simple work  mate    its handy been a 4th generation wood cutter  getting rid of firewoods only a phonecall away 

Regards Chris

[Busy Beaver Lumber]

Here is the Math:

I sell by .75 cubic foot bundles. A cord, which is 4 x 4 x 8 feet in size equates to 128 cu ft of firewood. Selling .75 cu ft bundles gets you 170 bundles per cord of wood.

If you sell them for $2.50 per bundle, you make $425 per cord of bundled wood. Our personal best with our bundler is 90 bundles in an hour. I just ordered a speed loader for it and would not be suprised if we easily topped 100 bundles and hour. Plus the bundler is so easy to use that even a teenager could be trained to do it in no time at all.

I can buy a cord for $125 split and $50 a cord unsplit. Splitting is not a big deal with my 35 ton splitter and I will be the first to admit I can always use the exercise. If you use your flitches and just cut them to 18 inches in length, then you wood cost approaches zero. I made a few X shaped saw horses 8 feet long. I stack about 20 flitches in them at a time, then make a cut every 18 inches. With every cut I get 20 pieces and enough wood to make between 2 to 3 bundles of wood, depending on the size of the individual pieces, plus the satisfaction of knowing that no part of the tree is going to waste

Either way, the work is simple and the profits are huge.

Thanks Tom for the compliment. Will post more pictures soon of my operation and how it is set up.

Fred

[Busy Beaver Lumber]

We just added the speed loader trays to our firewood bundler for about $100 for 5 of them. Best hundred buckaroos I spent in a long time. With 2 people, we are now getting more than 100 bundles of firewood wrapped per hour.

It is a great idea. I line 5 of them up on a bench right next to the bundler and load them as fast as I can. Then the wife loads one of them into the bundler and wraps it, removes the one she just wrapped, and loads the next one. To be honest, it makes it so fast that I sometimes have trouble keeping up with her.

Last night in 2 hours we wrapped 214 bundles of wood. This is a huge improvement over what we were able to average without the speed loader trays.

[Jim_Wahl]

Ironwood,

I'd like to hear a little more about that hydraulic pallet arch you mentioned. Is that a home built
invention, or did you buy it elsewhere?

[etkoehn]

Busy beaver how are you able to make so much money? Do you have any competition?

[fred in montana]

Busy Beaver, do you have any photos of your operation?

[Busy Beaver Lumber]

Busy beaver how are you able to make so much money? Do you have any competition?

We service campgrounds and have minimal competition because of DNR license. One campground we service has over 300 sites and will not allow people to bring their own wood in to the campground. They must buy the wood there. If they sell out on the 3 holiday weekends, as they normally do, and considering there are three nights of camping on the 3 holiday weekends, it is not unheard of for a campground with that many sights to sell over 1000 bundles in a single holiday weekend. Now add to that the fact that we sell to other campgrounds and about 25 convinience stores and you have the entire picture.