Firewood Logs

[ahlkey]

What is the current prices on firewood logs to outdoor furnaces or hardwood pulp to the mills?  I expect to have a few hundred cords of hard maple, white ash, and oak firewood available soon  and probably close to the same amount each year for the next five years or so.  I do not want to get into the firewood business but selling truck loads of firewood logs to cover some of my costs seem to make sense.  Anything that qualifies as bolts or sawlogs I can handle but with the firewood I am not clear on that part of the business and what price would be reasonable to charge.  I am located in Wisconsin.  Thanks

[tjdub]

I've seen ads for selling hardwood firewood logs by the truck load for $60-$70/cord plus delivery in SW Wisconsin.  Try advertising on craigslist.  Without inspection, you might be restricted to selling inside your county if you have emerald ash borer, you'll have to check.

[ahlkey]

I tried Craigslist and other sources and found a few in the $85-$90 range with most offering delivery within 20 miles for that price so that seems to match your range when you add in delivery.  Not sure what the mills are paying for hardwood logs, which would be helpful.  However, one interesting thing I found is that I found a lot of people with outdoor wood boilers looking for firewood logs?  It may be that the timing is good with the cold weather now or the market for firewood logs for wood boilers have increased.  With the price of fuel these days it is easy to see a nice payback in burning with wood.  

[John Mc]

Can't help you much on price in your area, but I've seen a significant increase in the number of homeowners/landowners buying log length firewood around here.

A few years ago there was the uptick in the number of folks heating with wood, then followed a couple of years later by some of those folks deciding to do some of the processing themselves. Many don't have the land, skills, or equipment to do their own felling / skidding / hauling, but figure they can do their own cutting and splitting.

If they are buying more than just a couple cords at a time (say, 5 or 10 cords), they tell me they're paying a bit under $100/cord, delivered. Makes a great project for them... they just go out and work on their pile of logs whenever they get a bit of time. They don't need a lot of expensive equipment: a chainsaw and splitter (and sometimes that splitter is passed around the neighborhood among several families).

John Mc

[Ken]

There has been an increased demand again this year for both long length and cut, split and delivered firewood.  Stove retailers are saying that the demand for wood burning appliances continues to grow. 

The price for delivered long length around here has been $120-140/cord for the last couple of years.  Due to the downturn in the industry contractors able to supply this growing market are getting scarce.  For years that market was supplied by smaller contractors but they are getting scarcer than hens teeth.  It is also getting hard to find someone reliable with a self loading tandem truck to deliver the wood.   Cut, split and delivered averages nearly $250/cord.  The phone has been ringing consistently lately with people looking for dry wood.  I suspect many of the new stove owners will be burning green wood this year. 

[woodmills1]

I deliver a cord+ for 60 to 80 bucks
it is larger sized, too big for my processor
have quite a few buyers this year

[smwwoody]

What would you guys estimate the weight of a cord of hard wood

[WH_Conley]

I think Oak runs right around 6000 lbs per cord. That would vary some on the species.

[DouginUtah]

Try this website for weights and more...

http://forestry.usu.edu/htm/forest-products/wood-heating

[chevytaHOE5674]

Around here we use 2.5tons per cord as the common conversion factor for hardwoods.

[SwampDonkey]

We use that conversion to, but ours is metric tonnes so it's 500 lb heavier. 2.75 short tons. That's because we are using a cunit (solid 100 ft³) per cord.

Locally we can get split 20" firewood for $180-220 a cord. This season got mine for $220/cord. Hard maple, beech, yellow birch.

[ahlkey]

Placed an ad on Craigslist for Mixed Hardwoods at $80 dollars plus delivery and sold 48 cords within 2 days.   Will wait a little further before taking more orders but this is a good start and all of the orders came from outdoor wood boilers.