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Future of firewood?

Started by bkellyvtme, May 13, 2009, 05:38:27 PM

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bkellyvtme

I think firewood is going to take a big dive this year. The days of 250-300 in my area I think are going to be over. All the guys that can't sell thier logs are going to be flooding the market with firewood. I know a few guys are doing nothing but firewood to pay the bills that used to be paid by sawlogs. What do you guys think?

Bill_G

Yeh, Won't take long to flood that market. Prices are already way down.

Corley5

Everybody's getting into the business.  In a town 30 miles north of me there are three firewood processors within 4 miles of each other and soon to be a 4th who claims he's going to show the rest of them how it's done  ::)  Somebody's going to fail.  The market won't bear it, the price of hardwood pulp hasn't dropped any etc.  It's pretty tough around here to make a payment on a machine while buying 70 dollar a cord pulp and selling 16" face cords for 65 bucks in the dead of winter.  Prices are 45-55 right now and don't normally rise until August if they rise at all this season.  These guys aren't doing the math before they're jumping in.  A logger that has his own wood can do fine but he has to have time to log and do firewood which can be pretty tough and then if you hire someone you're behind again.  These guys are also going to find out that doing more for less doesn't work so well either.  I'd rather do less for more.  Been there done that  ;D :)  And then there's the beer money guy with an old truck and chainsaw who works cheap.  I'm not concerned though.  My machine is paid for and I've got a good customer base.  I've also got my own wood so I've got room to be very competitive if I need to.
Burnt Gunpowder is the Smell Of Freedom

Maineloggerkid

Here it's still booming. Not enough firewwod companies to fill the orders, and the prices go from $250-300/cord year round.
JD 540D cable skidder, and 2 huskies- just right.   

Loggers- Saving the world from the wrath of trees!

Ironwood

I have seen piles and piles of split wood rotting in the storage "bins". Very flat here since oil prices plumeted.


         Ironwood
There is no scarcity of opportunity to make a living at what you love to do, there is only scarcity of resolve to make it happen.- Wayne Dyer

chucker

  theres so many fire wooders here in northen minn. that the price of wood hardly left the 200.00 mark. the loggers are starting to sell their saw logs for firewood around 95.00 a cord for 100" of red oak and ash. aspen and poppel are still moveing yet ,but thinking its still from the winters slow down .... with the slow down the pulp yards are full to the brim and the lumber prices are going down yet ???? those of us that have our equipment paid for can hold out for better days ! the ones that have a large payment every month ?? this will be a hard one..... average price for green oak here produced for burning is 125.00 cd. dry oak is going for around 165.00 cd ......
respect nature ! and she will produce for you !!  jonsered 625 670  2159 2171/28"  efco 147 husky 390xp/28" .375... 455r/auto tune 18" .58 gauge

bkellyvtme

I'm sure if it is deflating here in VT or NH it will filter over to Maine sooner or later. I can't see how it won't.

ScottAR

Firewood here has never been as strong as even the numbers posted.
Probably because it doesn't get as cold for as long. 
But, with the ice storm this winter, you can't even give any away... 

Walk through the woods and pick up enough fall down for several
cord....  I took a trip south a month ago and noticed the trees looked
funny as they were not all broken. 
Scott
"There is much that I need to do, even more that I want to do, and even less that I can do."
[Magicman]

woodmills1

In my area I expect the double whammy.  That, is low oil price and ice storm effect.  I see stacks of cut wood everywhere or people cutting and splitting every saturday and sunday.  However, so far I have sold all of the home owner sized firewood I have picked up from my tree companies.  My regular buyers who cut split and resell are doing ok, but their other money makers are slow so, so I have been offering some special prices to them.

I have some nice 40 inch maple butt chunks ifin ya be interested :o :D :D
James Mills,Lovely wife,collect old tools,vacuuming fool,36 bdft/hr,oak paper cutter,ebonic yooper rapper nauga seller, Blue Ox? its not fast, 2 cat family, LT70,edger, 375 bd ft/hr, we like Bob,free heat,no oil 12 years,big splitter, baked stuffed lobster, still cuttin the logs dere IAM

chucker

 >:( WELL!! the word is out for the state of 10,000 emerald ash borers.. the word is to stop all movement of firewood? lol  now this is the hard part for those of us that make a big chunck of yearly wages selling firewood.. just wonder if the state will give me a displaced workers compensation? saw logs are not worth delivering for the low price nor the trouble of haveing to stock pile for a better day that might not come ....
respect nature ! and she will produce for you !!  jonsered 625 670  2159 2171/28"  efco 147 husky 390xp/28" .375... 455r/auto tune 18" .58 gauge

Sawyerfortyish

That is just plain stupid of any state to think that if you cut an ash tree it's ok to move the butt log as far as it has to go but god forbid don't move that insect infested firewood. Do any of you guys have trouble moving sawlogs from state to state? I have sold ash logs from my mill that went to NY and Canada from NJ last fall with no problems. If the top of the tree has insects so does the bottom.
  I'm getting 180.00 a cord right now. Nobody is cutting timber or clearing lots here. I'm grabbing every bit of firewood I can get my hands on. There's going to be a shortage here. I have not bought a load or had a load of logs offered me in at least 3 months. It's a good thing I have my own equipment to log and truck. This winters wood price will depend on just what the price of fuel is in August.

Ron Wenrich

We haven't been selling ash logs from state to state.  They go to buyers within the state.  But, we have exported oak veneer logs.  They have to be inspected by federal inspectors.  If there are signs of gypsy moth, they have to be debarked.  Its easy enough to require that of all logs in a quarantine zone.  But, you'll never get 100% compliance.
Never under estimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

Dodgy Loner

I thought I would earn a little extra cash last winter by selling the wood I cut last summer (about 4 cords) for $80 a truck load (about 1/2 cord).  I wasn't able to sell a stick, because there was a guy in town selling truck loads of green wood for $50 each.  Not just the wood, but he delivered and stacked it for free.  I believe he would have a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach if he actually took the time to figure out his costs and divide that by the time he spent.  He sold over 400 loads, or 200 cords, last winter.  That was enough to supply everybody in my county who was actually buying wood.  I know several people who claimed they had never bought firewood in their lives, but decided they couldn't afford to cut it on their own when he was selling it so cheap! :D
"There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey." -John Ruskin

Any idiot can write a woodworking blog. Here's mine.

logwalker

Well...if he did sell 400 loads I think he has a good idea how he is doing. Some people can work real cheaply and still be happy.
Let's all be careful out there tomorrow. Lt40hd, 22' Kenworth Flatbed rollback dump, MM45B Mitsubishi trackhoe, Clark5000lb Forklift, Kubota L2850 tractor

Kodiakmac

Firewood has been pretty stable in this part of Ontario for several years.  And I don't see a lot of people getting into it.  The big (okay, not that big) dollars are in selling split face cords in the cities (Ottawa, Montreal) in Dec-Feb.  You can get $120 CDN (100. US) for a face cord of good stuff: hard maple, hickory, ironwood...maybe a bit of ash. 

You can pick up $80.00 CDN a cord for split silver maple. 

What's going to make it difficult in the future on this side of the border is this greenhouse-gas crap.  Our Canadian cities are tripping over each other to be the first to come up with some new kind of nonsense.  Ottawa City Council has already had discussions about outlawing wood-burning devices within the city limits - a huge area that encompasses alomost one thousand square miles of rural area. 
Robin Hood had it just about right:  as long as a man has family, friends, deer and beer...he needs very little government!
Kioti rx7320, Wallenstein fx110 winch, Echo CS510, Stihl MS362cm, Stihl 051AV, Wallenstein wx980  Mark 8:36

Dodgy Loner

Quote from: logwalker on May 15, 2009, 11:50:41 AM
Well...if he did sell 400 loads I think he has a good idea how he is doing. Some people can work real cheaply and still be happy.

His wife is my secretary, and from what she has told me, her income subsidizes his "business".
"There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey." -John Ruskin

Any idiot can write a woodworking blog. Here's mine.

Gary_C

In this southern part of MN it's a different story. We do not have many loggers other than the weekenders that cut their own. The loggers we do have are not cutting any good stuff as the price is nil for sawlogs. So the demand for logs for firewood is very high and there is little available.

And the sales of woodburners is extremely high. One local CB dealer is now booked for installations out till late July.

I do have a lot of good red oak logs that I will cut for firewood and can sell all the 16" face cords that I can cut and split. Only problem is I cut and split everything by hand, don't even have a splitter. And I'm not about to buy a firewood processor right now.

And there is a big demand for biomass from the Energy Plant in St. Paul but they do not want to pay anything.

So there is a demand that is not being met right now and it will only get worse. But where the price will go is anybodys guess.

Another thing is the demand for wood pellets. There were a lot of pellet stoves sold last year and the people that bought them could not get pellets. I know of one new wood pellet plant in Wisconsin that started up this winter and sold everything they could produce to power plants in the EU. So wood pellets were in short supply and high priced.

So I am not sure where this whole biomass, firewood, and wood pellet thing is headed. Plus you add in the mulch demand and things are even more uncertain.

Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway.

Corley5

I'm wondering what's in the works to tax firewood sales as part of a climate change plan  ::) >:( :(
Burnt Gunpowder is the Smell Of Freedom

Scuba_Dave

I've been heating with wood for 12+ years now & have yet to buy any
My last house (7 years) I got a ton of wood from someone taking down trees
I cut it as I needed it, I had a huge pile in the back yard
Finally I cut up the bigger stuff & rented a splitter
I actualy brought some wood to this house (10 miles) when we moved
This house 3 large maples have been taken down
A big oak is dead out front, that's next

Every year I pick up truckloads of wood from people that don't want it
One area from 2 neighbors, they asked what I was going to do with it
Heat my house !! ??
I looked around, new neighborhood - NO chimney's

I have seen the advertised prices dropping for a while
With oil prices low we have already filled up for next year
Usually we go thru 1.5 tanks of oil max
I've put in new windows, new doors, more insulation
I "broke even" on the improvements - we used to use 3 tanks of oil

This year I completed my greenhouse - in early spring it was up to 110 degrees!!
I'm building a passive solar heater in it to recycle house air
I figure I can cut down even further on fall & spring heating

barbender

Gary that must feel ironic, cut the wood with that hi tech Ponsse and then have to split it by hand :) How's that machine working out for you?
Too many irons in the fire

Gary_C

Right now that Ponsse is sitting and occasionally cutting some 16" firewood blocks, still on manual feed as I haven't yet figured out how to program that computer to cut different lengths. Still beats a chainsaw.  :D

So far I have not spent much time cutting with that Ponsse. It was late this winter before I got it home and then spent most of the remaining time finding the usual problems left by the previous owner. Hope to be back to work with it late next week if all goes well.
Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway.

Kodiakmac

Just saw Dodgy Loner's comment:

"...there was a guy in town selling truck loads of green wood for $50 each."

Up here, if there's a guy selling firewood at a price that seriously undercuts (poor pun)the going rate, it's usually a sign that he's either drawing federal Unemployment Insurance benefits or he's on Welfare.  Either way, its a fraud - and I don't have any hesitation when it comes to reporting him.  I'm not going to let my hard-earned tax dollars subsidize my competition.



Robin Hood had it just about right:  as long as a man has family, friends, deer and beer...he needs very little government!
Kioti rx7320, Wallenstein fx110 winch, Echo CS510, Stihl MS362cm, Stihl 051AV, Wallenstein wx980  Mark 8:36

Corley5

There's been an ad in one of the shopper papers with wood for $48 a face cord with a four cord minimun for delivery plus they're buying standing timber.  The # is for a cell phone in the Petoskey area.  I just saw the same ad on Craig's List and they're selling it from Cadillac to Mackinaw at that price.  That's a DanG big area to deliver wood in for that much money.  To make a round trip from Petoskey to Cadillac would take at least four hours.
Burnt Gunpowder is the Smell Of Freedom

SwampDonkey

I have my firewood all in for this season, mostly stacked away in the basement and shop. Left 1.5 cords outside for the summer. The wood was cut last year and it's mostly sugar maple and beech, some yellow birch. It's off crown land, but my firewood guy has to buy it from a logger that has a license to harvest it. The price is $200/cord split and delivered. In my area, those of us that have burned firewood will probably always use it since a tank of stove oil right now is about $837 including taxes (900 litres). We have not seen any big fall in fuel prices around here. Some of you guys were posting gasoline under $2.00. Ours took a temporary dive until new years and has gone from $0.69/litre to $0.96/litre now. Well, when oil started spiking so quickly a few years back , $0.69/litre was just before one of them hurricanes around 2002 and ever since then any little threat to the supply chain has drove the price sky high. Them hurricanes never affected our refineries up here. Barrel of oil right now around $53, but the fuel prices are trending upward steadily. In the previous price revolution, $0.96/litre was when oil was $96 a barrel. It's nothing but racketeering. So as you can see, we'll not be heating much with stove oil if we can help it. Even wood pellets will be cheaper than stove oil. If prices are going to go sky high again don't expect the economy to recover real quickly. Add to that everyone's wage freezes.
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

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