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Firewood on pallets for delivery

Started by Timbercrk1, January 18, 2013, 11:41:32 PM

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Timbercrk1

Hello everyone,
        Love this site and have learned so much. My question is do any of you split and stack on pallets then wrap or strap it so it can be loaded and delivered.  Then put it in the place the customer desires. If so what kind of equipment are you using to load and unload and what kind of a trailer or truck setup are you using? Anyone using a mini walk behind skid like a toro dingo or boxer? My thinking behind this is most firewood is dumped in our area then you have to stack etc. What if it came prestacked for customer. Think there could be a lil niche and could make a little more money for it with less hands/labor touching wood more times. The machine to move etc would be added cost to me but I would already have this equipment for other parts of the business. What do you think?

beenthere

Timbercrk1
Sounds like a good plan to me.

Do you plan to keep the split wood a couple years for seasoning before delivery?

Do you have a plan to recover your pallets?
south central Wisconsin
It may be that my sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others

T Welsh

We do. Its for a local hardware store. They have us stack it on pallets and deliver it to them and they fork it off the truck. We use shrink wrap and skid steers.These pallets are not light I do not think a mini fork lift would work. We have 6 to 8 ready to go out Monday. I will take a picture of them so you can see what I mean. Tim

r.man

Saw it done for the first time this fall. My friend bought 18 face on pallets. The fellow made 3 trips with 6 pallets and a tracked skid steer on a fifth wheel trailer pulled by a four wheel drive truck without duals. Each pallet holds one face dumped in a mesh " bag " attached to the pallet. The skid steer has turf tracks on it and he says that he can put the pallets anywhere in your yard without grass damage. He does want the pallets and bags back intact next year. His price was a bit more than if the wood had been dumped in the driveway about 60 ft from where it would be stored. 100 dollars per face instead of 80. My friends main complaint is that the wood is split small for his liking and he has to reach in and retrieve it out of the mesh. Here is the site of the fellow doing it, I think he started up this year.
http://bartsfirewood.com/
Life is too short or my list is too long, not sure which. Dec 2014

Timbercrk1

beenthere: yes minimum of year for the seasoning and I have plenty of pallets for the wood. I will either let them keep the pallets or return them with a discount on next order for the return. I think I will also sell green wood for the first few years at a discount to get that side of business running quicker. will see.

Twelsh: Yes would love to see some pics. Good to see your in PA. similar hardwood. What species are you selling the most of and what kind of weight and quantity do you average per pallet roughly.

Rman: Never seen the bag setup like bart has. Pretty neat idea. Gonna look at that a little more and see the cost on them.

Thanks for the replies guys!!! :P

stavebuyer

I started experimenting with sort of a similar idea; palletizing and wholesaling to businesses that had a forklift. I like Barts rack and mesh bag idea. Palletizing to eliminate re-handling and having pre-measured quantities are very good things. My only concern is the cost of moving the loader. Looks like you would need customers to take several pallets at a time to justify it? Not so sure some kind of specialized trailer like a modified propane tank trailer to drop pallets might be needed as well.

r.man

The pallet/bag idea is good by itself even without a loader to move the pallets at the customers location. A trailer that drops pallets without a loader for smaller orders that don't need to be placed would be a cost and time saver.
Life is too short or my list is too long, not sure which. Dec 2014

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