Complaints of wood being hard to get

In another forum I saw posted a bunch of newspaper articles in Maine and New Hampshire reporting the same.

Around here I did notice that the big mulch yard on the main street that does wood.. they always have a huge mountain of firewood show up in August and I watch it slowly shrink until its gone around Thanksgiving. This year the pile was gone by the end of September.

Having said that friends I know who buy wood haven't mentioned any particular trouble.

This may not apply to all states, but if you live near state land, contact your local DNR and see if you can get a firewood/fuelwood permit.

In Michigan, they are $20 and last 90 days. There are very strict regulations on them (cannot use an ATV, must use a truck and hand cart, etc) but I can get 5 full cords a year of dead wood.

So far, I've gotten around 2 face cords of ash and gnarly oak, seasoned well enough in the woods to where I literally cut it, split it, and burned it that day. That alone was worth the $20, and I can get LOTS more.

Yes, it's extra work, but labor is free if you can do it, and heating for free is even better.

Ditto with the DNR.

A guy here at work has a neighbor who sells wood to people in Saint Louis. He said this area has had a hard time coming up with wood this year aswell. A chord last year would have been 50, this year it's 65. I think a lot of it has to do with the wood restrictions, dealing with the EAB.

There's still tons of craigslist adds here for free wood. Got saw will travel

In past years there has always been a few adds for log loads on CL in may area. This year none. I even buzzed around the ads on CL from one end of the state to the other a about early Sept. nothing. EAB isn't the reason although may be a small contributing factor. Basic buzz is the work available in the shale oil fields, chip burning power plants, and some of the paper mills paying really well for pulp loads plus a coulpe other things I can't remember right now. Lot of ads for firewood on CL here, course most are not even close to being burnable this season, regardless of the adds hype.

Kudos to free market capitalism. There is lots of wood available all the time, although there may be a lag between demand and supply, and rising demand from various sectors likely will bid up the price of wood. In our area loggers have slowed up on cutting, not so much related to weather as related to low prices from the mills. The mills are the big demand driver for wood, so if mill prices are low, logging slows down, and since most stove wood supply is a byproduct of logging operations, when logging slows down so does available supply for stove wood.

The other side of the coin is that many of the articles have blamed lack of wood supply on the weather conditions of the 2013-14 winter and a wet spring/summer of 2014. While much of that might have some credibility, all of us who burn wood know well that for most wood a full summer and often longer is needed to properly season wood for the stove. Most wood that might have been cut do to weather conditions would not be ready for proper burning anyway for this heating season, and the impact of reduced supply may be more significant next heating season. Of course, for all those who burn unseasoned or green wood, this is not a problem, except for smoke to bother neighbors and creosote to start chimney fires, or worse.

26 years in the firewood biz and I've never seen wood supplies this short.
The easy wood is spoken for at very big $$$.
If you want to scrounge or buy less than desirable wood ,,, it's out there,,,,,, just not easy.
A friend of mine works for one of the largest pallet manufacturers on the east coast and the owner told him that current wood market conditions are here to stay for 2 + years.

Can't say that I've seen a difference around here. Friends that buy had no problems & paid the same as last year. Scrounging seems about the same.
Firewood is still a very local market of course.
So long as a market doesn't develop for tree service wood I'm comfortable with continued free supply. Random crap found in yard trees will probably keep them worthless for a while.

NH here, and yes, Free wood is virtually IMPOSSIBLE to find now a days. seems like everyone knows what they got even if they don't burn it. I haven't found a scrounge worth driving to since this time last year (and at that time I paid like 30$ for it) (about a cord of black birch logs)

The price of seasoned cord wood keeps going up as well.

I'm set for the next few years, but I don't know if I will be able to keep ahead by just cutting trees on my own 3.5 acres.. With that said, people in the north east still seem to be scared of Pine and softwoods, so at least those are still readily available for free.

edit, just saw on Craigslist - 8-10 cord grapple loads are going for 1350!$!$!$ http://nh.craigslist.org/grd/4691108810.html

In NW police state NJ there is only a couple area's the public can get wood, the closest still 30min drive, is high point state park, you have to get a permit and they charge by the cord. The terrain is terrible and the "wood season" is only 8 weeks, what really gets me is that we have loads of state parks, private city owned water sheds, and federal property with absolutely no forest management. Everyday I drive 10 miles down a county road that cuts through Newark Water Shed property and I get to look at tons of down tree's from all the storms just lying there rotting away, it kills me to see it but if you pull over with a saw you will get a ticket for trespassing.

Yes, many months ago I talked on here about how it was "slim pickings" as far as being able to get good scrounges, it just wasn't there in the compost sites like it had been before, people holding on to their wood because of really making "withdrawals" on the supply because of last Winter. It might last a bit as someone said, then we'll have a few milder Winters and you won't be able to give wood away, or some nasty storms will rip through and we'll have tons of downed wood like when Sandy came through and the storm the year before-it goes in cycles....

ColdNH said:

edit, just saw on Craigslist - 8-10 cord grapple loads are going for 1350!$!$!$ http://nh.craigslist.org/grd/4691108810.html

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Given the price increase of wood (and everything else) over the past 5-7 years, that's really not a bad price.... Most grapple loads hardly come in at over 6-7 cords, yet advertised as 8 We burn slightly less than 4 cord for the season (Primary heat only), so $1350.00 for two years of heating 20 minutes North of Bow, is a deal for me

potentialburner said:

See this: http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/rural-living/324711-wheres-wood.html

Note that this is not people trying at the last minute to get wood, this is people in Northeast saying that the suppliers they've been using for years have dried up and that competition from pellet and chip mills is drying up the supply of firewood in the market.

Obviously if you cut your own from your own property this doesn't affect you, but lots of people buy their firewood. Any comments? Anyone else seeing this?

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Yea I'm seeing this in ohio. Good cords are going from $220 on up. I found a cord of Eco bricks runs around $170. More consistent burn, less ash, less smoke. They worth it on price and worth it on hassle if u have to go along distance for wood. Something to look into to compare btu/$.

No issues around here this season. But we shall see....

My "go-to" guy still has a good supply. Good stuff, too. Hickory, oak, beech, and ash, mostly. The price is up $5 for 40 cubic feet since last year, but it's still a bargain. And the stuff he sells was split at least a year ago. He will MM on site to prove it. I feel fortunate to have a quality, honest guy in the game. He makes supplementing the scrounge worry-free.

I talked to a guy in the tree biz this week and he mentioned that the wood suppliers are increasing their prices because if the firewood guys don't want it, they drive it down the road to Newburgh and sell them to be made into chips. I'm told Europe is paying top dollar for wood chips to make pellets. The guy I talked to is charging $255 for a loose cord (185 cu. ft.), but charges for delivery on top of that. He's got mostly oak and locust that's been split and seasoned for a minimum of a year. He's charging $950 for bulk logs and is fairly honest by saying it's probably 6 cords,while everyone else is saying they provide 8-9. Since this is our first year burning here as we just moved here, I'm going to have to supplement with buying wood or bricks until what I'm cutting seasons.

Yeah, I started a similar thread a few weeks ago.

Slim pickings for scrounging and buying cords here in CT!

I should be good this year and an to buy cords (wet if needed) to replace what I burn to start stocking ahead.

There's a shortage here on the supply side. Green cords go for $230. & up! There is a guy in my town who is actually selling seasoned wood for $300./cord.

Me? I get paid to take my fire wood away. Just sayin...

I dunno. I always make sure and order my wood in April. The temps are above 40. The stoves are shut down. The last thing anyone wants to think about is wood. Thats when I make the rounds, start calling my forester guy, and schedule a delivery.

He only advertised this year from April to Mid June and then filled up with orders on the waiting list.

This is all log length though. I can't even fathom purchasing processed wood. Prices haven't gone up this year imo, and neither has availability on craigslist where I am. but it is pretty rural.

judging by the replies, certainly seems like the northeast is taking it worse than in most areas. Seasoned wood is about impossible to find up this way, and, as another poster noted above, most people know what they have and aren't letting any of it go.

The suppliers around here seem well stocked. However, there definitely aren't as many scrounges this year.

Not at all. I scrounge all I can get. Posted an ad on Craigslist looking for any sort of firewood and before noon the next day I had received 13 phone calls from people in a 15 mile radius from me all looking for me to come and take some off their hands.

I am more fortunate I guess. I grab all I can from jobsites throughout the year then I scrounge on my property/adjacent woods in the winter when the brush isn't so heavy. I just saw another blowdown 40' off my driveway when I got home this afternoon. I have a standing dead and a blowdown from last year to get after when I have time but I'm out of room for rounds until I burn some of my stacks this season