Business Questions about Producing & Selling Cord Firewood

[mbcijim]

I have access to an endless wood supply. Personally own 400+ acres, and the family has a 1,000 acre plot.
I have loggers who will cut & deliver my own wood by the tractor trailer load for splitting. Some of our land is on well traveled highways. I could deliver the firewood there & have it split on site. It also would have it's own inherint advertising.

I was thinking of doing the business two ways:
1. Buying a decent, but small splitter, and paying people to go up and split on a per diem basis. Go up, cut wood on your own time, pay them say $60/cord. (I have no idea what fair price is).
Question: How many cords can be cut a day this way? They would have to cut the wood into appropriate size and split.
2. Buying a big $50k firewood production unit. The ones I've seen need someone loading a large log onto rollers. One person controls an automated saw and splitter. The splits fall onto a conveyor and produce a large pile at the other end. This would obviously take full time employees. Our business has 100 or so employees, so this isn't that big a deal for us.
Question: How many cords can be cut a day this way?

We have a population of 40-50k in our area and I am not aware of anyone else selling firewood.
Question: Is there generally a market for firewood? Will people come to me, or do I need to create the market?

Anything else I should know?

 

[RedRanger]

Keep it small or in other words in the family. My own supplier is doing just fine, thank you very much. He has bought a tandem dump, hires guys to do the splitting for him. And all he does now is deliver it. He was also smart enough to buy a couple more of those dumpsters so they can be used for chucking other crap into and he hauls it away.

And for many years this young man used to load his truck manually,and unload manually. Now he has seen how to do it sensibly, also by diverisflying those dumpsters can serve many other uses. So, even when those dumpsters are just sitting at a constructrion site, he is still making money.

Not a good time, me thinks to jump in to a huge capital expenditure. take it slow, plan it out, and you will be doing just fine, perhaps even before the economy picks up again. Just think it through very carefully, and think how many other ways your machinery can make you a buck.

Don`t just think wood by itself, think if I`m gonna make even a small investment? How can I reasonably make sure I get a return most of the time.??

 

[Hogwildz]

I have access to an endless wood supply. Personally own 400+ acres, and the family has a 1,000 acre plot.
I have loggers who will cut & deliver my own wood by the tractor trailer load for splitting. Some of our land is on well traveled highways. I could deliver the firewood there & have it split on site. It also would have it's own inherint advertising.

I was thinking of doing the business two ways:
1. Buying a decent, but small splitter, and paying people to go up and split on a per diem basis. Go up, cut wood on your own time, pay them say $60/cord. (I have no idea what fair price is).
Question: How many cords can be cut a day this way? They would have to cut the wood into appropriate size and split.
2. Buying a big $50k firewood production unit. The ones I've seen need someone loading a large log onto rollers. One person controls an automated saw and splitter. The splits fall onto a conveyor and produce a large pile at the other end. This would obviously take full time employees. Our business has 100 or so employees, so this isn't that big a deal for us.
Question: How many cords can be cut a day this way?

We have a population of 40-50k in our area and I am not aware of anyone else selling firewood.
Question: Is there generally a market for firewood? Will people come to me, or do I need to create the market?

Anything else I should know?

Firewood is a tough business. My old boss used to get logs in and I would cut & split them. We used a Super split log splitter, and it splits faster than any hydraulic I have ever seen or operated.
Not that I have operated every one. Full time, at the start, you should be able to do at least a couple to 4 cords a day, much more after you get in sync with the process.
Its the arms & you back that take a beating. I did that more than 20 years ago at this point.
Pricing varies from place to place.
I been getting a tandem dump, i think around 17' bed loads of cut mostly oak for $150.00 a load. Its about 3 cords of split hard wood. $60.00 a cord green wood is not a bad price at all. Especially if your splitting and delivering it, honestly, split, that may be a lil low priced. All really depends on what you need to make a profit. In your case sounds like the wood is free. So your ahead of the game. And word of mouth is what gets you business & repeat cutomers come with fair pricing & good service. I would also figure on replanting the areas you cut to renew supply for future. Again, you prolly have enough saplings around that that shouldn't cost ya much if any either. But all costs time at very least.
If your interested in selling oak & hardwood in cuts or log lengths and can deliver, I would buy a sheetload off ya.
I am north of you on the border of Luzerne & Columbia counties.
Just found out my guy has colon cancer, and now looking around to find a new supplier. I know my guy has other priorities on his plate, and can't very well blame him.

 

[cmonSTART]

As a consumer of firewood who got burned earlier this year by a newbie to the business, all I can say is be organized about it and make sure you are able to deal with demand.

 

[mbcijim]

I have access to an endless wood supply. Personally own 400+ acres, and the family has a 1,000 acre plot.
I have loggers who will cut & deliver my own wood by the tractor trailer load for splitting. Some of our land is on well traveled highways. I could deliver the firewood there & have it split on site. It also would have it's own inherint advertising.

I was thinking of doing the business two ways:
1. Buying a decent, but small splitter, and paying people to go up and split on a per diem basis. Go up, cut wood on your own time, pay them say $60/cord. (I have no idea what fair price is).
Question: How many cords can be cut a day this way? They would have to cut the wood into appropriate size and split.
2. Buying a big $50k firewood production unit. The ones I've seen need someone loading a large log onto rollers. One person controls an automated saw and splitter. The splits fall onto a conveyor and produce a large pile at the other end. This would obviously take full time employees. Our business has 100 or so employees, so this isn't that big a deal for us.
Question: How many cords can be cut a day this way?

We have a population of 40-50k in our area and I am not aware of anyone else selling firewood.
Question: Is there generally a market for firewood? Will people come to me, or do I need to create the market?

Anything else I should know?

Firewood is a tough business. My old boss used to get logs in and I would cut & split them. We used a Super split log splitter, and it splits faster than any hydraulic I have ever seen or operated.
Not that I have operated every one. Full time, at the start, you should be able to do at least a couple to 4 cords a day, much more after you get in sync with the process.
Its the arms & you back that take a beating. I did that more than 20 years ago at this point.
Pricing varies from place to place.
I been getting a tandem dump, i think around 17' bed loads of cut mostly oak for $150.00 a load. Its about 3 cords of split hard wood. $60.00 a cord green wood is not a bad price at all. Especially if your splitting and delivering it, honestly, split, that may be a lil low priced. All really depends on what you need to make a profit. In your case sounds like the wood is free. So your ahead of the game. And word of mouth is what gets you business & repeat cutomers come with fair pricing & good service. I would also figure on replanting the areas you cut to renew supply for future. Again, you prolly have enough saplings around that that shouldn't cost ya much if any either. But all costs time at very least.
If your interested in selling oak & hardwood in cuts or log lengths and can deliver, I would buy a sheetload off ya.
I am north of you on the border of Luzerne & Columbia counties.
Just found out my guy has colon cancer, and now looking around to find a new supplier. I know my guy has other priorities on his plate, and can't very well blame him.

I'll keep you in mind Hogwildz if I ever just want to sell wood. Sounds like you're in Shickshinny. I'm in the Pottsville area.

Do I understand that you can cut 2-4 cords a day with a splitter & chainsaw?

How much do you sell your split wood for? And can you sell all you split?

 

[JustWood]

Stay small. Saw,splitter,and pick up. Get a small insurance policy and get permission to cut tops out of logged woods. If you ever think of going BIG email me and I'll talk you out of it or talk you into buying my established business ready to rock. LOL

 

[Carl]

Before you go big time don't forget to check on the delivery limits of your wood. Pa may not have any but a lot of places state not out of the county while others have milage limits. You may not have as large a market as you may wish for.

 

[RedRanger]

Gotta jump in again. Make it as least labour intensive for yourself as possible. Otherwise, you are gonna get damn sick and tired of this business in a big hurry. It is not an easy way to make a buck :coolgrin:

 

[gibson]

Not an expert by any means but I know what people spend money on. What kind of wood is on that property? People pay big bucks for little bags of cedar, hickory, apple, etc, for their BBQ smokers. Chip it and ship it. You can use that if you want

 

[savageactor7]

If I were going to start an operation like that I think I would work for a person in that same business for 6 months or so and get the feel how to work efficiently. At first it seems pretty straight forward...but there has to be more to it than that or everybody and their brother would be doing it.

I have a neighbor down the road that use to do that (sell firewood in the off season of his excavating business) now it's more profitable for him to chip trees for co-energy and pellet plants than to hassle with the firewood. His reason was he couldn't get/keep the help to cut and split.

Best of luck with your endeavors.

 

[mbcijim]

Thanks for the tips guys. I'll have to think about chipping for smokers.... That's interesting.

I won't be doing any of the physical work. Our company has about 100 employees. We always have good guys looking for overtime work or extra work. My thought was put the equipment and logs at one location. Somebody wants to work extra? Send them up to split wood.

I have the logs, the place to do the work, and someone to cut & deliver the trees in log lengths to one convenient location. My desire is to tell my guys who want some extra work to go split some wood and I'll pay them a fixed fee per cord. I'm mostly interested in productivity and tools.

 

[JustWood]

Before investing a sheet ton of $$$$$$$$$ in processing equipment better take a close look at how many loggers are left in your area due to the downturn in the lumber business. Cheap pole wood is going to be a thing of the past when pellet mills pulp mills,cellulosic ethanol, and biomass to electric are all competing for raw product. You would be better off investing in logging or chipping equipment to supply the coming demand.

 

[Ken45]

If you are going to use existing employees, will your insurance cover them doing this work?

Ken