No...I don't sell firewood...

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Badfish740

Minister of Fire
Hearth Supporter
Oct 3, 2007
1,539
I have a neighbor across the road who has a little parlor stove. A lot of folks in our neck of the woods burn wood for heat, but I'm in the minority in that I always have anywhere from 5-8 cords on hand because I burn about 5 cords a year in my furnace. My oil furnace is reserved for extended absences from home, and those oddball cold nights during the shoulder season when I don't feel like lighting up. Most folks around here burn on the weekends or when they want some ambiance or there's a chill in the family room. Needless to say the furnace has been working hard the past two days and I'm just beginning to approach the halfway point of my 2011-2012 wood supply. My wife just called to give me an update from home and mentioned that while she was out running errands one of our neighbors was bugging her again about buying wood :roll: This guy already asked me at the beginning of the season and I politely explained that I source, haul, split, stack, and store all of my wood myself-he stopped me mid sentence and said "but you have so much!" >:-( I probably should have ended the conversation right there but I then explained that the contents of my entire shed (which he could see because my gate was open) only contains enough wood for one winter. To which he replied-"that's an awful lot of wood for one winter..." This is besides the point that most of my splits are pretty large. The door on the Englander is 12" x 12" and it will accept splits up to 25" in length. I doubt that much of what I have would even fit in his stove. Anyone else have a neighbor like this? I guess I'm just being too nice?
 
Ask the guy if he'd like to go with you on your next scrounge and that you will split the proceeds if he pulls his weight. If you supply the saw, truck, and splitter, 90% for you and 10% for him sounds about right.
 
I don't sell it but I give some away if family needs some for a campfire, etc. Not much, but probably a 1/3 cord this year. Just the other day my wife's uncle called and asked for a "HUGE favor"...was having a New Year's party and needed a little for the firepit. I gave him about 15 splits of some very dry, but somewhat punky cherry. I told him it should smell good, burn hot, and not make a lot of smoke....and it did.
 
:lol: He will get it one year when the price of Oil and Natural Gas go even higher than they are now. I hope it doesn't happen, but it will eventually. You would think he would make a little time to get some wood, even if he doesn't burn much. Rather than try to make someone feel they "should" sell him some wood because you have so much. The next time he ask you to sell him some, say "Sure, $125/face cord. No more, no less. ;-)
 
My wood yard is open Suindays for DIYers who wanna haul their own wood. It never fails that I walk to the house for a cup of coffee when I get a break from the traffic into the yard and someone knocks on the door to get loaded. They can see MY wood shed just around the corner of the house from the side door. Before I can even tell them I'll be right down to the yard they ask ,,, "Can I buy a load of that wood in the shed"? My reply over the years has evolved from many different responses to " YEP,,,, $700 a cord,,,, back right accross the yard and I'll be out in a minute to help you load." A smart ass question deserves a smart ass response!!!!! Your not alone. Next time he asks the question,,,, make some $$$$$ !
 
My brother in law was asking if he could have some wood for his newly installed backyard burn pit. My response was sure, you come on over and give me a hard days work cutting and splitting and I will split the days pile with him. His response was "I will just buy a cord then".

Fine by me, next time I need to start a brush fire, I will stop by his house and ask to have a couple of gallons of heating oil to get it started.

I may have 10 cords out back, but I cut split and stacked each piece damnit.
 
I know I wouldn't sell mine either. My neighbor helped me carry the hearthstone in the house but laughed and said no way would that heat my house. WRONG, I say no way is that truck with the round tank stopping at my house. Guess who's right? Lol.....He mumbles when I talk to him about the stove or my wood piles, and of course I always say, " seen you got filled again"!. :)
 
I get that all the time especially with guys I work with,weekend warrior burners my answer has always been NO! Working in wood is well ,as we all know a Bbuster,no one will ever lend a hand in the summer helping out when it's 90,all too busy. I even went as far as to steer them to where they could get cut rounds real cheap still no takers. My best answer is IF you wanna get and burn a woodstove FIRST get a wood source,one never has enough even though I'm 3 years ahead. Just waiting for the ground to freeze hard so I can get a Mack truck to back into my wood cutting space with a load of oak logs.
 
If a neighbor asked me, I'd be nice about it.
If I had extra, I'd sell or give him some. Get paid back down the road when I needed a favor. Or help on future wood cutting trips.

Being nice & friendly to neighbors is important to a neighborhood. (but could get abused by some neighbors, but that's rare & fixable) ;)
A few use wood, but most have NG heat & a "gen set" for power failures.
The few that do, have their own stash of wood.
Would be great to have 2 guys going to cut wood, seems 2 guys takes 1/3 the time per load.
I'd try to get them addicted to wood & love to have the help & a cutting companion. :)
Extra set of eyes for a good scrounge too!
 
It sounds like an easy way to handle the situation is to sell some. Is there a price at which you'd be willing to sell?
 
I have eight cord of wood css. I only use about 2 a year so I do have some extra. I never advertise but I do get enough people to ask that I could easily run myself out of wood. My solution to this is sell the wood at a premium. I sell the wood at 125 a truck load. The folks who buy are told upfront that they could find it cheaper if they looked around, but I have quality and most folks pay for quality.
 
Do what the oil companies do and let the futures market determine your price for wood. The answers are right here.

https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/articles/fuel_cost_comparison_calculator/

If they're selling heating oil at $3.75 per gallon then on a BTU for BTU comparison (80% efficiency for oil and 75% for wood), your wood is worth about $625 per cord. I just sold all of my wood to my neighbor to pay for oil as I won't be able to burn wood this winter. Sucks..
 
My wood processing area is out front by the road while my hose is set way back out of sight. It's not unusual for people to see as much as 12 cord of wood there going through the various stages of being processed. Eventually it makes its way to my woodshed out behind my house, but the wood could stay stacked out by the road for a couple of years. Nobody has ever asked if any of it is for sale. Around here people know how much wood one needs to lay up.

I did have less than a cord of Aspen that I wanted to get rid of so I gave it to my neighbour.
 
My neighbor asked me if I was going to start selling firewood. I told her no, that was for this winter and hopefully next. She replied, that will rot before you use all of it! I told her it wouldn't and then over the summer I added three more cords. Sad thing is, they supplement with wood and are about to start burning locust that was cut green in July but never split. If they are I might trade them even up for some seasoned stuff. I have seen the oil truck make at least one delivery so far.


fv
 
fireview2788 said:
She replied, that will rot before you use all of it!


This is one of my favorites that I've gotten from people. I ask them if their house is rotting! :lol: Keep it dry and off the ground and it will last plenty long.
 
My firewood is way to pricey, the last guy that asked me if I would sell some when I priced it to him he thought I was joking :bug: and I politely told him I wasn't. He got a strange look on his face and mumbled something about it costing 10 times less down the road.
 
Next time tell him there's plenty for sale on CL!
 
rdust said:
fireview2788 said:
She replied, that will rot before you use all of it!


This is one of my favorites that I've gotten from people. I ask them if their house is rotting! :lol: Keep it dry and off the ground and it will last plenty long.

We must have the same neighbor. I have about 10 cords right now and my neighbor said it would rot before I used it. He was off to cut some wood to use this year. I wished him luck. I didn't want to argue with him.
 
I sold 5 cord mid-summer that was destined to be burned this winter. A little would have ended up in the primo stock but most was mid range stuff. Paid for some long overdue equipment maintenance and motivated me to got off my ash and burn all the junk wood that has been accumulating. I don't think I would sell the primo stuff at any price as I need it when it gets cold but letting the mid range stuff go to finance the operation is a-ok with me.
 
I've had similar experiances. One nieghbor was on the foreclosure list in the newspaper, and he was getting down to the last face cord. My sons delivered a cord and told him to try it out and he could replace it or buy it after the winter was over. He did pay them when he was working again, and he continues to be an excellent nieghbor.

I do sell some face cords to cover expenses associated with burning. I tell folks it's cheaper on Craigslist but this stuff will burn right, and burn right now. ; )

ATB,
Mike
 
I've had my stacks eyeballed by neighbors also who think I'm a hoarder. The hardest point to get across to them is IT WON'T BE READY FOR 2 YEARS!!
 
Around here a lot of folks burn wood to heat their homes so having stacks of wood isn't so unusual . . . and in fact my closest neighbor has told me my stacks look very good and are "better than money in the bank" -- he obviously gets it.

No one has ever approached me about selling my wood . . . and to be frank . . . I wouldn't do so . . . I put in a lot of time and effort to heat my house cheaply. The closest I ever had was when my cousin asked if I would like to cut up the tree length wood for her husband since I seemed to "enjoy" cutting wood so much . . . A) While working with wood is one of my favorite chores, it is not really a hobby where I love to go out and just process other people's wood with no reward and B) It was hard to feel bad for her or her husband since this wood has been sitting there in tree-length now for over three years and when she asked me it was September or October and they needed the wood for this winter.

Some of my friends who do not heat with wood however poke fun at me and my wood piles . . . but just a bit . . . when I explain that I haven't filled my oil tank in two (my wife thinks it has been as long as three) years since wood heat is my primary heat source and the woodstove needs good fuel.

One of my friends often works with me . . . and we end up splitting the wood we process during the day . . . it's kind of nice since we have someone to help share the load, talk to and if something bad happens we can help each other.

Another friend is not a wood burner . . . but he has helped me a couple of times . . . and so I have made sure to keep a small stack of short wood aside for his new winter camping stove, another stack for use when we go camping in the summer (mostly my punks, chunks and uglies) . . . and when I run into some apple wood I tend to pull some of that aside for him and his smoker (and typically I later get a call that he has some smoked meat for me.)
 
I have a couple piles of oak about 10 foot from the road. I don't have much traffic on my road, but I'm supprised someone
hasn't asked if they can have it.
 
Trktrd said:
I've had my stacks eyeballed by neighbors also who think I'm a hoarder. The hardest point to get across to them is IT WON'T BE READY FOR 2 YEARS!!

EXACTLY the word that my family and friends call me--and I have less than 4 cords on my property. When I explain that I will burn that much in year and am behind the game, they seem to think I am lying. I enjoy giving family or friends a little here or there as needed, but it gets kind of annoying when they ask for the wood and then mention something about me having too much or being a hoarder.
 
My neighbor thinks I'm a freak-show when it comes to my wood supply (about 18-19 cord last count). This is coming from a guy who is never more than 7 days ahead. Cut it and burn it the same day.
 
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