Wood customers 😂

[BargeMonkey]

 I know alot of us in here sell firewood, some of us also farm it and sell hay, same rules apply. I've had 3 calls in the last couple days about loglength, not my regulars but out of the blue calls, wanting a load of nice dry seasoned wood delivered asap because they are down to a few days left. 😂 the call today the guy actually had an attitude when I told him NO. Must be the cold air but I think people are getting dumber.

[Ianab]

Buddy is stockpiling split firewood out in a mutual friend's farm shed. All split and thrown in a stack, and he's replaced one wall of the shed with clear plastic so the wood will dry out better. He's got literally tons of wood in there now. He's not selling it, waiting till the weather gets cold (6 months) and people start looking for dry firewood.  He'll get premium $$ for it then.

This isn't his primary income, but they can retreat into the shed and run a saw and splitter on the days they get rained off their logging jobs.

Deal is he gets to use the shed as long as he keeps the owner in firewood, and there is a big pile of split Pine and Sheoak drying in her shed already to take care of that.

Now if you had to build a shed like this to dry wood, then it might not make sense, but as this freaking huge shed was sitting there empty the deal made sense to everyone.

[Firewoodjoe]

Barge this is why I don't miss selling firewood! They act like its a nonperishable sitting on the shelf that you can bring before there coals a gone!

[Southside]

Barge, Did your guy expect terms for payment too? Maybe you need to issue "Bargemart" credit cards!!

[mike_belben]

I have a lot of work to do this summer to get set up better.  Way less manual handling, rigid framed carport to keep it stacked under,  a full dump of some sort and not even starting til its stone cold and the other little guys are out of their limb piles.

  Im starting to get free wood dropped off now from tree guys and contractors so that cuts my labor in half and lets me be home more.  Do wood when i have the kids and wife is at work. 

[starmac]

Mike, when you cut firewood that tree guys drop off to you, do you cut anything and be able to sell it mixed?
I used to cut in New Mexico and we had 2 choices for firewood, alligator juniper and pinion, folks always wanted one or the other, never mixed.
I found I could make better money buying oak or mesquite in Oklahoma or Texas and hauling it in, than cutting it myself.

Here we have two choices too, spruce and birch, again buyers seldom want mixed loads, and since the new laws went into affect most do not want birch anymore.

[Frozendozer]

lol,,, yup we get some like that, waiting until its -30c and they are on their last stick of wood.   Sorry Buddy, but I aint to eager to venture outside at this temp to cut.   When they get upset, I tell them, should of ordered in the summer, but who thinks firewood in the summer, the folks who have gone thru the pain of not having wood at -30c.

funny when a bunch of us wood cutters get together and swap stories, seems like lots of us have had the joy of the same folks.   

[TKehl]

There are people here who take mixed.  Seems like most are specific though. 

Half want Oak and Hickory and believe nothing else burns.   :D  It must also be well seasoned, but they don't like the grey color and want it to be freshly cut and split so it looks nice.   :

Can't give Elm or Maple away.  Some will take Walnut.  And not enough Ash around to speak of.

Quite a few ask for Locust and Hedge.  (Rural area.)

Had a guy begging for wood a couple months ago and said he wanted Hedge.  Told him I could get him a load or two of Locust.  Said he already had Locust and wanted two loads of Hedge then acted offended when I told him no.     I only do Hedge firewood as a byproduct of cutting posts.  Too much of a PITA.

[starmac]

Sounds like a lot of similarities to the hay business. When we were in the business we always kept a thousand tons or two back, that was not for sale until spring the month before new hay could be baled.
This worked out well for two reasons, it brought a premium from the dairies that didn't buy enough to last till new hay, and gave us a boost on start up money for the year.

We used to sell a lot of hay to a dairy that used 150 tons a day, they bought most of it from cheaper suppliers and only from us when they were in a bind.
I took them a load and the guy would always walk around the truck while it was sitting on the scale and pull a stem from every bottom bale and taste it.
After he finished he ask how much it was. I told him I was just the driver and didn't know, he had made the deal with the boss. He then said he thought it was a price about 15 bucks a ton cheaper than what it was, so I told him, there was no thinking involved, you know the price and mentioned the real price.
He said he wasn't paying that, but would pay 15 a ton less,  then told me to pull off the scale and come in so we could call the boss, thinking we had hauled it 500 miles we would take his offer, so I pulled off the scale did a uturn and went 11 miles to deliver it to a different customer.
This was before cell phone days, so when I got back to Kansas to load the next morning, the boss wanted to know what had happened down there and sent me back with another load as they were in a bind, the guy no longer chewed on the hay or held me up anymore, just told me which barn to unload at. lol

[barbender]

Starmac, I like that one a lot!👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼

[mike_belben]

Mike, when you cut firewood that tree guys drop off to you, do you cut anything and be able to sell it mixed?

No, havent had any trouble but i segregate sale wood pretty thoroughly.  Anything junky goes into my kiln or toward burning the stump pile. 

The lowest stuff thats come in has been a little poplar.  I will bring a bucket or two as kindling which people like.  If i was trying to sell that as firewood it wouldnt fly unless in deep winter when desperation arrives.  We have predominantly oak forests with a minority of red maple, gum and sourwood in the understory, typically small.  Ill put in like 20% red maple into my piles and point it out to the customer to use as startup wood to get the oak lit.  Only one guy, who goes to our church actually, asked for all oak and i ran out before i could bring him another load.

I hold hickory off to the side.  The BBQs will buy it in summer when no one else is thinking firewood.   

[BargeMonkey]

Barge, Did your guy expect terms for payment too? Maybe you need to issue "Bargemart" credit cards!!

He called 2x today 😂 I'm not going to gouge someone but he didn't get any special deal.

Barge this is why I don't miss selling firewood! They act like its a nonperishable sitting on the shelf that you can bring before there coals a gone!

I bet I've had 10+ call this yr who where down to the last stick, had one of my regulars do it last week, didn't realize there wasn't any wood left under the tarp and called at 7pm on a Friday. Alot of my firewood is thru the state for energy assistance, as much as I would like to say no on the weekend I can't. They just sent out "emergency" money so now everyone gets another 2-1/3 cord, I've heard alot of guys up north are on green wood already.

Yeah it's funny, can't get the people to get hay or firewood when the time is right, we used to sell alot right off the wagon. The horse people are the worst, cry about the price, cry about anything possible. If we get on it early we may get a fair 2nd, there's no 3rd cut here, loading on a bunch of 4x5's tomorrow. The trick up here is to hold onto good hay when everyone else has sold early, we normally send a couple tractor trailer loads every yr down to LI, pretty dense bales this yr so it should weigh up good.

[starmac]

At the peak we baled 30 circles and usually got 5 cuttings a year, but we didn't have to bale it if it got any rain on it.
We dealt with mostly dairies, very, very few horse people, did I say very few horse people. We did put up a little horse hay for the accountant.

[thecfarm]

Hardware store same way. We sell wood pellets,people walk in want it delivered same day. They don't bother to ask if here is 6 ahead of them either.  We do it the hard way too. 50 on a pallet and we have to unload each one by hand. And than of course they can't help to unload either. Once in a while a customer will say,I have me,my wife and 2 boys to help. Than I help them.  ;D Takes alot to keep a store stocked and clean. That's why we have 5-6 people there every day.

[mike_belben]

I know that tune.  I unload and stack most firewood by hand. Lotta gloves and splinters.