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firewood processing

Started by tw3006, February 18, 2009, 05:33:55 PM

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tw3006

i have a wood processor and was maybe looking into processing log length firewood for other people, figured i'd post to see if there was any one who might be interested in hiring a processor and what the going rate for processing was.

cheyenne

Seems to me your puting the cart before the horse. That's an exspensive piece of equipment to maintain without a market for it....Cheyenne
Home of the white buffalo

Corley5

I get 45 bucks a pulp cord if they have a method to load the processor and 50 if I take my Bobcat along.  I do very little custom work for the main reason that I don't want to enable any competition  8) 
Burnt Gunpowder is the Smell Of Freedom

tw3006

cheyenne... i sell firewood on the side, im 23 and i like to work, so when im not logging and doing tree service, i do firewood, i figured i'd post to see how the custom processing market was, i bought a cord king 60 with 700 hours on it, 2 years ago and now its paid for, so i guess i have my cart hooked to my horse and the carts loaded with wood and ready to go. thanks for any ideas about the market for this -tw

cheyenne

Yes you do but your post didn't reflect that. You have my ultimate respect for being 23 and doing your own thing and being successful. As far as the processing market goes I don't have a clue but I don't think there would be much of one. But I've been wrong before and 1 or 2 jobs is better than no jobs and I know your smarter than to work for free. Where in Vermont.....Cheyenne
Home of the white buffalo

tw3006

Cheyenne, no disrespect intended, its just i work hard for what i have, with no deep pockets to back me, actually no pockets to back me.  But anyways thanks for the good words of advice...... had i not had a market already. Im in Wilmington Vermont right near the massachusetts border. thanks for understanding -tw

cheyenne

If there's ever anything I can do to help you let me know....Cheyenne
Home of the white buffalo

tw3006

Cheyenne thanks, same goes for you

woodsteach

Down here most everything is done by the hour.  Custom milling and custom firewood processing.  I just found an ad for $90.00/hour from my site back to my site.  I know of at least one of his customers that repeats yearly.

woodsteach
Brand X Swing Mill, JD 317 Skidloader, MS460 & 290, the best family a guy could ever dream of...all provided by God up above.  (with help from our banker ; ) )

SwampDonkey

tw3006, were you planning on going off site with your equipment, or buying or cutting your own logs to process at your own lot? Around here I don't know of anyone going off their premises with a processor unless it's for wood they possess a crown lands firewood permit. The wood becomes theirs after a fee is paid for a set volume to the DNR, then they sell it as their own firewood. Sometimes what happens on sugar bush leases on crown land, the leasee has a management plan to thin the sugar bush. The wood is either used or sold as firewood or pulp. Some of those sugar leases are several hundred acres.
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2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

tw3006

swampdonkey, there are people who do mobile firewood processing, they go to people who have a inventory of firewood logs, charge a certain price per cord, to cut and split it, then move on to the next customer. This is the type of thing I am inquiring about as i already do my own wood processing, just looking into something extra

cheyenne

Seems like your customers would be mostly your competators. Thats a funny thought.   :D :D :D...Cheyenne
Home of the white buffalo

tw3006

it seems i may not be interested in processing for others anymore.  :D  I'd hate to help my competition...not that they have much of a chance anyways........ 8)

stonebroke

Just make sure you make as much money processing as selling and you will do all right. If all you do is processing then they can mess with delievery and collections and actually selling. It would simiplifly your life.

Stonebroke

cheyenne

It would effect your insurance rates also....Cheyenne
Home of the white buffalo

gunman63

If u did processing for the homeowner, a truck load here and there, I dont think your helping your competition at all. If i could get $50 a cord processing, (from the competition)I would  do all i could, then i wouldnt have to sit on money  that u spend on wood and  then delivery too.

Engineer

Hey TW,

You might have yourself an interesting niche market.  I see (as do you) people's yards where there's 8-10 cords of wood sitting there, dropped off a log truck for firewood.  You might be able to convince some of those folks that for $xx a cord, or per hours, you'll cut and split their firewood, thus saving them the TIME of doing it themselves.  As long as you're not trying to do that for a living, just on the side, I don't see why you couldn't make a few bucks at it. 

How far are you willing to go with your rig?  I could imagine that you'd have plenty of customers if  you were willing to go up to an hour in any direction - Bennington, Brattleboro/Keene, Springfield, or even south to Greenfield, MA. 

Nice to see other FF members from my area - I'm just over the mountain in the Bennington area, but I spent the past three days in your town, just up the road from the White House Inn doing some soils work and surveying.

tw3006

mr Engineer. who are you working for around here if you dont mind me asking. I usually get all the orders i need within 10-15 mins of my house so i suppose if I traveled jsut outside that range it wouldn't hurt me much. Plus it would be nice to not think about delivery and log length wood. So maybe it would be alright.

Meadows Miller

Gday

Tw3006 Im a 4th gen firewood cutting/Logging & Sawmillng family  ;) 8) Your on the right track  with wanting to get more equipment utilisation outa your gear Mate  ;) With the copetition dont worry about them just keep your rate to them alittle higher than what you can do it yourself for  ;) ;D Ive done a power of firewood over the years but the works a little harder than i want to do these days  ;) :D I use to do alot of larger trees to give you an idea the biggest one an old ringbarked Red gum i got about 15 cords out of it  ;)  ;D 8) a full semi load  i use to just do motor manual and load the trucks by hand  thats probley why im a little over it ;) :D ;D

ive looked into proccesors afew times as i have mates in the game up on the murry river about an 1 to 2 hour drive away as thats where 90% of melbourns firewood comes from thease days Every year they ring and ask ifin im intrested in going up for the season  as they are allways looking for Larger more automated contractors (and Id shown intrst in the past  ;) ) as they have alot of blokes just using chainsaws & loaders  ;) Bulk contract rates here run at the $100 (unsplit)to $130 (split)per cord in the stockpile  basicly how it works is they pay the roialty and give you an area to work out of You skid the heads about 1 to 4 cords worth per tree to the fire wood processor buck the head process it into a stockpile that they then load onto trucks from  ;) You get paid weekly ;) they have blokes contract cutting anywhere from 1000 to 20 thousand cords per year  ;) to give you an idea Each of them sends around 100000 cords pa to melb  ;)

If you ever want to contract cut firewood  downunder  ;) one phonecall and ill Lump with All the work you could Want  ;) :D :D  ;D ;D ;) I only cut and del around 75 cords a year now just to keep my intrest in it going as i like doing it   ;) ;D ;D 8)

Keep up the Good Work Mate  ;) ;D 8)

Reguards Chris
4TH Generation Timbergetter

gunman63

WOW only have to run 10-15 minutes to deliver wood thats great, must be a city, how many cords to u sell a year, my runs are about  a hour total, up to 4 hours, but they pay good for the long of a run. so if u process firewood for a guy thats a hour away, it isnt goin to hurt your business at all, id say do all u can,.

bull

how many cord can you run threw the processor a day..... Im cleaning up 100 acres of ice storm damage averaging 6 cord per acre the pile is growing....
Its going to be a slow project but I will be yarding up 10 -20 cord per landing due to skid roads and wetland issues, may be interested in having a processor come in, just need to figure the $$ fessability !!  right now we're using chain saws and an old splitter...

Meadows Miller

Gday

Bull My old boss has 2 Hakki x2 firewood Pto powerd procesors 16 max dia  ;) running they cost him about $20 k au in 2002 each of them in Realy Rough Hardwood will do around the 10+ cord per day mark Ea with on bloke on each one We set them up with a simple dead deck infeed and would put around 2 cord through at a time then slipp the bucket on the forks of the loader and shift the split wood from under the conveyer  ;) ;D They where quicker on strater stuff in the 8 to 12 ' length range

You can also get a hyd log loader and infeed that will load the logs from ground hight also  ;) Hudson sells them in the Usa ;D

Reguards Chris
4TH Generation Timbergetter

tw3006

gunman, i live in a tiny town but a big vacation area, near a few big ski areas, lots of second homes. I do this as side work, but i usually do about 70-150 cords a year depending on how much cheap wood i can get and how much energy i have. I guess i might go a little farther than 15 minutes but definately no more than 15 miles.

tw3006

bull ..i dont know how many cords a day i can do because i usually work alone and deal with delivery. My guess would be if i just processed into a pile depending on the wood i could probably do 10-15. I think that sounds about right with someone loading the deck.  -tw

gunman63

TW- U sure got your niche market there, good for u. branching out for custom work wont hurt u then, if u go beyond that range say 50 miles or so. sounds like u have a good customer base, treat them fair they wont buy from anyone else once u have them, so no worries there either.  I think the 10-15 cord a day is about right, sure some days mite be more some less, if yoru working by your self that should be about right.

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