Relative Value of Firewood?

[Kirk_Allen]

Those little bundles are called Urban cords :D 

If you go to the city they call them city cords ;D

Although a urban cord is the same size as a city cord the city cord fetches $6.95

Time to head for the City....................................NOT :D

[ScottAR]

A complete ripoff is what I call em most days... ;D

[jjmk98k]

last I saw around this area was $225 / cord + delivery charges

[SwampDonkey]

Valued added. ;D Packaged or bundled amounts are aloud by Measurement Canada. Of course you are allowed to say you have half a cord or a 3rd of a cord for sale. Face cords are not exceptable since the lengths can be 16, 18, 22 or whatever inches, it's not a fixed amount from one seller to the next.

[tawilson]

Most of the firewood adds I see say 16" lengths. I sell by the cubic foot, so if someone orders 14" lengths they should be getting the same amount of wood. I figure 180 cu. ft. for a loose cord. From the tests I've done and customers comments, it is generous. The time saved not having to stack allows me fatten the loads up some. This whole firewood deal is arbitrary anyways, every time you stack a cord you'll get a different result.

[Murf]

Unfortunately, the customer is always right, even when they're dead wrong.  ;)

Same as everything else up here, this country adopted the Metric sytem some 25 years ago, but ask somebody what the temperature is, or how much snow we are getting, the answer will undoubtedly be in inches or degrees Farenheit.

Firewood is no different, if you quote somebody in thirds or quarters of a cord they will likely have no clue what you are saying.

The 3 most common terms for firewood around here are 12" face, 16" face or a bush cord. They represent a quarter, third and full cord respectively to us.

When I hand them a bill it states the quantity of wood in fractions of a cord as the law requires.

More and more people are demanding 12" length firewood, I've even had quite a few requests for 9" lengths.

[SwampDonkey]

I like my firewood 18 to 22 inches, preferably 22 because less handling and bucking and my furnace can even take 30 inch sticks if some small stuff ends up a little long. Usually my wood is cut random length, I don't measure each stick cause it comes out ashes in the end anyway. ;) That short stuff sounds like for kitchen stoves or little small heater stoves. Everyone has there own preference I guess. I don't know a single soul around here that can't measure a partion of a cord, weather it's a 1/2 , a 1/3 or whatever. If they don't know I'de soon show'm ;)

[rebocardo]

Almost all my customers want small pieces. I will not bother cutting large (over 14" x 4") unless the request is by a small deposit because I am not cutting it twice. Many people do not even have a sledge and wedge or the ability to split a small chunk themselves. So, small is beautiful :-D

[SwampDonkey]

I use stuff up to 10 inch in diameter without splitting. I don't split many peices just enough to block up the ends of my stacks in the cellar. The large chunks keep a fire longer, 7 hours versus 4 hours with small stuff. Yes I like small stuff to, mixed in the pile, it's almost as good as kindling to start the fire. All I need is newspaper to start them little dry sticks.   I had people look at my wood pile stacked outside and think it's small wood. People around here want big stuff. I guess that's the way it is in the north. ;D

[biglake]

About 30 years ago, the USFS had the idea that they would start measuring all wood (cords and BF) in 100 cubic feet units of solid wood called cunits. Not only were the local loggers confused, but the USFS Foresters at times were making mistakes in converting cords, etc. to solid wood. I'm not a Forester, but could see that this was an (Improvement) that was nothing but a big mistake. Some on the Board may have been involved with this conversion. I believe it died under it's own weight. Firewood around here sold by Logger's Cord (4'x4'x8'), Face cord (4'x8'x16" or 18") and Rick (?).

[beenthere]

I think there were a lot of edicts handed down from the 'higher ups' in the USFS to try to force the industry to go to metric units (look at their publications now with metric first and english in parens).  Hard to convert that way (hard to do it any way).

I was in Turkey once, where they were importing 100" pulp wood from Canada. They were quite upset that they couldn't buy 3 m wood, and it was causing a big problem at their Govt.-owned pulp mill. Seems the grinding process was designed for 1 meter wood lengths. When a 100" stick from Canada was cut up, there was a short piece (21") left over, and no one knew what to do with it. There were huge ponds full of these short lengths of wood left over. Their solution, was to get the woods cutters in Canada to switch to cutting 3 meter wood so they could buy it when they needed a shipment. 

[SwampDonkey]

biglake,

We still have a mill here buying softwood logs by the cunit. They scale by the  tonne also.

beenthere,

I'll cut'm any length they want'm. It's the buyers call. It's just that 100 inch is standard for mills here and in Maine. That way if a mill stops taking deliveries (which is common in this racket) you can sell the wood to another mill that is going wide open. See the logic? ;D

[Cedarman]

You may wonder why those city people buy city cords at that high city price.
Well, this dude just bought a couple of bottles of wine and has a hot date for Fri eve.  This little package of firewood will set the mood for the evening. He hopes that wood will make for a lot of heat. And we're not talking fireplace heat here. ;) ;) ;)

[bull]

I sell packaged fire wood and if someone is willing to pay for it. How am I riping them off. In this area most condo assc. do not allow storage of large amounts of firewood although every unit may have a fireplace or woodstove....   "Dirty" firewood doesn't look good to the average YUPPIE !!  I wholesale 1 cubic foot at $3.00 or Retail it @ $6.00...   There is alot of work involved in bundling 128 cu/ft and my time is worth money --- the customer is paying for customer service and they are getting what they pay for....  really makes cutting and splitting worth while... Im also working inside my nice warm shop out of the weather..... When I can't be doing something outside.....

[spencerhenry]

i have to agree, no one is getting ripped off if they see what they are getting, and know the price. i walk into a liquor store and see a 6 pack of my favorite beer. it costs $2 more than at another place, am i getting ripped off, no. i can leave and go to the other store. to me someone is only getting ripped off if you tell them they are getting a full cord, but deliver 3 face cords of 12" material.
every year i have about 75 customers. probably 85% of them dont know what a face cord is, or a full cord. i lose alot of customers when i quote them a full cord price being 3 face cords. i try to cut my wood about 16" but it always varies to the long side, ending up at about 18". so when i deliver 3 face cords, they are actually getting a little over a full cord. unfortunately most of my competitors sell only 12" or 14" wood, and it is all split VERY small. so they sell a face cord, and so do I, but my customers get 20 to 30% more wood. i have had the competition call me, pretending to be a customer. i tell them to be wary of a $250 full cord of split oak, when the going rate for a true full cord of split delivered and stacked oak is about $450. they will actually try to argue with me about what a full cord is. i have been told by customers who know it all that a full cord is 4x4x6!
but here in colorado there is no law about firewood volumes, and vast ignorance or confusion amongst buyers as to what any term of volume means. i have also seen people advertise, and sell "pine" when it is actually spruce. but who cares, if it has needles it must be a "pine tree"

[SwampDonkey]

spencerhenry,

Sounds like some real chaos.  :-\

[rebocardo]

> do not allow storage of large amounts of firewood although every unit may have a
> fireplace or woodstove

Yes, 100% correct. I had one customer where his only available space was the back of his unit near his outdoor grill. A 1/3 a cord barely fit there and he had to store some in his house at that.

My wife works with a guy that loves his hot winter fire, but, has no outside storage. So every other day my wife brings him a 19 gallon tote filled with firewood in her car trunk. Especially on Fridays when he has his female friend over on Fri/Sat. night. I have not charged him yet, just one of those things to make people happy 

[Murf]

Especially on Fridays when he has his female friend over on Fri/Sat. night. I have not charged him yet, just one of those things to make people happy 

Rebo, I suspect a certain young lady has his 'happy' well under control, I also suspect you could charge pretty near any amount of money and he would pay it, charge him ...  :D

[tawilson]

Spencerhenry.
Can I ask a stupid question? I know the difference between pine and spruce, but is there a difference when it comes to burning it?

[Minnesota_boy]

Our white spruce is less dense that any of our pines so it burns faster and gives off less heat per cord than pine.  I like it for the warmer days when I want a fast fire that doesn't burn all day.

[spencerhenry]

the difference between spruce and pine can be vast, as well as between the various pines. engleman spruce is common above 9,000' here. i dont have my data in front of me but if i remember correctly, engleman has about 17,000,000btu/cord. lodgepole pine has around 24,000,000, ponderosa pine 22,000,000. for comparison aspen has about 19,000,000. people call me for firewood, and i sell mostly aspen, they will badmouth aspen all day long, but will tell me how much heat spruce has, and how long it burns. when in fact spruce is one of the lowest in btu/cord. i am not sure of my numbers here, they are recollections, but the point is that heat value varies greatly between the species. i sell pinon pine for 60% more than aspen, spruce for 5% less. but the $/btu is about the same. i found the data on heat values for western wood species at the utah state extension web site.

[Sprucegum]

I think people bad mouth aspen and all its poplar cousins because the smoke stings your eyes and you get a lot of ashes.

Spruce smells nicer so you can sit closer to an open fire , and its not so hot ;)

[SwampDonkey]

I burn fir in my outside firepot, don't know the heat value, but I don't use it for heat. I just like to sit around a camp fire. It's like camping only I haven't gotta leave home.  ;)

[Ernie]

In NZ most guys just fill up their trailer, park it at the roadside and put a sign on it  eg. $80.00.  Some advertise by the truck load or you can buy bags at the local gas station for a fortune.  The firewood business is one of the very few areas where the government has not yet stuck their fingers.

Ernie

The best firewood is Manuka, you just cut it and burn right away no need to dry it. It's so dense that there is very little water in it.  It is also great for smoking fish, cheese, meat etc.

Ernie

[Gunny]

An old Russian immigrant used to come into our store (on the north end of Big Rapids, MI) back in the mid-'70s and talk about how he'd delivered firewood into the village way back in the '20s and '30s.  His standard unit of measurement for marketing back then was the "rick", one-third a standard "pulp cord" (128 cuft). 

That's the same standard used these days in this part of the state but I'm sure that there are as many marketing approaches as there are providers.  Prices, delivered, are actually lower today than they were back then.  Perhaps the worst way, from the perspective of the home-heating end-user, to purchase fuelwoods would be by the longwood cord.  Once cut to length and split and stacked, you're pretty lucky to get even 2/3 cord for the fires.  Plus, you got the pleasure of providing all the neat and dirty and dusty labor that's always associated with putting a stack of fuelwoods up for the drying season!

A dandy hint on stacking that was shared with me by an old-old dog from the north woods: Stack the wood tight enough together to let your chipmunks scoot through the stack but keep out the cat.  That allows for a dandy passage of air on most surfaces.

The kids' efforts are focused on the campfire bundles these days since our having sold the tree farm.  Our current woodlot, though, is more than happy to provide about a thousand little $5.00 bundles each season for the local private campgrounds (FREE KINDLING!).  A flyer here and there and it's sold as soon as it's processed.  Beats the heck out of trying to grow and sell pumpkins from the patch!

Be safe with those screaming chainsaws.