Most of my very dry campfire wood is sold. Lots of dead ash of my own and from tree trimmer. What percent should I keep moisture below before I sell it?
Locally "dry" firewood is less than 20% MC. Doesn't have to be bone dry, but at that level it burns fine and that makes for happy customers. .
White ash has a GREEN moisture content of 50% or so. Dead standing, it is a lot lower. Frankly, if it's camp fire wood, who cares as long as it burns? In practical terms, I take dead standing ash and cut and split it and wait oh, about 20 minutes before I can throw it on the fire.
I sell bundled firewood and gave up on trying to keep dry wood ahead of the bundling a long time ago. The best I can do is to process logs that have been sitting a while. The stuff I'm using now was cut over a year ago, hard maple and birch. It does dry a fair amount in the pile, but it is by no means "dry". I mix it with a fair amount of dead standing pine, spruce, and tamarack. I haven't had any complaints🤷♂️ It is split small for bundling, so that speeds the drying process, and by the time it has sat at a gas station for a month it is in good shape.
I have logs come in grass green processing them, water showing were the plunger pushed on them through the 4 way splitter, sold with in days. No complaints here either, cause its the only wood in the area, they can get.
Selling green firewood is fine, as long as you advertise it as that. "Fresh cut, will need seasoning", Local sawmill I do IT work for does it all the time, pine slabs from the main saw go through a processor and straight into a dump truck. They have a wait list to deliver it. But the customers also know that it's green, (birds were chirping in it yesterday), so the smarter ones are buying in the spring, so it's dried out by the time it gets cool again. They are also the cheapest, because there is no extra handling or waiting / storage for the wood to dry. Other guys are selling dried hardwoods, but you are paying a premium for that.
But if you are specifically selling "campfire" wood, by the bag or bundle, then it's reasonable to assume the buyer wants to light a nice cheery fire tonight. Dry(ish) wood is what will get you the repeat customers and word of mouth advertising.
Of course Ash is a good choice here, because it burns OK when not fully dry, and also dries quicker than most.
You could always grab some sample sticks and light a small campfire? If you are happy with the result, fry up some lunch, and then you can sell it with a clear conscience. You know it's "dry enough".
Quote from: Old Greenhorn on May 14, 2022, 10:15:03 PM
White ash has a GREEN moisture content of 50% or so. Dead standing, it is a lot lower. Frankly, if it's camp fire wood, who cares as long as it burns? In practical terms, I take dead standing ash and cut and split it and wait oh, about 20 minutes before I can throw it on the fire.
"Ash wood wet or Ash wood dry, a King can warm his stockings by".......
Standing dead Ash burns even better.
I try to keep around 20%. I sell about 50 bundles a week to one place, They are on the road to the Buffalo National River in the summer and it don't slow much in winter. I use 99% oak split from sawmill slabs.
I don't get too boxed up over campfire wood either. I usually use soft maple so it dries quick. If it dries a couple weeks on the cement pad I'm fine. No complaints ever. Now bundlewood I want a little drier. I have an advantage though. I split it smaller and put it on a wagon off the processor elevator. I park it one of my brothers greenhouse for a few weeks and presto...bone dry!! That's my free firewood kiln lol then make bundles right off the wagon
I sell a pine / hemlock campwood to a local rv park. Mostly repeat, seasonal customers. I sell.it green. They start burning it within the week...plenty of bugs along the river, the extra smoke from the green wood helps with that
Had my wife pick up a new battery for my meter delorme j lite. Split a piece of ash I split a month ago, center of the piece read 19%
What would be a good starting price for a truckload of dry campfire wood cut split and delivered say within a 20 minute drive.
Comes out to about a 1/2 cord thrown in semi loose with 8" sideboards on top of truck bed. All softwood .
The area is ripe with summer people at their lakefront camps.
Would want to make it $$ worthwhile for the time and effort or not do it at all.
Not really hungry if you get my drift just have plenty of the stuff from culling and cleanup.
My campfire, chiminea, fireplace wood is all the stuff I do not feel will be good for a wood stove in winter. I split it and a conveyor drops it in the metal crates. I move it with forks. can load on a trailer or truck. given or traded with friends or neighbors. it is always taken to BSA campouts nearby. the crate can be tipped out of the back of a track or with help, we have unloaded the whole crate. It is all the stuff I mill, like cottonwood, ERC, pine, and slabs from elm and sycamore.
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woodroe
QuoteWould want to make it $$ worthwhile for the time and effort or not do it at all.
Tell us what you would specify for "$$ worthwhile for the time and effort". I think that is the key to your question that we cannot answer for you.
Quote from: beenthere on May 21, 2022, 10:26:39 AM
woodroe
QuoteWould want to make it $$ worthwhile for the time and effort or not do it at all.
Tell us what you would specify for "$$ worthwhile for the time and effort". I think that is the key to your question that we cannot answer for you.
OK lets see , Probably have 2 hrs getting it (1/2 cord) down, limbed, out to the yard, bucked up ,split and stacked for drying . Another 1/2 hr loading it, 1/2 hr trucking it, another 1/2 hr unloading it. Thats close to 4 hrs of labor plus gas for truck, tractor splitter , chainsaw ,bar and chain oil. Am I missing anything ?
I'm thinking it wood take $150 for it to be worthwhile . So basically $75 for the product and $75 for the effort and expenses.
Couldn't hurt to try I guess. Thats probably nothing for people vacationing at their lake front McMansions.
The profit is in minimizing expense. best done with equipment you already have for other purposes and using scrap waste from a sawmill operation. If you think of it having to go somewhere then it can be seen as a profit source that would otherwise only be cost to haul it away. some extra effort to split. I would price it per "how ever it is packaged" then a delivery price. raise the delivery price based on how bad you want to drive, and a stack charge based on same. in the summer the stack price may motivate the mom to let her sons do it and get them off the screens. I also barter with it, or at least give it to others that have and will do things for me for free. Hard to find help. old guys have there own projects, and parents do not want their kids doing stuff where they could loose a finger.
I would sell a crate for 50 bucks, and deliver near town for 25 bucks, and stack for 25 bucks. It takes 4 crates to make a cord. I can fill a crate in less than an hour.
That looks to be sound advice Doc. Guess I'm not too far off the mark.
Added fee for stacking it at destination and distance traveled could help with the $$.
Thanks for the input.
I get $45 for 1/2 face cord no delivery
I managed a state park with a campground. We were located 20 minutes from a minimum security prison where I would pick up a crew each morning. We cut mostly white birch (poor grade) - a dying under story which we would harvest out in the winter or have it die and rot quickly on the stump. We sold approximately 50 cords per year - finely split (Super splitter) 18" long by 14" around bound in bundles with plastic baling twine. Mice would eat the sisal twine over the winter. Much of the time was spent bundling - and what was tight when green was loose the next spring so we would have to drive another stick or two into each bundle so they wouldn't fall apart when being handled. We sold each bundle for $7 and would keep $5 after all the taxes and fees were paid. Firewood was sold semi-self service from a shed within eyesight of the staffed check-in booth. With the proceeds we were able to buy 1 30 & 46 HP Kubota tractor, 2 Kubota zero turns, 1 Kubota RTV X900 side by side and 3 generations of Wifi for the campground during the 15 years we ran this program along with a few other purchases. . We would clear between $14 -$18K a year. This program was the only way we could obtain replacement capital equipment as budgets were very tight.
I would guess we had about 4200 man hours devoted to the production per year no matter how we tried to streamline and make the process more efficient. That's roughly $3.50 an hour for all the manhours devoted with free stumpage. Good money for Somalia. The no-cost inmates made the process workable. We could not bundle and allow the campers to take an armload and tried that method but many people take pretty huge armloads which would reduce our proceeds by at least 50%.
I suspect that people that sell camper firewood along the roadside might make beer money but it was my experience that it's not a very profitable venture.
ive been doing bundles for over twenty years if your doing it for beer money you best be buying the real cheap stuff