That it: Cutting Firewood!!

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Yep I'm cutting firewood...and no its not going to be for me. I am not that foolish and willing to take those risks with my home. Nope I am cutting firewood for sale.

I just saw firewood in the local paper going for 300 dollars a cord. Now I have never seen that before, even in the most heaviest forested state in the nation and a darn old state at that. I still cannot belive someone would pay 300 bucks a cord for firewood.

Even if this guy doesn't get his price, the other three listings were not far behind at 245 dollars a cord. That is just downright insane. Last year I was tempted to cut a few cords and sell them but figured last years high prices would be just a one season thing. I can see now I was wrong.

Now this leaves me with a delemia though. This 300 dollar wood was for apple wood, or wood high in BTU's. Where I live these old fields used to be apple orchards back in the early 1800's and were converted to potato fields, and later hay fields and corn fields or even back to forests. That means I got a lot of apple trees scattered out through the woods. I could wrestle up 5-10 cords of this easy enough, but I typically leave apple trees to grow because the deer like them. Still for 300 bucks a cord the deer just might go hungry and the taxes get paid quite easily.

Of course I could opt for the lower grade firewood, cut a bit more of it, but leave the apple trees for the deer.:dunno::dunno:

300 bucks a cord!! Who would have thought!!
 
A face cord is often called a rick or half a cord. Not a legal term but common usage. Around here, firewood is $30.00 a rick. But, the ricks are often cut to 16" instead of 24", big difference in quantitiy. Folks buying that don't know wats wat get took. Can't understand the big difference in price.
Found this link, interesting: http://www.woodheat.org/firewood/cord.htm
BTW, Travis, you could sell apple wood turning blanks for more money. Or turn into art pieces and make really big bucks. ;)
 
I saw an ad for a full size pick-up load for $200 here in IA. I guess that would be half a cord? The ad said hickory and oak, dry, split and delivered.

On the other hand there are always a few ads for "free firewood" from someone that needs a tree cut down "you cut and haul away keep the wood for free"
 
Around here (Ottawa, Ontario), city folks think of a "cord" as 16"w x 8'L x 4'H. Technically, that's a face cord and a bush cord (a real cord) is three times that volume, ie:48"w x 8'L x 4'H. A "face cord" sells hereabouts for approx $125-$150cdn and usually requires a minimum quantity or delivery charges apply. So, a "bush cord" should run $375-$450. Maybe that's what Travis saw advertised?

cheers eh?
 
Face cords or "Ricks" is most generally a term a lot of people in the south use for firewood. (Not slamming you, its just how they sell firewood down there). Here in Maine a cord of wood is 4 feet high, by four feet wide, by eight feet long, for a total of 128 cubic feet. Adding in some losses for space between the piled wood and your most likely to get around 90-100 cubic feet of wood per cord. If you sell by weight,a cord of hardwood green is around 4500 pounds per cord. (That is how the paper mills by the wood at their log yards).

Around here 300 bucks a cord is insane. Normally "dried, cut, split and delivered" firewood goes for around 120-150 dollars a cord. Anything over 175 bucks is getting expensive, so at 300 bucks...well that is just insane. Its still cheaper per btu then buying oil or propane, but its hard to calculate really because of all the inherit losses in wood heat.

Either way it looks like I'll be cutting up some firewood soon. Whether I use the money to pay for my taxes or use it to heat my home next summer, I don't know. (I'll be selling it to other homeowners and buying propane of course). I was in hopes to do some logging this weekend but it looks like the wife has a full weekend planned :(
 
I don't know about fire wood but I just paid over $4.00 a gallon for propane..

When I changed from electric to propane it was .79 to .89 a gallon.

Garry

You are still ahead of the game. Back in 1995 when I built my house, they told me "you can pay up to 4 bucks a gallon for propane and it still still be cheaper then electric".

Now this is kind of subject to some variables. Here in Maine we do pay some of the highest electric rates in the country, so at .15 cents a KW, electrical heat is something people have in other states. At the current price propane here is "high", but I have only paid 2.30 a gallon this year and I am not locked in at any pre-buy price either. Oil is now 3.20 a gallon.

Now propane would seem cheap compared to oil, but as you probably know, propane only has 91,000 btus per gallon versus oil's 131,000 btu per gallon. So if you do the math you will see its about the same btu wise. Propane is still the better fuel however because of its ability to control the flame and since maintenance costs are cheaper on propane units.

Now keep in mind when they said this statement to me back in 1995, they had no way of knowing the advances in technology that were going to take place. My new boiler sips propane heating a 2100 square foot home in Maine. Some of the controllers I have on my new system were not even available 2 years ago. Its also technology that cannot be done with electric heat. I bet I could pay 5 bucks a gallon for propane and still be ahead of the game. I bet you could too.


So rest assured, you made the right choice my friend. Propane is probably one of the most economical ways to heat a home right now.
 
Cripe that's INSANE!

I haven't bought any firewood in a long time because I've got a TON of dead ash due to the darn Emerald Ash Borer. Those buggers have decimated our Ash population here in Michigan. But the average price I've seen around here is around $65-$75 per FACE cord witch as someone else stated it 1/3 of a full cord. A year ago September I took down a BIG 80'+ Ash and cut and split it. I made some racks that were 8' long and the wood was all cut to about 18" long and the racks were about 5' high and I filled seven of them from one tree! I've been having fires regularly this season and even quite a few fires last winter and I've still got almost a full face cord up near the house and three FULL 5'x8' racks out back. I've still got more standing than I've cut so I won't be buying firewood for YEARS.

John
 
A cord is going for $125 to $150 here in N. Ky. I use oil, my last purchase was $ 3 a gallon. Last year I was able to heat my 2300 sq. from Nov. to Apr. with 200 gallons. $600 bucks not too bad. I would like to get a wood-burner and tie it into my duct to cut down on my oil.
 
Gee I never though of myself as foolish. Any form of heat could burn your house to the ground. Better unhook your electricity. It's dangerous too. :D

Yes but...

My parents had 2 oil furnaces, a propane boiler to heat their pool and then an outside wood boiler. It took 2 years for the outside wood boiler to burn down their house.

My wifes has several homes, all had oil heat. None caused a fire, but the woodstove in her Grandparents shop caused that place to burn down...twice.

My Uncles house...once again had both an oil furnace and a wood stove, the wood stove caught that house on fire.

12 oil furnaces in the immediate family....no fires
2 propane furnaces in the immediate family...no fires
6 wood stoves in the immediate family....4 fires

:dunno::dunno::dunno::dunno::dunno:
 
Travis,

Sorry to hear about your family's tragedies.

From your experience, sounds like the last thing you would want to do was provide, even for profit, firewood to families...:dunno:
 
I would not have so much of an issue with firewood if it was not for a guy at work. He is THE self appointed firewood ambassador of the world. He will just hear a conversation across the shop regarding propane or heating oil and he will come running over and say the same line he has said four million other times...

"Man am I some glad I get my heat for free"....

Of course firewood is hardly free considering all it takes to get a living tree to a btu, and then there is all the time he spends on his firewood. It seems like that's all he ever does is do firewood on the weekends.

Still the problem with forums is that posts are merely snipets of information leaving others to fill in the gaps. The truth is, I would probably have wood heat in my shop if my insurance company allowed it. Wood stoves in out buildings are strictly banned. I could put a stove in my house, but with the added insurance rates, the cost of a chimney and all that, I would save about 250 bucks a year. That is hardly worth it to me, not to mention having all the mess, fuss and storage I would need to add for wood heat.As I said, its never free heat.

As for cutting firewood, I will be doing that this weekend I hope. The first reason is that I have about 2 cords of "slabs" (wood edgings that come off the sawmill) that have been sitting in a heap for a year now. With the price so high on firewood I can cut that up, put a for sale sign on it, and get a bit of money for not a whole lot of work. Plus I will clean up my property some.

Beyond that though I also have to cut some wood around my hay and corn fields. Its a never ending battle called encroachment. The trees grow towards the light and hit the tractors with their limbs. The farmers set over by half a tractor or so to keep the limbs from busting out their cab windows. Its seems kind of minor but over the years the fields keep getting smaller and smaller. In some places the first row of corn is 50 feet from the rock walls. This is where the line between field and forest should be. Every so often we have to cut these trees back otherwise we would lose valuable crop ground. 50 feet does not seem like much, but this is on the outer perimeter of the field, 50 feet equals acres pretty quick.

I've been meaning to cut these trees back anyway. Now that the price of firewood is so high, this just might give me the motivation to get off my hiney (its been sitting on a snowmobile way to much anyway) and get two birds with one stone. I'm still debating on whether to tip over the apple trees or not. The wood around the fields is a mixture of maple, ash and other low grade, low btu firewood, so I could not get top dollar for that.But the apple is too crooked and snarly to be much good for lumber or anything else. About the only thing it does do is draw out the deer in the fall. That is reason enough to keep it I guess, but at 300 bucks a cord:dunno:

Here is a picture showing some of that encroachment. You can see where the trees are jutting out into the fields and causing the expensive machines to push back even more). This is also a good picture because some of the shorter trees in the foreground of the forest are some of those apple trees that I would like to cut. Since this is a Summer Pic they blend in with the other trees, but you can see where encroachment is something I have to deal a lot with.

Haylage.JPG
 
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Cripe that's INSANE!

I haven't bought any firewood in a long time because I've got a TON of dead ash due to the darn Emerald Ash Borer. Those buggers have decimated our Ash population here in Michigan. But the average price I've seen around here is around $65-$75 per FACE cord witch as someone else stated it 1/3 of a full cord. A year ago September I took down a BIG 80'+ Ash and cut and split it. I made some racks that were 8' long and the wood was all cut to about 18" long and the racks were about 5' high and I filled seven of them from one tree! I've been having fires regularly this season and even quite a few fires last winter and I've still got almost a full face cord up near the house and three FULL 5'x8' racks out back. I've still got more standing than I've cut so I won't be buying firewood for YEARS.

John

Ash is kind of funny, at least here in Maine. If you sell firewood with a lot of Ash hidden in the pile, you are likely to get a bad reputation as shady firewood provider. That's at best. At worst you'll get cold-clocked when you are at the local hardware store. It burns good, and splits easy enough and there is plenty of it, but Ash does not produce many btus per cord and it burns pretty quickly. If you sell wood around here, you can have some Ash in the pile, but you better also have some Beech, Black Cherry and Yellow Birch to makeup for it.

Ash does have its place though, and that is in the Spring. Ash is funny in that its moisture content is low, so it can be burned right off the stump...that is green. Many a farmer or homeowner around here has run out of wood in the winter, and ran out to the woods and cut down nothing but Ash so they could have heat until warm up come May.

Some other funny woods are Oak and White Birch. Both are pretty much on the black list as firewood goes. White Birch because it has no BTU content and burns way to fast. Still there is a high paying market for it down in Boston. Some of the city folk like it because it "looks pretty" with its white and black bark. Does burn worth nothing, but...:dunno:

As for Oak. Only the people from away like that stuff. It takes way too long for oak to dry out, and when it does, it has tannin in it which causes stove pipes and cast iron stoves to rust out quicker. I have had some people literally ask for nothing but Oak when I was logging full time, but they never asked for it again. I think it was too wet after a season of drying.

Anyway I'll leave you a link to the Firewood page on my website in case you guys are interested.

http://www.railroadmachinist.com/Wood-Firewood.html
 
Comment about oak is interesting. In our area oak and hickory are the two most common trees. And, those two have the highest btu rating of almost all woods. They are, far and away, about the best heating woods there are. We do have incidents of fires with flues burning from build-up of creosote. I had never associated that with a specific type of wood being burned. Just figured it was common to fireplaces and stoves. We heated one house we owned exclusively with wood. I used oak throughout the day and evening. Then stoked with hickory for overnight as it burned slower and gave off more heat.
 
Comment about oak is interesting. In our area oak and hickory are the two most common trees. And, those two have the highest btu rating of almost all woods. They are, far and away, about the best heating woods there are. We do have incidents of fires with flues burning from build-up of creosote. I had never associated that with a specific type of wood being burned. Just figured it was common to fireplaces and stoves. We heated one house we owned exclusively with wood. I used oak throughout the day and evening. Then stoked with hickory for overnight as it burned slower and gave off more heat.

Frank I don't think I was very clear in what I was trying to say. Oak does kick out a lot of btu's, but it does not produce any more creosote then other woods. What Oak does do is have lots of tannin in it. That creates an ACID that causes the metal lined stove pipes to rust...even galvanized ones. If you use stainless steel, you are just fine.

I think one of the biggest reasons Oak is considered a firewood to avoid here is just because we have so many other options. Rock maple, beech, black cheery...those have high btu's and yet dry over our short summers and don't rust out our stove pipes and stoves.
 
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