How much are you paying for firewood?

[The Honk]

My supplier has a flat back LWB tipper transit and charges £125 a load for seasoned hardwood logs but I have just read a web page that stated a similar load shouldn't cost more than £40/50. I'm not sure how old the info on the web site was tho'.

I'd be very grateful for any info

[Annpan]

Last year we paid £50 for a builders bag full. (the kind sand and gravel can be bought in) It seemed to be the rate that several people were charging.

I would imagine a flatbed worth would fill many of them??

What is much more important is to make sure that it is properly seasoned as we bought 2 loads from the same person and the 2 years seasoned lasted twice as long as the year seasoned logs - but cost us the same

[John Headstrong]

I get approx 3cubic meters for £90

a normal size transit flatbed when level is approx 2cubic meters, I think ton bags are just over 1cubic meter

the bloke I get it from has a huge pile of wood seasoning, about 500 tons !!

[Green Aura]

We paid £35 for a large trailer load of mixed softwoods - some more seasoned than others. We got that in early November and probably have enough left for the rest of the winter. We only use it, however, to supplement the coal. It's not enough to heat the radiators on its own.

[Annpan]

I get approx 3cubic meters for £90

a normal size transit flatbed when level is approx 2cubic meters, I think ton bags are just over 1cubic meter

the bloke I get it from has a huge pile of wood seasoning, about 500 tons !!

achem....... details please Mr Headstrong

[Millymollymandy]

Yes please will he deliver to France?

Wood prices vary depending on the kind of wood so will you please say what kind of wood you are getting for comparison purposes?

Here we pay about €175 a corde (3m3) for chestnut and about €195+ for oak or beech. Unfortunately I live in one of the most expensive departments in France for firewood.

The cheapest of course is our own wood which we produce a stere or two of each year (3 steres to a corde). Doesn't go very far though when you burn 6 cordes or so each winter!

[Mrs Moustoir]

Again in Brittany - but a different department to MMM - we've just bought another couple of cordes of wood (6m3) from our farmer neighbour - a mix of oak (chene) and ash (frene) and paid €180 a corde. Chestnut/oak mix is cheaper @ €150 a corde and we had three cordes of that in the autumn. Price varies so much with size of log, what type of wood and whether it is delivered and/or stacked for you. All in all it is a good side-line for the farmers but lots of work!

The ash is lovely stuff - burns so hot. We've never had that in any quantity before. The whole log glows red hot as it burns.

Here's the OH with two cordes of the mixed 40cm stuff...

[Mrs Moustoir]

Just to add - the price of wood is a great topic for conversation around here. That and septic tanks!

As soon as the wood is delivered, we nearly always get someone turn up and say "what did you pay for that then?" And a discussion ensues about the price/quality etc.

[John Headstrong]

This is most of my pile, still a bit that needs to be moved but it got dark

woodpile7002.JPG (383.36 KiB) Viewed 5848 times

[KathyLauren]

Around here, the going rate is $200 a cord. If you shop around, you can get it for $160 a cord. We season it ourselves. I built a large woodshed that will hold a two-year supply.

Most people here supplement what they buy with deadfall or windfall that they cut themselves. Last week, the hydro company had a crew out cutting trees that were a threat to the power lines. Collecting such "free" wood is a competitive sport. The neighbouring property owners get about a 15-minute head start, then anyone is likely to show up with a pickup truck and a chainsaw. Half an hour after the tree falls, all that is left is a pile of sawdust.

[liskeardjane]

I get all my firewood for free - from skips in builders yards, I also saw up and burn pallets, waste wood from my son's place of work (he's a shop fitter) we take the trailer once a fortnight, all year round and ask for and take wood - if it's in a skip they are glad to get rid of it, the pallets are often a nuisance as we have to spend hours taking them apart. I also pick up all the wood I see on the road side, I keep a tarp in the back of the car and keep the back seat down and drag it in. I've even had blokes stop and offer to help me get it in the car and people have often offfered their waste wood to us. We once responded to a 'free to collector' of free wood and arrived and it was a summer house. Dearly beloved got the chainsaw and had it in bits in minutes! In thirteen years, I've never paid for wood and had m wood burner going every time it's cold.

[Cloud]

Sound like the prices in scotland are significantly cheaper than here in central England

We buy sacks of wood from our neighbour - it comes of their farm. No idea what type of wood it is but nothing big - probably a lot of it is hawthorn. It seems to burn well. It comes in old lamb feed sacks - rough calculation it works out to about £40 per cubic meter, which around here is a favourable price. The local saw mill charged £90 per builder sack (I think someone here said that's a little over one cubic metre), and local farm shop offered to deliver a tractor bucket load for £80.

In the shops here a sack usually costs £4.50, not that we've ever bought any for that price, and their sacks are smaller than the ones we get from our neighbour.

Tinder sells for the same price for half the wood. However, we've found that fur cone work well as tinder, and these we collect from my brothers garden for the cost of ten minutes effort.

[Mrs Moustoir]

Some impressive woodpiles there JohnH and KeithBC!

[Minnesota]

I sell cut split seasoned Firewood in the USA...delivered locally
hardwood for $200 US a cord
mix for $150 US a cord
softwood for $100 a cord
Pine and evergreen sold as campfire wood $5 per arm full

firewood sellers in a large city like Minneapolis
get about double that amount.

a Cord is 4 feet by 4 feet by 8 feet
and here is a conversion:

How many cubic meter in 1 cord [firewood]? The answer is 3.624556416.

[liskeardjane]

to KeithBC - your wood shed is a thing of beauty!! I could stand and admire that all day!