Nice video! I know it's not the point of your video, but sometimes it's not about making money, looks like you've got that figured out already though.
If you want to make money in firewood, start with a million and when you are done you should have at least a thousand left......
If you have free wood, and track expenses and hours worked, it's possible. Charge accordingly and you can make money. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Absolutely. You just have to find the right clientel. I'd say as long as you have access to free wood (people that need trees cut down or if you find trees already on the ground). Although everybody wants their wood already seasoned so just figure that you are going to be at least a year behind, unless you have access to a lot of standing dead trees that you know are dry and ready to burn! I think that selling wood would be some nice side money as long as you like the time and effort that is involved! You get three bonuses out of it time outdoors, extra income and exercise! :stacke: So fire up that saw and start hoarding! :stacke:
Very interesting and a good breakdown.....Of course investing in conveyors and automated cutting and splitting wood get the cost per cord down and I guess that is how the guys selling wholesale stay in business (buying log length by the tractor trailer and touching it as little as possible). I just can't see spending all that time and energy to sell wholesale and then have a convenience store owner double the price just to have it in front of their store. I concentrate on the retail end only and buy from local arborists and firewood vendors for between $200 to 300 for seasoned split oak (depending on the time of year).....bag it and deliver to state parks and sell....We sell by the stick for about $1200 a cord and are looking at about 150 cords this year for 11 state parks. Our profit after everything is said and done is about $600 a cord and that would be more if we invested in everything I mentioned above.
You need inventory as well. That would be the property for the woodlot with harvest-able trees. Not sure how to measure that into the profit equation.
One thing that has always struck me is that those who are into the firewood business big time usually do not last that many years. Perhaps the biggest I've known bought a beautiful processor and he touched the wood very little as it was all mechanized. He sold a tremendous amount of firewood too but the machine didn't seem to last that many years and he just disappeared. It is a shame. However, I've also known several who were able to send their kid to college by selling firewood. That is really nice so long as the kid does most of the work.
Seems to be a sweet spot in how much one spends on equipment. Too much or too expensive equipment, one barely breaks even with recouping the price or making payments. Too little equipment and the productivity just isn't there. Never understood how someone could make money with a $70,000 firewood processor given the price of firewood and the upkeep. Makes more sense to me to have a smaller operation and not have to worry about the price of replacement equipment. Also seems that leveraging a multipurpose piece of equipment such as a tractor or ATV for moving wood can be smart and increase productivity especially if someone already owned that piece of equipment.
