My son and I are selling firewood next year. Right now I am stacking in 3 sided wood pallets that I have made, but their use is finite. I would only expect to get 2 maybe 3 years out of them if treated nicely. Looking for other options. Not sure I want to get a bunch more Ibc totes, which is what I use for our firewood. I really liked the plastic pallets and hog fence idea I saw the other day. But that might be kind of pricey. Our wood lot is a mile from the neighborhood I am targeting so my goal is to use the tractor to make local deliveries, therefore I want to have a movable pallet system. The other problem I am finding is to get a face cord on these pallet racks you have to pile it pretty high, which makes them hard to deal with. Is there a a solution to my woes? IF so I know it is here, in this forum.
IBC totes are surely the answer here. I'd also apply a fee so if they aren't returned or go missing you are covered. The fee can be returned to them once returned or picked up.
Scour CL and MP for plastic pallets. I randomly find them listed free, sometimes as low as $4-5ea. Totes would be best but I have never saw them free, so the buy-in might hurt the wallet.
The problem with the pallets is by the time you buy them and something strong to wrap the sides in you'll be in them for as much as the IBC totes. Driving a mile down the road with a tractor and wood stacked on a pallet is eventually going to result in a tipped over load. Really stiff wire like feedlot panels aren't cheap anymore. I'm not sure how your current system is setup, but have you looked into towing a large trailer that will hold a few IBC totes and planning deliveries near each other on the same day. Could just leave your forks on the tractor. Much more efficient than driving around the neighborhood one tote at a time.
Yes, that is the dilemma. You might be right about the IBC totes. I had a guy that sold them for a reasonable price, but he doesn't do it anymore. Cheapest cages I can find are $60, used to get them for $25 I think. Thanks for the help everyone.
Driving a mile with a loaded face cord on pallet forks sounds like a potential recipe for disaster unless you have a very stout tractor (you may have already solved for this). I used a 65ish HP skid steer and it gets pretty tipsy moving loaded IBC totes. That said, the totes are still the best option. I've made 3 and 4 sided pallet racks. I use them for moving rounds to my processing area. They can hold about 1/4 cord safely. If you use fairly strong pallets you end up adding quite a bit of weight. You can treat them to preserve the wood but I find they still take a beating. I think sirbuildalot may have a good solution with the trailer idea. If you find your delivery area expands, you'll probably need a truck as well. Some localities don't favor tractors tying up the roads.
My tractors loader capacity is about 2400 lbs. with the right ballast on the 3 point I can easily move an IBC tote. So that is not a huge concern. I hear ya about the inherent weakness of the wood pallet system. There is just no good way to screw them together effectively. And I also agree totes would be best , albeit, the most expensive option. Might have to do this the old fashioned way, truck and trailer. Hand stacking. Thanks all for your help.
How many customers in this neighborhood do you have? How many totes do you currently have, and how many more would you need? Hand loading and stacking is going to eat up a lot of time. As you know time is money for a business. Wouldn't be hard to calculate which way would be the better financial option.
Bear in mind that it doesn't have to be done entirely by hand. I don't currently offer to leave IBC totes with customers. I load on my truck for delivery (cuts down on time) and then hand unload from the tote (usually tossing wherever the customer wants it). It's kind of a hybrid system for me and it allows me to use the totes over and over. Obviously you still need to have a few of them on hand but they aren't tied up at your customer's house until they're empty.
I have seen people make IBC cages that could be opened on one side and dumped. No touching the wood. You could also make a firewood box for your forks of any size (assuming not to go over lift capacity obviously) that you could dump at their houses.
I do like the idea of small deliveries in the 1/3rd cord (facecord) range. You could guarantee moisture content, guarantee species, and charge accordingly.
Oh I like this idea. I could have 2 of them. One on the forks one on the 3 point forks. Dump the one on the FEL forks, then drive to another location and dumpo the one on the 3 point. As fh now we have zero clients. But I JUST advertised this yesterday in our neighborhood. Doubt firewood is on many peoples minds at the moment. There are always people scrambling to get firewood come Nov 1.
Yes sir! I really like it. It started out as 5 feet wide when I originally built it, then I strengthened it and made it 6 feet wide. It will easily hold a face cord of wood.
Make sure you have a good strong connection from the box to the fork frame to prevent it from sliding off. I used safety chains and heavy duty eye bolts. My Kioti has a lift capacity of 2761 lbs, so it sounds to be similar in size to your Branson. In case you're curious, the box is 6 feet wide, 30" high, and 42" deep.
