Just looking for opinions here from those of you that sell a lot of campfire wood. I have sold some from time to time but some one always comes to me to pick it up. I give 1/2 cord or as much as can fit in their truck for 50 bucks. I have a friend staying in a good sized campground about 7 miles away. He came and picked up a few days worth of poplar and said to bring a truckload down to the campground on friday or saturday night and it would easily sell out. There is a store about 5 miles away that sells the designer bundles of firewood for 5 bucks (maybe 6 pieces). I was considering going down with a truck load(3/4 ton standard bed) and filling a big rubber walmart tote for 10 bucks. I keep the tote. I could easily haul 100 bucks worth at a time, so selling it out would be worth the trip. There are 3 other large(more that 100 campsites) campgrounds within 15 miles, so maybe there is a business here( summer only ). So.... in your opinion is 10 bucks a fair ask for that amount of wood. I'd have to measure to see what percentage of a cord fits in the box, but it is easily 4 times what comes in that designer bundle and its delivered. I could cut and dry enough poplar to fill the truck several times every weekend during the summer and poplar is excellent camp fire wood.
Haul a load down and test the waters....if it works out, try it again. I'm surprised that the campground doesn't sell some themselves though, or maybe they do and you need to be careful not to step on toes.
The state CG's in NH sell their own camp wood, not sure about the private ones. The big reason is the emerald ash borer, they don't want out of state wood brought in.
Have a friend who lives on the main road to the lake near us. He sells mostly Pine and pulls his trailer onto the grass near the end of his driveway when he is going to be home with a big sign, Blow horn for firewood and charges .45 per piece. I did the math a 5" x 5" x 16" piece of wood on average would be about 570 piece to a cord. 570 pieces x .45 equals $256.50 for the cord. There is a rule in the firewood business the smaller you package it the more it costs. So your customer would get 20 pieces for $9.00 a good deal compared to the designer bundles that you get at the corner store.
TruboDiesel what does a cord go for down there in Pa.? The going rate here is between $250 and $300 delivered all day long. We have some ads on Craigslist come Aug. and Sept. in the Saratoga area for $125.00 a face cord and people buy it, guess they have more money then brains.
about $ 150 you could get 180 around State College We are in the mountains here, you cant swing a cat and not hit a tree...
$256.50 /cord is still 15 to 20% less than oil. (figuring $2/gallon ) If someone was to offer me $325/$350 a cord for my seasoned oak I'd be temptd to gamble on the price of oil staying fairly much where it is right now and burn oil in the boiler and pine in the woodstove during the day.
The past 2 years I paid $200.00 per cord c\s\d.. That's a good deal around here.. Lots of the wood was seasoned so that's an exceptional deal for this area..
Thats a steal Ray, that price would be less than even green c/s/d. whoever he is you better treat him right for those prices
This guy is from Lakeville and has many acres so he has little overhead.. Unfortunately wood guys come and go.. Hopefully he'll stay with it a while!
A buddy and I both burn wood and have the tools to process wood. We purchased a mixed tree service load for $400 and got just about 5 cords out of it. We sell it for $110 a 6.5 ft truck load tossed in and delivered. A guy had 2 half face cord racks and we filled them exactly full. So $110 a true face cord. So we should make in the neighborhood of $1200-1400 (about $1000 profit). If all goes well we plan to do it every year. The trick is to price it $10 cheaper than anyone in the area on CL and it goes quick. We only have half left and have only been selling for 2 weeks. We would have been glad breaking even and having a few cords to split between us. Putting extra $ in the bank is a bonus!!
That's what good firewood costs around here, the 250-300 a cord. Some folks advertise for 120-125 a face of primo wood, but that is the going rate around here. Before I started processing my own wood in earnest here at my current house, I had to buy it. Only once did I get a better deal at 400 for 2.5 cords, but that was due to this guy selling his house and he would rather sell the wood than give it away to the new owner. I'd say that a tote of wood, for $10 would be more than fair. To have a campfire with the "artisan wood" in bundles, your have to buy at least 3 bundles of hardwood and those are $5, or nearly 6 a bundle.
So just joined the site but I have another take on firewood sales and while I understand that cord prices vary greatly depending on availability, here in the great Republic of Texas cords go for a bit more but, we sell by "the stick" and get a lot more...between $1000-$1200 a cord How? by being the only seller in camp grounds. We have developed and built a large item, outdoor, cashless vending machine that is specifically targeted at selling Firewood at camping areas. I have 14 machines at State parks in and around Fort Worth and owe them another 10 before we start selling them to others Here is a youtube video of the machine Wood Shax Movie YouTube www.youtube.com Operations and owner diagnostics and programming preview This is a modular system that can have as many 8 compartment modules as required....we have found that given available space, that a 6 module system is about as large at it should go and if there is more demand, we just place another machine at another location within the park. Our contracts with Texas Parks and Wildlife require us to give 10% of gross sales (before tax) to the parks every month. We make, set, and maintain the machines, and provide product for all the machines. The production models have outdoor rated touch screens and a 3G cell phone based telemetry system that goes directly to the bank for credit card/ debit card verification and sales...it takes all forms of credit and debit along with apple pay, android pay, contactless, etc.....NO CASH (and in over a year we have had no vandalism). It is very simple...make a selection....swipe your card and a door opens up...they take the product and shut the door...that compartment will not vend again until we refill. In addition to firewood (1 cuft or 2 cuft bag, although you can't fit 2 cuft of wood in a 2cuft bag) we sell cases of water, charcoal, wood chips for smoking, small covered grills, and anything else that campers are interested in and do not want to leave the camp ground to purchase. We have real time sales data through the credit card processing company so we know when we need to go and restock. So rip it apart...after 25 years in the Army I have thick skine
Around here the campgrounds do not want to fuss with firewood just for a few lousy bucks, in the big scheme of things, they have other things to worry about. So they contract it out for so many bundles per year. Unfortunately it is a very cut-throat market. There is a guy in town with a firewood processor aggressively targeting campgrounds to sell wood to, and I am pretty sure if I was to under-cut him and get the price even a $1 less per bundle, he would show up at my house and slit not only my throat, but Katie and the kids too just to make a point. That is just how literally cut-throat the camp ground fire wood business is here. They can have it!
That was what I first encountered when I went after parks that already had firewood sales but I found out the park rangers hated the sales because for after hours sales they had honor boxes and they had to have 2 rangers count it every morning, then take it back to the register and have someone else count it again and then account for the bundles that just "walked away" and with the man hours they spent on firewood when they could be doing Ranger things they much prefer me writing them a check for 10% of the gross every month and they have to do nothing. Your big time local guy has a leg up since he is selling "local" wood. I sell Local and heat treated when not local and then they can also control what comes into the camp grounds and can do their part in controlling the spread of invasive species and tree deseases
