Never having bought or sold any firewood I have always been curious, what is a ball park figure on how much profit is made on a cord of decent hardwood firewood? I know there are ton's of variables but just a ball park figure. After all the saws and chains and splitter and gas and oil and time I put in, I figure mine cost's me about $6,000 a cord. However much you make, you deserve.
I hear you on that one. Saws , splitters , gas , oil, chains, etc. adds up but then there is the other side. I don't have to pay the oil man , it gets me plenty of exercise so I can go without the expensive germ filled gym membership , takes the place of therapy so no writing a check to the shrink Doctor for his couch therapy session ( who wants to sit on a couch anyway) and I don't have to pay a divorce lawyer since it keeps me out of the house and if I am not in the house then there are no arguments. I guess I would have to say I break even.
After all the expenses and time put into creating dry wood the profit is peanuts. The only thing I can figure is I’m turning an enjoyment into cash and buying saws without changing the bank account.
I run box store equipment part time one man operation. I get about $50-75 cord profit. If you count my new truck payment it's a negative $300 per cord
I never really tried to figure it out and if i did id probably stop selling wood! Its just me, the truck, several saws, friends hydro. I have never paid for wood either. Scrounged or from an occasional chain saw job. No overhead other than truck gas and saws. I get a premium over current wood market as mine is DRY and the correct amount. Many new repeat customers have told me its the best wood theyve ever bought and burned. Dropped a half cord of barkless black locust late this afternoon. Just got a text he's burning some now and loves it. Started several years ago as a hobby that slowly turned PT business. Now it PT/FT for three months of the year when im actually getting paid for it! I think jrider figured it out before, but he does a LOT of firewood.
There are so many factors it would be impossible to give an amount per cord or per hour you can make. I would suggest for anyone looking to sell firewood to crunch the numbers for an entire year including hours spent to see if it's worth your time. I did this once about 8-10 years ago and was pleasantly surprised at my per hour rate. I am attempting to do the same again this year but it takes dedication to keep track of every minute and every dollar spent during the course of the year.
I make good money selling in very small quantities (which still isn't nearly enough to live on). I make significantly less selling face cords (although I charge more than anybody else in my county and nobody complains). If my only option was selling bulk quantities I would find another hobby. The current setup is a nice supplement to my income.
I looked up the regulations for my area once and was shocked to find "seasoned firewood" to be defined as split and seasoned for a minimum of 90 days. That's hardly dry enough to burn but that's what most are selling. If I had to buy wood I would pay a premium for wood seasoned at least a year. I would think this would be one way to increase your profit so long as the storage isn't costing you. Brad
Selling firewood is like farming. If you want a million dollars in the bank at the end of the year, start with 2 million at the beginning of the year..
I've tried calculating how much an hourly rate would be for selling wholesale firewood bundles. I didn't factor in the time for marketing or paperwork but the total time I got to acquire the wood, split, stack, bundle, deliver, unload and drive time was about 12.5 hours per cord of bundles. Im planning on doing $4 per .8 cubic feet bundles. Thats 160 bundles per cord which equals $640 per cord. Then I subtract $50 for gas and $25 for general repairs per cord. That leaves $565 per cord divided by 12.5 hours which equals $45.20 per hour. This is if you have all the equipment and its paid for. I'd probably knock off another $5 (or $62.50 per cord) per hour for unexpected or unaccounted for expenses just to be safe.
You're on the right track with your calculations. Most people don't even think about the costs and have no idea if they're making money. Can you deliver 160 bundles at a time? Do your customers want that many? My point is that it could take several orders to make up a cord worth of bundles. Each order going in different directions so there could be significantly more time/fuel used for delivery. I'm strictly retail. I've never sold more than 20 bundles to a single customer.
Yep. The time is accounts for delivering 20 or so to multiple stores with multiple deliveries per route. I haven't really considered selling my bundles as retail besides the roadside stand.
This is the wrong question to be asking, how much profit can you make. How much you can make selling firewood is directly related to how much work you put in. Fuel Equipment and work process efficiency and cord cycle times are all contributing factors that increase rate. Aim for highest rate shortest cycle time. A half ton pickup and a splitting maul will not have the rate of a log truck, tractors and processors. Land somewhere in the middle.