Well reading that story explains why Vermont is such a terrible place to scrounge firewood. 1 IN 6 people use it for heat. I always read in amazement that people get tree companies to drop off wood. Here they pile it out back and turn it into firewood for extra money in slow seasons to keep the full timers from being laid off. pine is chipped and sent to wood burning electrical power plant.
What I am seeing around here (RI) is firewood prices are high but sales are slow. In fact, there is a local tree service company just down the road that has just about run out of room for more processed firewood- they must have 5 acres of it and the pile keeps growing. The price of firewood is linked to the price of fossil fuel because almost all of us can use either one or a combination; as cordwood approaches $300 / cord, and #2 fuel oil is around $186 / gal. (and I just installed an entire new, fairly efficient heating system and boiler), the firewood sales are going to drop off IMO. In addition to all of that, I am pretty tired of getting so many different size 'cords', so much variation in '18" ' wood, and 'splits' that a small ox cannot lift that I plan on going over to log- length firewood next year anyway. Brian
It's true. My mill cut RR ties and crane mat cants exclusively for many years before we closed it. Its causing some raw material diversion for the pellet industry also.
When it got to the part where it said the pulp and paper industry was a part of the high price of firewood problem too... my BS meter went off. Among way too many news stories about our poor paper mills here in Maine, just this morning they said 300 more good folks will be looking for work just before Christmas... again. Yup, call me a skeptic too.
This quote is from a Vermont article last year... I'll bet it's a little closer to the reason prices are high locally, in addition to big companies using wood too. The 2014-2015 winter wasn't exactly balmy around here. "Forester Frederick confirmed that, because fewer loggers headed into the woods this year to cut timber, supplies were smaller than they've been in the past. Exacerbating the problem was the long, cold 2013-14 winter, which caused suppliers to burn through their back inventories. "Last winter, everyone burned everything they owned," noted David Bessette, a 51-year-old Williston logger. "They were just about ready to start chopping up the back wall of the barn and throwing the furniture in there, too." As a result, many eager beavers snapped up extra cords this summer."
I read biomass was diverting a bit more away last winter around here. There definitely a shortage last winter. Many were also the folks buying in the fall to burn the same winter.
Yeah that's true enough! prices in February were 400 delivered. I gave a few friends some truck loads as they couldn't afford it. Also as one moved in November so it wasn't like they had time to get prepared anyhow. a lot of companies log in winter when grounds frozen... loggers could not get equipment to start most of the month at 15 below and then you had to let it warm up for a long time!
As a timber processing company when you bid on timber ,,,, cull wood is usually classified as pulp as a spec no matter the destination. Pulp class wood could be destined for a scrag mill with the end product being pallet stock, ties, or crane mat cants. Thus pulpwood being in demand regardless of the paper market.
The price of logs for firewood has hit 8-900 dollars for a 22 or ton sized load. My logger friends say that they can make that much selling wood to local Masonite mill for their processing.
IMO The price of firewood is going up due to the inflation. Price of everything has gone up. A $, dollar just ain't what it used to be. Cost of cutting has gone up, check out the price of a new saw, PU truck food to fuel the cutter has gone way up.
I do not believe that is what I am seeing in this area; the price of firewood has virtually doubled in the last 7-8 years. That is not inflation. And again, while natural gas went up 24% in this area last year, heating oil dropped to less than half the previous year's price (no typo: it was close to $4.00 / gal. and is now $1.79 / gal.). So the price of firewood has nothing behind it driving the price up, at least as far as I can tell. And for whatever little bit this is worth, I have found a couple of the larger suppliers around here have taken on a new, far less pleasant attitude to doing business regarding the selling of firewood; in fact, they are downright rude and quite cocky when trying to purchase firewood. As this is America, that is all fine and well but it seems I am not alone in my opinion and reaction- as I mentioned, a rather large, local supplier has the stuff (firewood, both in log length as well as C/S/D) literally overflowing their new site. I think if they raise their prices to $400 / cord, the pile will eventually be large enough to see from space.... At any rate, the price has become so high for cut / split / delivered firewood, and the quality / quantity varies so much that I have purchased a couple of saws and a splitter and plan on going to log- length wood by next year. Which is really a very silly situation IMO because a human's labor cannot possibly compete with a firewood processor, and virtually all the firewood suppliers that I know of have automated processors; this tells me that some link in the economic chain that supplies firewood is trying to extract a bit too much money for their portion. Brian
Yea No such thing as easy firewood. Hard work even if you have a processor. ( overhead cost $$ , & expensive $$ upfront cost & high maintenance $$, + fuel cost $$ , have come down lately, but for the past 10 years had been going up) Decent wages for hard work at least around $20 hour. Have to have medical insurance , business license & other equipment, property taxes fees & licenses. Then how much profit is the norm ? Join the crowd. Good exercise too.
I'm not sure what this means. Gasoline has plummeted to near $2.00/Gal Inflation has been under 2% for years.
FYI: "The government measures the cost of more than 200 items every month when computing the consumer price index, which is the official gauge of inflation. To determine how inflation affects overall business conditions, economists often measure "core inflation," which excludes the prices of volatile items like food and energy. But to measure the effect on consumers, that makes no sense, since most people can't eliminate food and energy expenditures from their monthly budget. Food and energy, in fact, are major expenses for a lot of people, and for lower-income people more than others." Ref: Why Low Inflation Seems High Want low inflation number , select items that have not risen in price much for the past few years. Not sure I trust the the folks saying inflation is low. Add in, low or no income increases, like us on fixed incomes. We say Bull to "Low inflation", things cost a lot more than 5 or 10 years ago, a lot more than the 1.2% to 2% number , I'm no economist, but know my money don't go as far as it used to. Even firewood cost more, but that energy cost & not used in the calculation of the inflation rate . LOL
