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We're trying to figure out how much we should be charging for our firewood, and I was wondering what other people are paying?

If you can, please give prices per cubic meter delivered (i.e. including air gaps between the logs), and specify if it's split and how long it's seasoned.

I'll put a poll up, to make it simple.

We're scavengers! Own fallen trees etc.

Fess-up time. We collect it free (4 years and we've never paid for any) but recently had a friend chainsaw some up for us, for which we still owe him a fiver.

I don't think free wood is going to last, mind!

Chopped seasoned wood, delivered to door, seems to fetch about 1/2 the price of (thermal equivalent of) gas, that is, about £80/tonne dry.

It's hard to say. We get ours in a large high-sided trailer for €200. Usually beech or ash, ready to burn. Two to three loads sees us easily through a winter, keeping us toasty and drying clothes, heating the water etc.

I'm happy with the price, mainly because all I have to do is throw it in the shed, which in itself is a pleasurable activity in the right conditions.

Does it sound cheap/dear or what?

We either scavenge ours our get a van-load (about a cubic metre) from our mates who manage (coppice) some ancient woodland near us on behalf of the wildlife trust. They use volunteer labour and haul wood with a borrowed horse. I think they charge 20-25 for a van-load (about 1 cubic metre) but they say business is slow because of the mild winters.

The only wood we buy is slabwood from a couple of guys with a Woodmiser. They used to charge £10, collected, for a bundle of either softwood, hardwood or a mixture weighing about a ton. The last lot I bought cost me £20 because, he said, demand had increased, but it might have been because he realised I always took the bundles with lots of reasonable planks in. We use them for lining beds in the garden or building toilet/shower blocks for parties!

I get mine in those orange net sacks, at £2 per sack. I go through about 10 a week.

I collect my own over the summer though, and that usually lasts me a couple of months before I have to start buying.

Andy Hunt wrote:I get mine in those orange net sacks, at £2 per sack...

How much does a sack weigh?

RenewableCandy wrote:

Andy Hunt wrote:I get mine in those orange net sacks, at £2 per sack...

How much does a sack weigh?

Dunno.

I get all my wood logs free, either from pruning/cutting in my own garden or from pallets, or from various neighbours who now know I have a wood burning stove. Mind you one or two neighbours are putting stoves in too now - sign of the times.

We got word that our wood burning stove is being dispatched this week!

Mind you... dunno when OH will have the time to install it for a while!

And where he wants to put it will mean a complete kitchen redesign!

Okay so I visited IKEA (THE place for value kitchens according to my sister) and I got lost, lost my purse, heard security had it, took an hour to get OUT, retrieved purse and took a migraine!

And the family wonder why I don't want to bother replacing the lovely £150 second hand kitchen we installed 10 years ago! (Okay "lovely" is overstating the case, but it is highly functional and I like it!)

OH has loads of wood put up and seasoning.... but I'm sure it needs more time.... that's why I got the oil tank filled again!

We'll get there eventually. Just wood = work. And I'm not sure I'm ready for that just yet.

I get my hands on softwood offcuts from building sites, bits and bobs from our (very small) coppice, and the rest we buy in from local suppliers. A decent seasoned load of ash cost £80 earlier this year (ie flat bed transit). Not sure what this means in terms of m3.

Definitely an upsurge in interest for wood fired stoves round here.

Sally wrote:And the family wonder why I don't want to bother replacing the lovely £150 second hand kitchen we installed 10 years ago! (Okay "lovely" is overstating the case, but it is highly functional and I like it!)

I get the feeling the Ikea trip is not the sole reason for keeping your kitchen as it is, though I wouldn't blame you if it was.

Ours is cheap (built up over the year by me and with second-hand, old stuff) and highly functional, only really big enough for one person to work in it - but that's a practical aspect, I can do all the cooking for guests without interference, thanks.

And kitchen 'makeovers' are simply a modern-day scam. I don't trust chipboard, plywood, 'soft close' runners, over-engineered plumbing and all the trashy frippery associated with them. You'll be replacing it in less than five years. A good kitchen should last a hell of a long time.

Besides, wait a while and it's back in fashion!

Until this year we were paying about £160 per "load" (whatever that is in real money - I would guess that it's just under 3 cu. m). This year I've been told that the price has shot up (50% higher apparently), due to lots of people installing wood-burning stoves. This is what I feared - that the current mania for wood-burning stoves would translate into much higher wood prices.

We're still on the free wood. Mind you I think we used a little less than "normal" last winter because energy prices took a small dip.