How much do you pay for delivered firewood?

[JohnB]

Bought from Minehead sawmills on the Minehead industrial estate.

I never thought of trying to buy firewood there when I lived in the area .

[Tarrel]

I think the responses to the OP's question illustrate a problem with the firewood market, namely that it is difficult to define what you get for your money.

Wood seems to be sold by the tonne, by the cubic metre, or by the "load", which is sometimes clarified as a "pickup truck full". But is that single-cab or double-cab? Loaded level or heaped?. The type of wood is also important, since one needs greater volume to achieve the same energy from some softwoods, compared to some hardwoods. Suppliers also vary in how they deliver; is it just dumped in the yard or stacked? Also, how well seasoned is it?

We will have some excess wood from our thinnings over the next few years, so I am also keen to get a handle on prices. But I might just start swapping it for food.

FWIW, our Rayburn installer told me he paid £400 for 24 tonnes, split, mixed hard and softwood, seasoned last Autumn (around £17 per tonne, but admittedly in quite a large quantity).

[Little John]

I think the responses to the OP's question illustrate a problem with the firewood market, namely that it is difficult to define what you get for your money.

Wood seems to be sold by the tonne, by the cubic metre, or by the "load", which is sometimes clarified as a "pickup truck full". But is that single-cab or double-cab? Loaded level or heaped?. The type of wood is also important, since one needs greater volume to achieve the same energy from some softwoods, compared to some hardwoods. Suppliers also vary in how they deliver; is it just dumped in the yard or stacked? Also, how well seasoned is it?

We will have some excess wood from our thinnings over the next few years, so I am also keen to get a handle on prices. But I might just start swapping it for food.

FWIW, our Rayburn installer told me he paid £400 for 24 tonnes, split, mixed hard and softwood, seasoned last Autumn (around £17 per tonne, but admittedly in quite a large quantity).

You should expect to pay a proper supplier for seasoned quality hardwood logs (ash, for example) about 70 to 100 quid per cubic meter loose packed.

The price may be lower than that according to how much crap is in there, how much softwood is in there and the vagaries of your particular point of purchase (e.g. was it a local who just happened to have felled a tree in his garden and is happy with a few quid in his pocket etc)

[kenneal - lagger]

We pay £100 for about 10t of unsplit softwood/hardwood mix, mainly softwood, cut into mansized pieces.

[Tarrel]

"Mansized"?

[adam2]

Bought from Minehead sawmills on the Minehead industrial estate.

I never thought of trying to buy firewood there when I lived in the area .

They dont allways have stocks in the winter on account of sheeple buying it when it snows, rather than stocking up in the summer.
Plenty at present AFAIK.
The load I bought contained reasonable sized softwood, and plenty of very small oak, offcuts from preparing cut timber. Contents vary.
They also have giant bags of mixed wood for £20, the sort of bags used for delivering sand etc to building sites. These are for collection only, and you would need a truck with a crane.

http://www.mineheadsawmills.co.uk/

Link to website, though it is largely "under construction"
Looking at the picture on the front page, the bottom right hand corner is typical of what would be in the "mixed fire wood"

I have no connection with them.

[kenneal - lagger]

"Mansized"?

Sorry! "One man lift" size.

[adam2]

I have just obtained a trailer full of small logs for £40, but freshly cut, not dried.
I doubt that they will be dry enough for use this coming winter, but they should be fine the year after that.
It is stored in a shed that is very warm due to solar gain and dry relatively rapidly.
A guidline for wood drying is one inch a year. That is a log 6 inches in diameter will dry in 3 years.
These logs are 4 inches in diameter and will hopefully dry in 18 months in the warmer than average conditions, rather than in 24 months.

[ujoni08]

You could split them if you need to shorten the drying time, though I suspect you have plenty in reserve anyway

[Little John]

You could split them if you need to shorten the drying time, though I suspect you have plenty in reserve anyway

I always fully split mine and then leave them stacked against a wall with the ends facing out. That way, you shouldn't have to wait longer than a single season for any wood. In fact, I've even split them and then just bagged up in plastic sacks and then left outside and found them sufficiently seasoned after a single season. I have to punch holes in the bottom of the sacks, though, to make sure any rainwater gets out.

It's a bit of a myth, I reckon, about having to stack firewood indoors to season it. Rainwater does not get right into the wood and so is only ever a superficial kind of wetness. Sure, if you bring the firewood inside to burn and it's been raining, you will need them to stand undercover for a week to dry the rainwater out. But, the drying that occurs in seasoning is a deeper, cellular kind of drying and occurs irrespective of the kind of surface wetness that happens with rain.

[emordnilap]

The rain is only likely to affect the top layer anyway.

£40 is a bargain, adam2! Well done.

[adam2]

You could split them if you need to shorten the drying time, though I suspect you have plenty in reserve anyway

I dont have a log splitter, and though I could do it by hand it would be a very tedious task compared to waiting another year.
And anyway I dont want to turn logs into smaller wood, I can buy as much mixed firewood as I want very cheaply from the sawmill.
Mixed means just that, but with smaller pieces in the majority.

I do not have a stove in London, my remarks regarding stoves and wood fuel refer to my Mothers home in Somerset.
Wood stocks should last a few years, though some wont be dry enough to burn yet anyway.

At work in London my employers pay me £5 a time to get rid of pallets dumped in the car park.
I cut these up with an electric jigsaw and used to take the bits to a pub with an open fire, the £10 for two pallets paying for a taxi. Not on the face of it a wise use of road fuel, but then I might have taken a taxi in any case.
And the pub usually gave a free pint or two for the wood.

[energy-village]

I'm still breaking up furniture, I have a lot of furniture. It's like 'Withnail and I' here sometimes.

[Norm]

We recently had 3 cu m of fully seasoned 35cm length split logs delivered in those huge sacks (which are later returned). I could have had the length cut longer or shorter to suit my burner for exactly the same price. Total Cost for the 3 cu m in Swedish Krona was 1400 which equates to 47.77 pounds sterling per cu m. I know how much work goes into producing the firewood so I was happy with the price.

[ujoni08]

Good price.

I pay £80 for a level load on a Toyota Hilux. The wood-merchant doesn't know exactly what the volume or weight is. Any idea?