Hardwood log prices

[Tom D]

Tom that URL doesnt work can you check it and get back to me ?

https://arbtalk.co.uk/recycling/submit/?_new=1

copy and paste it if it doesn’t work.

 

[Klenchblaize]

Very few log merchants round here will sell you cord wood. Their profit is in the processing.

My work keeps me in wood now but at one time I used to keep my eyes peeled for fallen trees after stormy whether, especially trees that were hung up or lying on crops and make an offer to the landowner to cut up the tree and burn the brash if I could keep the firewood.

When there's a lot of fallen wood about farmers often haven't time to sort it out themselves, their woodsheds are already full and all the arborists are flat out and their prices at a premium. There's a whole winter's worth of firewood for one household in one big ash tree and you can often blag yourself one when there's plenty of them on the ground.

Damn near broke the back of my Landrover Lightweight in 1987 with free timber. Remember loading it with some huge and beautiful peices of beech that someone had helpfully cut up and left by the roadside. Nearly broke my back too getting them loaded. A very sad time in terms of the change in landscape around Sevenoaks but interesting and profitable for anyone with a chainsaw.

K

 

[countrryboy]

Isn't it just the burning of wet wood they're trying to ban (a fool's errand if ever there was)? Otherwise there's going to be a lot of kiln drying (sustainable?) going on, or acres of drying firewood laying at the processors yard (what difference does the seasoning venue make)?

I process a lorry load a year for our own use, but try to stay at least a year and more ahead, I have a drying barn though, and facility to accept, process, handle and store (in our case softwood, for a log boiler) by the lorry load; time, wind and some sunshine do the seasoning, 16% moisture content or so being the target. Processing today for burning in a year's time.

View attachment 151322

Pretty sure talking about the selling of wet wood, I think if over 2 cube.
Be hard to police the burning of it.

But either way an equally stupid idea.
Esp when o lot of kiln dried wood is being imported from Baltic's ( or if UK dried pad for by RHI grants, just a complete sham)
The problem is very few folk have the storage


Speaking to 1 of wagon drivers the other day, the local boimass power station which usually takes 00's of wagons of round wood a day ( despite when being built only going to burn waste products, sawmill offcuts, brash and stumps) is now taking very little as cheaper to burn mains gas to produce electricity.
Timber not moving very quick of sites/roadsids the now at all esp ur green logs

Just completely bonkers like most green projects when u look closer at them

 

[User00035]

This debate's been had on the Arbtalk forum. Unless kilned dried wood is transferred immediately into climate controlled storage it isn't going to stay below 20% for very long. Most kiln dried firewood gets put into the back of a transit, delivered to the customers house and tipped on the driveway. If it's lucky it'll eventually be transferred to an open shed where it'll sit in all weathers or it'll stay in a heap under a tarpaulin in the rain.

The energy expended to kiln-dry firewood in the first place very likely produces a net carbon increase in emissions, not a reduction, as the product that is eventually fed into household fires in most cases will be no drier than air-dried, shed-stored seasoned wood. The result of this ruling insofar as it can be measured at all, will probably mean more carbon being emitted by the firewood industry rather than less and at increased cost. The standard outcome when politicians interfere in things they don't understand just to create headlines.

 

[Freeforester]

Can't see the rationale for preventing end users seasoning it themselves - do they think the seasoning storage out in the processors yard is any drier than in the consumer's barn, or are all selling processor's going to obliged to kiln dry- completely emission generating, as opposed to air drying which is natural?

I suppose next they'll be coming up with a "do not burn before xx/xx/yy" label, where yy is minimum 6 months beyond date of production.

 

[windygun]

This debate's been had on the Arbtalk forum. Unless kilned dried wood is transferred immediately into climate controlled storage it isn't going to stay below 20% for very long. Most kiln dried firewood gets put into the back of a transit, delivered to the customers house and tipped on the driveway. If it's lucky it'll eventually be transferred to an open shed where it'll sit in all weathers or it'll stay in a heap under a tarpaulin in the rain.

The energy expended to kiln-dry firewood in the first place very likely produces a net carbon increase in emissions, not a reduction, as the product that is eventually fed into household fires in most cases will be no drier than air-dried, shed-stored seasoned wood. The result of this ruling insofar as it can be measured at all, will probably mean more carbon being emitted by the firewood industry rather than less and at increased cost. The standard outcome when politicians interfere in things they don't understand just to create headlines.

Really depends on the Company you’re buying from/dealing with Finch. 2 pallets of kiln dried Oak bought last November, tested at 10% moisture when it arrived, still at 11-12% this morning. Starts burning with a single Pinecone, no paper, no kindling. Stove is used daily as primary heating but the Kiln dried is used to get the initial temperature up only before switching to seasoned.

 

[User00035]

You're doing extremely well to get wood at 10%. Most dealers say they struggle to get it below 20%. Depends how it is measured as well.

Oak is very dense though, which helps a lot. getting ash and hazel down to 10% and keeping it there will be a different matter.
I suppose the next thing some university "educated" fool will discover on the internet that some wood is more resistant to moisture absorbance than others and then they'll try and us tell which species we're allowed to burn.
Fortunately I don't have to buy firewood. It's a by-product of my job and I'll carry on burning it.