Small Woodland Owners' Group

Coppice and woodland product prices

Food, firewood, timber, walking sticks, for sale...

Postby greyman » Tue Jan 27, 2009 12:48 am

Is there anyone out there in the great backwoods who can help us set up a resource of rough price guides for produce. I'd like to see a section where we can record pricing for things like charcoal and grades: hurdles: bean sticks: pea sticks etc. Trying to assess what the market will stand or trying to work out where to go to sell your hard won bits of stick has defeated me somewhat. Prospective vendors are not very forward in giving you information on what they'll pay for stuff - of course they want it at the cheapest price so they can make as much profit as they can. I am more than happy to be the 'hub' to collate the information.


If I've missed any info set out somewhere else on t'internet by all means jeer from the sidlines and give me a poke with a mucky stick.


Greyman


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Postby tracy » Tue Jan 27, 2009 11:33 am

Great idea! I think we will get a wide variety of prices. I have heard that we must be very careful with the whole weights and measures thing too.


ok, I can start

Trailer load of firewood - either birch or chestnut, cut to the customers size request, £30. (its 2 thirds of a cubic metre)

Lol, Sean, you are going to have a GREAT time with the measurements ;-)


Allotment stuff more difficult, as some we swap for manure or food - I will see if Mike can quote more accurately.


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Postby greyman » Tue Jan 27, 2009 3:10 pm

First bit of info:


http://www.hampshirecoppice.org.uk/assets/Teller%20pdf/Teller%20spring%2008-1.pdf


If there are any other links that people know of we'd like to hear from you!


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Postby carlight » Tue Jan 27, 2009 8:44 pm

hi .firewood appears , when measured , to be 'thrown ' volume .(sort of flies in the face of commercial forestry , where air spaces are minused from volume measurements)

so , a cubic metre of firewood is in fact about half a cube of ' actual wood ' .(thrown firewood being ~50% air spaces - for reference ,neatly snedded and neatly stacked cords #30% air )

from what i see , a cube of split , seasoned firewood can be £50 to £80 , delivered.

My maths is prob way out , but , ~36 cubic ft x half = 18cubit ft. =£4 per cubic ft.---

am refering to hardwoods .

Charcoal ,graded , bagged , delivered ought to be £1 a kilo ,trade .

There is an element of guesswork here , as i sell by volume .

Believe my mountain of gradeout is saleable as horticultural charcoal ,but . .


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Postby RichardKing » Tue Jan 27, 2009 11:09 pm

Well, back in about September Tim Saunders suggested we could get £55- a cubic metre for firewood. That is £66- for a 1.2 cubic metre load delivered.

Prices seem to vary with area, Hawkhurst is said to be very low (probably cos they are nicking it from my wood).

Around here (Mark Cross) prices are about £70- for 1.2 metres.

although Wilderness Wood only 10 min away still getting £81- a cubic metre ! and apparently they sold out. An employee there bought a load from me as it was cheaper (and drier)


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Postby greyman » Fri Jan 30, 2009 12:56 am

Some useful bits of info here - anyone got prices for bean sticks, peastick bundles, quantities per bundle and sizes etc?


Thanks to those who've posted stuff. We'll look at getting it together in a week or two and report it back for the end of Feb


Love and bananas,

Greyman


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Postby tracy » Fri Jan 30, 2009 6:57 pm

Mike and I just took an order to an allotment. 15 thick poles, 8 ft long, straight and pointed. 30 poles 8 ft long thin.

After felling, snedding, pointing and stacking it took about 3 man (woman) hours to carry them down a track, load trailer, drive trailer and unload at allotment)


At minimum wage of £5.73, that makes us nearly £18- just for everything involved in the delivery - not counting felling, snedding, pointing, and the wood itself.


We charged £40 - and beginning to wonder if that was just too little for the work involved! I guess until you know how long a job like that takes, it is difficult to set prices!


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Postby tracy » Fri Jan 30, 2009 7:36 pm

I wrote to the Surrey, Sussex coppice group to ask them: Here is a reply from Paul in Dorset.


Not only might you have difficulty with differences in size of loads for firewood for example but different areas attract different prices, I believe the price for a cubic meter of firewood here is around £40. I sell bean poles, pea sticks, stakes and ethers in bundles of 20 for £8.50. Last year I sold charcoal for £3 per bag wholesale, this was for a bag that did not have the weight printed on it (weights and measures issues) but I weigh them to approximately 3 kg.

Retail, I sell them for £4.50. I was going to put prices up this year but may not now that the financial situation is a trifle precarious!


I wish you every success with the list as I know how difficult it is to gauge prices when one first sets out, even now I often call other people to find out what is being charged so I can set my prices at the right level. Dorset Coppice Group is looking at the possibility of standardising bean pole and pea stick prices this year to coincide with bean pole week.


Finally, I generally charge £10 per hour for simple garden tree related work that does not involve climbing.


Cheers


Paul Vodden


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Postby tracy » Fri Jan 30, 2009 9:43 pm

John Sinclair sent us loads of his prices: He says


Wow,

you are taking on a huge task in trying to collate some kind of 'indicative prices', anthow here goes....


Firewood,

I sell, this season, at roughly the following: £20 / 100 logs, which works out at about £40/ cubic metre (or about 200-225 logs) which is about 1/3 of a ton, which equates to about £120 / ton or about 600-650 logs. Though this begs the question 'how big is a log?' or indeed 'how long is a piece of string?'


Charcoal,

last summer I sold at @ £75 / Dumpy sack, loose and unbagged.

Wholesale price was £3.25 / 3kg+ bag, minimum order 10 bags, (British Coppice Association etc, so not actually labelled as any particular weight) but I found that the time and effort taken to weigh and even out bags was not worth the hassle compared to 'fill it and close it' style. Factory gate price, i.e. those who collect from store or my house £4.50, normal retail price £5.00. Having said all that the cost of bags is set to rise, as are most other costs, and I have sold at those prices for the last 5 years.....


Bean poles:

don't forget National Bean Pole Week end of April - beginning of May.

I sell at £4.50 / 11 or £5.50 / 13 (5 bays and 1 across, or 6 bays and 1 across)


Pea Sticks:

normally £4.50/10


Post & Rail:

Rails £4.50 each at 10' other lengths p.o.a. depending on quantity. Posts - an awful lot depends on whether or not the mortices are 2 or 3 and single(square) or 2 parallel slots but generally in the region of £10


Other:

where do we start?


Ash Tent pegs. 9" - hardly worth selling or buying at 35p each - mainly for garden badminton sets etc.

12", generally the size scouts like for patrol tents at 45p each

lots of slightly different designs now, some for beach volleyball, yurts, marquees

Bigger thicker, chunkier - pricier.

I almost invariably give a bulk discount to scout troops of up to 20%, because I think they deserve it!


There are a whiole swathe of other possibly products floating around out

there...


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Postby The Sawyer » Sat Jan 31, 2009 12:00 pm

Hi every one thanks for the plug for the Hampshire coppice group site (I'm the webmaster) and nice to see John Sinclair's name mentioned.


We sell fire wood by the 1.2cu load loose @£65 within 10miles of our base (Horndean, Hampshire) with log bags at @£3.50 per bag.


you may be interested in the this site:

http://www.wesnetservices.co.uk/html/firewood.html


ttfn kester


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