Firewood bid

MrMoon5shine

MrMoon5shine

TreeHouser
Joined
Dec 28, 2015
Messages
68
Location
Hornby Island, BC Canada
hey all I could use a hand on pricing on a big firewood contract details are:

two guy crew splitting profit 50/50
one 441 saw and 20 ton hydraulic gas splitter
and lots of cords a guess would be 50-100

we want to sell at $220 a cord so my question is, how much to offer the owner of the trees ( per cord ) and how many cords do you think can be done with that equipment in a 6-8 hr day

any advice will be very appreciated.
 
Yes, you'll need to firm up your numbers for sure before you can even approach splitting a profit, much less predicting one.
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #5
where i live most people heat their homes and during our many power outages cook with wood heat so its more of a way of life hahaha, couldn't see myself ever not doing firewood contracts this one is just bigger than anything i have ever done. its also a one off deal, big lot cleared for a new fire hall. when i normally do firewood jobs it's a home owner wanting 2 to 3 trees down, bucked, split and stacked so i change by the hour.

this is my first bidding type job where we will offer them X per cord so need to bid high enough to win but not srew myself at the same time. thanks for the cord per day est. al smith!
 
Unless Al is on your crew or you want to do a lot of work for free I would go out and do one or two 6-8 hour day test runs in similar conditions. Then I would cut back by 20% because the next day you will have to sharpen a few more times from rocking the chain or some simple saw repair.

Welcome to The House MrMoon.
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #7
i am off in the bush doing pine beetle control work so my partner in this endeavor is going to make the offer and thinks $40 a cord will win but i just have no clue if that's too high or to low?? so here i am :P
 
There's no way for us to tell you the magic number.

$40 profit per cord? That means $120/day per partner... That's not terrible as a laborer wage, but it's not getting ahead and if the saw blows you're cooked.
 
$220 - $40= $180.

4 cords @ $180= $720. Split that and you get $360 each.

If you're happy to cut and split for that it's up to you. Or you could do 5 or 6 like Al said, that'd bump it up a bit.

I've never split a cord though, only tons, metric tonnes and cubic yards & meters. Good luck.8)
 
My son and I can process 5 cords per day using a saw and splitter, but that's only if the logs are already piled up and waiting to be processed. Hopefully you'll have all of the logs cleaned up and stacked neatly for you before attempting to do this.....or are you also responsible for the land clearing operation? Hopefully they don't push the trees up into a pile with a bulldozer....you'll never work your way through the muck and dirt.

Joel
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #14
haha thanks everyone but it looks like i will not be home in time to get this job. but thanks for all the help it will come in handy on the next one. lot to think about for sure
 
That 5 or 6 I was talking about was already on the ground and limbed .30" ash at that not pecker poles .

Take my word for it you'll never get rich selling firewood .Been there ,done that .
 
Yes the craziness of selling firewood. You'll make lots of friends...er customers that is, as long as they feel you're not ripping them off.

There was a older retired logger here who cut and delivered firewood . At the end of a 12 hr day he'd take home a few hundred bucks after all the expenses were paid.That was about 15 years ago.
Hard worker but one evening his wife went out to the shop to see why he wasn't coming in for dinner. She found him crushed to death under the trucks dump box, end of story.
 
I've been asked several times about selling firewood, but I see too many fliers selling wood as low as $150 per cord delivered. I have a few friends I drop wood for when I have excess, and one of those brings his splitter to my house when I get a few cords of good wood sitting here to be split. We fill my wood shed - fill his truck/trailer, then I typically have to refill my beer fridge :)
 
It used to be good beer money when I was younger. Now it's not worth my time, not that I have any extra. With all the dead ash around here prices have dropped and everyone is out cutting each other's throats. I lost a thirty tree removal job to someone who would do it for the wood. Thought he could get away with burning the brush onsite. Half the trees are down, yard is trashed, and a big half burnt pile of tangled mess( love the local FD). I haven't quite made it up to give the home owner a new price. I'll let him call a couple more times.
 
I had one like that. My price was too high so they dozed it all up and built the house in front of it, then rang me to clean it up. "The hard work is all done, the trees are down now". That would have kept him busy for a few weekends I guess.

I haven't done firewood for a long time, there's a couple of big setups around and you can't compete with them.
 
Tom used to just keep oak and hickory for his own use . I talked to him like a Dutch uncle .WTH you're already getting paid to remove the thing, sell some wood in the winter to at last pay the light bill .Which he did .Winter is a bad time for treemen in these parts especially right after Christmas .

He must not be doing so well because he's still got 10-12 cords of oak in my woods all piled up and not split
 
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