Price of firewood

[Pieces_of_Eight]

What is the going rate for a chainsaw operator?

 

[hindmaist]

That makes more sense. All the stuff we've logged in teh past ahve been off our own ground or a favour for someone we who letds us graze/crop their small paddocks. I've been asked to fell and log a couple of mature Larch for someone, it's the first paid job of this kind I've done, what should I be charging?

£25 per hour.

 

[TheTallGuy]

What is the going rate for a chainsaw operator?

I recently quoted £25/hour for felling from ground level, plus £12/hour for an assistant, 8 hours work cut and clear. Numpty said he could buy a chainsaw and do it himself for that kind of money - so I walked away. The first tree he tackled smashed his neighbours fence, the second broke his windscreen, oh how I laughed when I heard.

 

[KMA]

It depends on the size of the tree and access,can it be felled whole? or has it got to be dismantled ?

We get alot of customers that have greenhouses,sheds,phone cables,oil heating tanks and all manor of things that have to be taken into consideration in a restricted work area,and of course the price will be more for dismantling

Can be taken down whole pretty wide angles to take down avoiding a couple of fences and a garage. Not like the last lot on an island in a large pond with water & fences all round, I ended up going for a swim in the middle of December

Got some more to take down at the same place this time at the bottom of a long, very steep bank with a stream and marsh at the bottom, access on foot only, plan to take the fence at the top of the bank down then winch the stuff up.

 

[Hilly]

25hr is a good do with a chainsaw !

 

[Pieces_of_Eight]

£200 income for an 8 hour day??

 

[KMA]

Ah but mind there's the PPE, chainsaw, fuel/oil, files, chains, &etc especially if some @rse has been hammering nails into the bloody trees

 

[TheTallGuy]

There's travelling to/from, setting up & sharpening the saw, getting rid of the brash, sharpening the slashing hooks etc. and maintaining vehicles & trailers and doing paperwork when licenses etc. are required. None of which customers ever want to pay for if you list it separately. I know of a job locally that was charged at £400 by arboraculturalists that could easily have been a 1 day job, or 1/2 day for me + assistant.

 

[Pieces_of_Eight]

Which reminds me that my CS30 has expired...

 

[bobk]

It puzzles me why anybody would burn unseasoned logs. You get maybe a third of the heat out of them if you are lucky.
You can't even burn three times as many to try and keep warm as they don't burn that well no matter what you do.

You don't have to stack them, just split them into an ibc cage and store in the dry.

Tbh we burn it quicker than we have time for the job , an ibc cage full of logs would last a couple of days ... we store it in a 10 ton grain trailer
lasts a month .

 

[czechmate]

Tbh we burn it quicker than we have time for the job , an ibc cage full of logs would last a couple of days ... we store it in a 10 ton grain trailer
lasts a month .

Get ahead so it's seasoned and use half as much

 

[bobk]

Get ahead so it's seasoned and use half as much

But it would burn it twice as fast , it's shutdown as low as possible already

 

[TheTallGuy]

A decent rocking bench saw and hydraulic splitter will save no end of time so that you can get ahead and allow some to season. Me and Dad (he's over 70!) can knock out a 3 ton trailer in a couple of hours with the MF135 on the saw and the MF690 driving a 10t splitter. The difference between seasoned and not is worthwhile.

 

[Punch]

But it would burn it twice as fast , it's shutdown as low as possible already

Seasoned must produce more usable heat though. Your using some heat of the fire to dry unseasoned!

We are £50-£80 a bag depending on order size and location.

 

[Grain Buyer]

have any of you lot heard of coal? Just chucked half a bucket on the fire at 7. will last till bed time.

 

[Bobthebuilder]

have any of you lot heard of coal? Just chucked half a bucket on the fire at 7. will last till bed time.

at £16/bag i'll stick with my free fire wood thanks, got about 50T of beech,oak,ash and birch to work on as we cleared the side of a wood next to a ditch so we can get the digger in to clean it out, cut and split a couple of ton of the smaller stuff before Christmas and it burns fine and plenty of heat off the stove, down to the last few basket fulls in the shed so need to get the saw n splitter going soon, as for chimney fires after the last 1 I had the stove was fitted and the flu lined with thermocrete so it is a clear 9" fire proof hole from top of stove to the bottom of pot so no need to worry as a good fire keeps it clean

 

[grainboy]

Or sell them at this price, surprisingly people buy these, transported half way round the country, rather than buy local.

 

[Bobthebuilder]

Or sell them at this price, surprisingly people buy these, transported half way round the country, rather than buy local.

could turn that crate full of ash into a few bucket fulls of ash in a fortnight

 

[Grain Buyer]

ah, not everyone is lucky enough to have "free wood". Mind you, this free wood you talk of sounds like it takes a couple of tractors, a loader, a trailer, a splitter, a chainsaw, and a huge amount of man hours to turn into a "Log". I'm sure (but don't quote me) that 1t of coal will last the same as 5t of wood.

 

[Guss109]

Which reminds me that my CS30 has expired...

Your tickets shouldn't run out but they are trying to push you to go on a fisa refresher course every five years if you do work for the big players. I had to do it when we did work for the forestry commission but I would just do another cs unit as at least you've another qualification