Woodburner folk…simple buying question

I’ve been offered seasoned ash at £45 per ton. Is that good? I have nothing to compare it to; tried eBay etc..

Obviously I will be buying a chainsaw* and carrying it in the back of the car, harvesting any tree that looks vulnerable, ready for next year’s supply, but just to get me going this year, I must buy 🙂

Ta.

*maybe a bow saw and some spinach.

Ash is good for burning – but (and its a couple of years since I’ve bought any) – chopped, dry, ready to burn hard wood logs can probably be had of £60-ish with a bit of shopping around. (varies by locality though can be as much as £90) – so you’ve got to compare the cost to what you’d pay for processed ready to burn logs and decide if the saving is worth the work

However… whats ‘a ton’? A bulk bag of logs is often referred to as ‘a ton’ (and thats what I get for £60) – but a cubic meter or chopped logs is probably only about 200kg. If its a real actual ton weight of wood then thats a decent price…. and a lot of work 🙂

Checked that 🙂 Apparently it is a true tonne. I shall do some biting of arms then.

..and I took seasoned to mean ready to burn?

Ash is top of the list of woods to burn for me, I don’t pay for mine so don’t know what the going rate is for it, but as a wood to burn, imho you cannot beat it 🙂

Ash will burn green, so seasoned can mean anything.
BUT if it is 1000kg for £45 cut, split and ready to stack or burn is a good deal.

..and I took seasoned to mean ready to burn?

Yes – although ash can be burned pretty much green too

Allow them to convince you its a real ton in that case – unless they are taking it over a weigh bridge its difficult to visualise. Cut into logs and chopped then a ton would pack down into 4 to 6 bulk bags. But unless its in very straight cords then its difficult to gauge what kind of volume/weight of wood you’re looking at

EDIT – sorry I misconstrued your mention of a chainsaw to mean the wood was un-cut / chopped. If its chopped and dry in a bulk bag for £45 then thats a good price. If its a real ton – 4 or 5 bags worth – then you’ve won a watch.

Right, just spoke to the guy. Nice fella. It appears it’s actually a tonne bag, but said he would split the logs down as small as I wanted. Is even going to drop up a sample of logs gratis to see what wood I prefer.

That’ll do then, he seems like a good ‘un!

Thanks 🙂

£45 for an ag-bag is still a reasonable price.

As above though, it’s more likely to be around 200-250Kg by mass, depending on moisture content.

Green ash has a relatively low moisture content when green – about 35%, hence will burn OK, while green willow might be closer to 45%+ which is not great. But pretty much all wood burns with the same energy output by mass for a given moisture content.

So assuming you have, say 200Kg of well seasoned, 20% moisture ash, which will produce c.4kWh/Kg of net energy (if burnt correctly), so 8,00kWh, your energy will be costing c.5.6p/kWh which is fabulous.

Id bet though that you are more likely going to end up with (the sample will be tinder dry though 😉 ) 230Kg of 35% ash, yielding closer to 3kWh/Kg, 690kWh, being 6.5p/kWh.

Round here, a seller of high quality firewood charges £94 per bag for 22% moisture wood (£94/(4×200) = 12p/kWh), or £85 for 30% (£85/(3.4×230) = 11p/kWh). But TBH that’s mainly vanity burning customers, not those for whom it’s a primary fuel….like me.
http://burningfirewoodlogs.co.uk/
http://www.nottenergy.com/energy_cost_comparison/

Say what? 🙂

That’s actually quite interesting thanks Stoner; I’ll do some more reading. Chap is a friend of a friend, and no reason to not believe what he said – which was all logs were 2 to 3 years old. I shall be googling moisture pokey things to purchase 🙂

Edit: No vanity burning here; I need this to save me money after the outlay! Should really get a bit savvy with the details.

Edit: No vanity burning here; I need this to save me money after the outlay! Should really get a bit savvy with the details.

If you are on mains gas or even oil CH, then you are going to struggle to save money by buying in logs.

I have ‘the perfect house’ for heat from a stove to dissipate through the whole building. Plus I really need to post a picture on here of a normal looking home with a roaring fire and a glass of malt, rather than some rubble-strewn shit-tip, just once 🙂

4 cu metres stacked lasts me a winter, burning most days, works out about 6 ton bags full. If you’re happy buying 6 of those for winter, fire in. I’d be surprised if it’s ash though, as these guys know most folks don’t know how to tell the difference, but know ash is the best ye can burn.

It’s definitely ash if I ask for ash – he wouldn’t piss off the friend that has referred him 🙂 I’ll heed that though as I wondered why he started talking about different logs that I wasn’t asking about. Cheeky chappie 🙂

Thanks all.

A bulk bag of logs is often referred to as ‘a ton’ (and thats what I get for £60) – but a cubic meter or chopped logs is probably only about 200kg.

A bulk bag is nowhere near a cubic metre.

From what you’ve said about it, it sounds properly seasoned. If it has been split at least 6 months and kept undercover, even better. Just make the effort to store it dry, all that moisture and more can be reabsorbed.

As you’ve probably gathered by now, a tonne bag doesn’t hold a tonne of logs (unless they are very wet). A cubic m of fresh felled timber of most species equates to around 1 tonne. A builders bag is designed around sand which is denser, so the bags are nearer 800x800x800mm, allow for air gaps between logs and dry weight and you have a lot less than a tonne and not a cubic m either.

Pedantics aside, prices vary a lot, but that would be reasonable around here, we sell the cord wood for more per actual real tonne to the firewood sellers.
I really wouldn’t get hung up over soft or hard wood, we sell mixed loads and it is what we burn at home. The softwood will bring things up to temperature quicker which will allow for an efficient burn of hardwood. Dry is all that matters.

I like 1/3 sift to 2/3 hard. A nice ratio for getting things going.

£45 per builders bag is cheap in these parts. Most are £60 – 75 per bag. Some of those more air than wood.

My woodman delivered a Transit tipper load of well seasoned mixed hardwood on Thursday. It’s filled three wood stores and three well stacked builders bags. About 6-7 cubic metres of tightly packed logs. £120. That will save around £300 of gas this winter, and I’ll have a warmer house.

Hi Bear,

I know of an alternative (supplementary) wood source that might be helpful here.

There is an ebay seller who does 900kg of hardwood briquettes for around £130-160 delivered. The good thing about this is that they have approx 6% water content max. They are not a pretty as real logs, but the amount of heat they produce is quite amazing in comparison with logs.

It can be good to mix up these with real logs to extend the refill time.

If you would like the sellers details – let me know they deliver free and are quite reliable (I have bought for the last 3 years and had a couple of friends do the same)

Cheers
Alastair

Thanks Alastair; will get things started with logs and learn a bit, but may then get in touch in due course once I know a bit more!

I think Stoner’s values above are the theoretical energy content which doesn’t account for stove efficiency (maybe 70%). So the cost per useful kWh will probably be about 40% higher. I think our gas is currently only about 2p/kWh though that again ignores efficiency. It’s all a lot cheaper than electric though.

Oops, wrong thread!

Buying in firewood might be more expensive on a KWh basis than mains gas…but…if you are getting home and lighting the woodburner late afternoon, by early evening when you are sitting down, its warm enough to have not bothered to put the central heating on at all. Another hour or so and I’m sitting on the floor where its a bit cooler, the living room door is wide open and the rest of the house bungalow is heating up for bedtime.

Unless its really cold, during the working week we might only have the heating running for 45 minutes a day, sometimes it tops up in the early hours for 15 minutes but I try and prevent this by setting the smart thermostat to 16 degrees…partly as the heating wakes me up. If I’m late home from work it’ll be running but I’ll stop it once the fire is going.

Since getting the stat (Nest), some extra loft insulation and the burner, the gas bill has been steadily dropping for two years. Normally spend about £120-£150 on 2-3 seasoned bulk bags a year.

That said, my mate from work has an inset stove, I gave him some pointers as he was struggling to get it up to temperature and unable to close down the vents, confident he’s getting a nice hot/slow burn but he is getting through about three times the quantity of timber, from the same supplier as me!

Hi alibongo/Alistair, I’m interested in that eBay seller if you’ll put a link up please.
Cheers

There are different weights and volumes available, the ones I bought last year were these:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Approx-900kg-Bag-Ecofire-Hardwood-Heatlogs-Stove-Woodburner-Firepit-/272389093796?hash=item3f6ba7b9a4

Will be buying some more soon!

(I buy some smaller bags to keep them in as if the storage is not completely dry they can absorb moisture from the air – another ebay seller had some overstock 25Kg sand bags from B&Q)

OP get one of those damp meters so you can check a few logs further down the bag!

wood-burner efficiency is north of 85% these days, but it is dependent upon knowing how to burn correctly. Gas boilers are around 90%

the figures in this link are adjusted for burn efficiency
http://www.nottenergy.com/energy_cost_comparison/

Stoner, isn’t that the efficiency of burning the fuel? Ie only ~10% burnables wasted in the smoke and ‘ash’? Which means heat output to room is around 70% after what goes up the flue.

I got a delivery of Ash arb waste last month for £50. Now in suburban London seasoned hardwood builders bulk bags are north of £60, my estimation is once processed I’ll have over 2 maybe 3m³. So self processing saves of the order of £200 -£250. It’s a lot of work though, but quite enjoyable. If you want to feel really smug, start ringing the local to you tree surgeons and get processing their waste. You’ll probably get softwood for free/pennies from them, and hard wood cheaply. Once you process your own you’ll come to appreciate £100 for seasoned logs delivered is fair.

No that’s total losses, ash and flue gas.

However most people don’t burn correctly (at least not all the time) so individual performance will vary.

The OP’s talking about a stove not a boiler. Few (any?) stoves claim 85% let alone what’s achieved in practice.

if you are getting home and lighting the woodburner late afternoon, by early evening when you are sitting down, its warm enough to have not bothered to put the central heating on at all. Another hour or so and I’m sitting on the floor where its a bit cooler, the living room door is wide open and the rest of the house bungalow is heating up for bedtime.

When I had no alternative to solid fuel it was in a cottage heated by solid fuel central heating. The stove was surrounded by had a water jacket that circulated heat to the radiators. It meant that the stove itself didn’t radiate much heat as the radiators were drawing it off. It wouldn’t start to warm the room it was in until those radiators were hot. So you had a few hours after lighting where the stove wasn’t giving off any heat locally and the rads weren’t hot either.

So the routine for me was get home around 8pm. Light fire. Look at the fire and imagine warmth. Shiver. Go to bed around midnight just as the house was heating up. Get up when the stove was out and the house was freezing again. I found it more cost effective to buy a deep sea diver’s thermal onsie and just learn to love the ice on the inside of the windows on week-nights and save the stove for the weekends 🙂

I thought that but wasn’t going to argue the difference between 80-85% and 90. The point stoner is making is (I think), modern wood stoves with secondary burn can be very efficient and effective heaters it burnt correctly. Burn wet fuel or restrict the air too far,open and reload too often or other things all reduce efficiency, wet wood is pretty pointless.

However, even as efficient as they are, buy seasoned logs and it’s not cheaper than mains gas for home heat. Cheaper than oil, electric or propane probably, but not as cheap as mains gas, which is daft in my view, gas ought to be taxed more and renewables funded more.

We still seem a little behind the US and elsewhere, where catalytic converters are becoming common and necessary to meet regs. Costly but up stove efficiency again.

In addition to contacting local tree surgeons Bear you might want to keep an eye on gumtree, post yourself with a ‘logs wanted’ and maybe leaflet drop a few neighbours. I’ve collected and processed 12-13 m³ of logs in the last 14 months and it’s all been free except the last load of Ash. Most has come from local tree surgeons but some from neighbours, I’ve just been offered a dead pear tree by a neighbour. It’s been surprisingly easy to get wood, and SE19 south London is a fair way from any countryside.

30 quid for a cubic metre of Birch here,vanity fires only. Don’t know if that’s decent but just wanted to contribute to a wood burning thread on Singletrack

Does anyone have their woodstore in the house, pros and cons anyone?……..and does anyone know what the nicest smelling wood is, to store?

I’ve got the possibility of some cherry and apple tree logs, any good?

However, even as efficient as they are, buy seasoned logs and it’s not cheaper than mains gas for home heat.

indeed.

I love this time of the year before I have to fire up the log boiler when I have all the fuel ready for this season (far bay) and have brought back from the coppice all the fuel (and more) than I need next season too.

There’s roughly 8m3 in each section, or 30+ ag-bags (@0.8m^3) in total.

Youre quite right, thecaptain, stoves will be in the 75% to 80% range (A typical charnwood stove is 78% say), whereas my boiler is 90% on the pellet side and I think something around 82% on the log side. And my Lacunza stove is something like 75%, but the flue does run inside the insulated envelope of the building for over 4m so a lot of the flue gas energy is retained.

Does anyone have their woodstore in the house, pros and cons anyone?……..

it depends on how much you / your wife like spiders and woodlice 😉

I’m in West Wales and I am envious of the prices I see on here. I think I will be burning coal again this winter.

I pay £120 for a heaped landrover load of ash that has been cut ~9months ago; which is ~3 cubic meters.

Seems like the going amount around here (SW outside Bristol) and I then keep it for 12 months to get it dry; I also chuck some coal in with the wood if its very cold and it seem to bring the burn time and temperature up a bit.

Its also well worth getting a stove fan as they make a difference.

I think I will be burning coal again this winter

Switched, never looked back.

Coal is always ready to go, takes up less space, burns longer and more controlled, and requires less reloading. Makes more ash, but I could care less.

windy but rainproof outdoor area (draughty shed) is surely best for a wood store. You need the airflow even indoors, and if you bring in fresh wood you’re adding a lot of humidity to the house. Also, the evaporative cooling must be costing you heat unless it’s in some unheated area of the house.

It’s not a good idea to burn wood and coal together.
The moisture from even the driest of wood dissolves the sulphurous chemicals given off by the coal and forms an acid which will eat the liner.
Even the driest of wood is 10-15% water.