Beekissed
Mountain Sage
I finally found a source of cheap firewood around here! I don't have any on my place to cut and I don't know anyone around here enough to cut on their place, so I've been pretty stumped about how to obtain firewood without handing over my firstborn as payment.
To get wood delivered is pretty pricey around here, for the amount you get. The best I've seen is a dump truck load that only yields 1 & 3/4 cords (4 x 4 X 8 ft.) for $175. Of course, its delivered and dumped on your doorstep, but that's not much wood up in these parts! The state no longer issues permits to cut downed trees on state land, so that was out. Our church has a firewood ministry that we help with, but we don't like to use it much ourselves, as I don't want the church to feel like they've taken us to raise!
So....we found out the local sawmill sells bundles of "seconds", mainly oak and poplar, for $20 a piece. It took us 3 trips in our 4 x 8 ft. utility trailer to bring home one bundle, which equals about $30 in gas (the mill is about a 40 mile round trip over a big mountain). One bundle was approx. 2 ft. wide X 5 ft. tall X 12 ft. long, once cut and stacked. We bought 2 bundles for now.
So...for the price of approx. $100 (wood and gas) we will obtain a wood pile of 4 X 5 X 24 instead of paying $175 for an 8 X 4 X 16 pile. That's 480 sq. ft. of wood for $100 vs. 512 sq. ft. for $175. Not bad. That extra $75 dollars saved would have only paid for 32 sq. ft. of firewood if delivered by the dumptruck.
The boards were easy to cut up into stove lengths and will make great kindling when cut down to the proper size with an axe. I figure we could buy another 2 bundles and have twice what we got by on last year! $200 is not a bad price for a winter's fuel bills, at that!
Anyone else relying on cheap firewood this year? Any great source we all are overlooking when we go to buy firewood? (It still galls me to have to buy firewood...when we were growing up, we had enough land to cut our own.)
To get wood delivered is pretty pricey around here, for the amount you get. The best I've seen is a dump truck load that only yields 1 & 3/4 cords (4 x 4 X 8 ft.) for $175. Of course, its delivered and dumped on your doorstep, but that's not much wood up in these parts! The state no longer issues permits to cut downed trees on state land, so that was out. Our church has a firewood ministry that we help with, but we don't like to use it much ourselves, as I don't want the church to feel like they've taken us to raise!
So....we found out the local sawmill sells bundles of "seconds", mainly oak and poplar, for $20 a piece. It took us 3 trips in our 4 x 8 ft. utility trailer to bring home one bundle, which equals about $30 in gas (the mill is about a 40 mile round trip over a big mountain). One bundle was approx. 2 ft. wide X 5 ft. tall X 12 ft. long, once cut and stacked. We bought 2 bundles for now.
So...for the price of approx. $100 (wood and gas) we will obtain a wood pile of 4 X 5 X 24 instead of paying $175 for an 8 X 4 X 16 pile. That's 480 sq. ft. of wood for $100 vs. 512 sq. ft. for $175. Not bad. That extra $75 dollars saved would have only paid for 32 sq. ft. of firewood if delivered by the dumptruck.
The boards were easy to cut up into stove lengths and will make great kindling when cut down to the proper size with an axe. I figure we could buy another 2 bundles and have twice what we got by on last year! $200 is not a bad price for a winter's fuel bills, at that!
Anyone else relying on cheap firewood this year? Any great source we all are overlooking when we go to buy firewood? (It still galls me to have to buy firewood...when we were growing up, we had enough land to cut our own.)
