Do any dealers sell truly seasoned wood?

[lexybird]

the people i speak with who dont know any better seem to think that green wood is best because it lasts longer before its consumed ,they think somehow this will translate into efficiency for their old smoke dragon.i guess if you want your wood smoldering and your stove temps a couple hundred degrees less with a chimney full of tar glazed creosote green is the way to go .

 

[Nonprophet]

Imagine being a wood seller. Imagine the work required to find the trees, cut the trees, transport the logs, buck the logs, split and stack the rounds (and find the space to store/stack them)--and then wait 1-2 years to get paid for your work. Now, extrapolate that over 100-200 cords.......now you know why few, if any, wood sellers sell truly seasoned/dry firewood

If you want truly seasoned firewood you basically have two choices IMHO--cut it yourself, or, buy from wood sellers 1-2 years in advance and season the wood yourself.

Occasionally, you might get lucky and find an honest and knowledgeable wood seller who really has seasoned wood for sale, or, you might find someone moving who has a few cords of well seasoned wood for sale, but I sure wouldn't
want to ever have to count on those rare exceptions. After years of hassles in dealing with wood sellers (getting shorted and/or sold wet wood) I now scrounge my own wood so I KNOW what I'm getting......


NP

 

[JustWood]

That's why I started this thread. Seems like most wood dealers are happy with the status quo.

Dealers are happy because they are in the business to cut and sell wood. It's a cyclical cycle and when "seasoned wood" supplies are depleted, most will continue to sell unseasoned wood as "seasoned" because there are uneducated buyers in the market.

Two ways to fix the problem. 1. Educate the consumer or 2. Government standards, sort of like "Angus Beef". You can't lable it unless it passed strict standards. I don't think we will ever see this.

Like someone stated earlier, as older stoves are replaced with new EPA stoves, this might change the firewood business over time in terms of selling seasoned wood.

#1 is nearly impossible. I've been carting wood for 21 years and give people the choice of seasoned 2+ years or 6 months and 95% of the time they go with 6 months because of the price difference.I offer a 30% discount for bulk 6 month seasoned wood .
#2 is coming soon to a vendor near you if USDA and state Ag & Markets have their way. And your gonna really hate the price of firewood after they start regulating.
Dedicated space for drying wood and the extra handling as has been mentioned are the biggest reasons most vendors don't sell much trully seasoned wood.

 

[stejus]

That's why I started this thread. Seems like most wood dealers are happy with the status quo.

Dealers are happy because they are in the business to cut and sell wood. It's a cyclical cycle and when "seasoned wood" supplies are depleted, most will continue to sell unseasoned wood as "seasoned" because there are uneducated buyers in the market.

Two ways to fix the problem. 1. Educate the consumer or 2. Government standards, sort of like "Angus Beef". You can't lable it unless it passed strict standards. I don't think we will ever see this.

Like someone stated earlier, as older stoves are replaced with new EPA stoves, this might change the firewood business over time in terms of selling seasoned wood.

#1 is nearly impossible. I've been carting wood for 21 years and give people the choice of seasoned 2+ years or 6 months and 95% of the time they go with 6 months because of the price difference.I offer a 30% discount for bulk 6 month seasoned wood .
#2 is coming soon to a vendor near you if USDA and state Ag & Markets have their way. And your gonna really hate the price of firewood after they start regulating.
Dedicated space for drying wood and the extra handling as has been mentioned are the biggest reasons most vendors don't sell much trully seasoned wood.

# 2 - This is the very reason I buy fresh cut off the truck. He loads the truck right from his line in the forest and dumps it in my back yard. It's $130 a cord for all hardwoods. It's a local dealer who works for the state of MA thinning out a state forests and private land. Some may argue that's a high price but I just don't have the time to cut and split enough wood to keep my house warm. I scrounge here and there, but not nearly enough. I would never have purchased a stove if I didn't have access to this wood and enough space to have two seasons of wood on hand. I can't imagine paying up to $300 for a cord of so called "seasoned" wood when I can season it free $0.00.

 

[SolarAndWood]

It's $130 a cord for all hardwoods. Some may argue that's a high price but I just don't have the time to cut and split enough wood to keep my house warm.

$700 or $800 a year plus a little stacking time and space seems like a good solution to the problem.

My neighbors don't have the space to store it for a year plus for ideal seasoning. They have 6 or so cord dumped in their driveway by what appears to be the same guy after the snow melts every April. It sits in the sun and wind all summer and then they use a powered wheelbarrow for a weekend in October. While not what many here consider ideal seasoning time, it also seems to be a reasonable solution given their space constraint.

 

[Bigg_Redd]

Am I alone in feeling no sympathy whatsoever for those who are forced, through a lack of forethought/planning/whatever, to rely on woodsellers for dry firewood a month before the cold season?

 

[heppm01]

Am I alone in feeling no sympathy whatsoever for those who are forced, through a lack of forethought/planning/whatever, to rely on woodsellers for dry firewood a month before the cold season?

Yes.

 

[stejus]

Am I alone in feeling no sympathy whatsoever for those who are forced, through a lack of forethought/planning/whatever, to rely on woodsellers for dry firewood a month before the cold season?

Maybe for the first time wood burner. There's usually a plan to have the stove installed long before the wood is ordered. If someone were to take a pole, I'd be willing to bet the stove was installed before the wood was delivered or seasoned. After the first year, no sympathy. It's a like any other machine we use. We need to have fuel for our cars, do we ignor the gas guage when it's near empty?

 

[branchburner]

Am I alone in feeling no sympathy whatsoever for those who are forced, through a lack of forethought/planning/whatever, to rely on woodsellers for dry firewood a month before the cold season?

I know what you mean, and agree to some extent. But the people I do feel sympathy for are those who just got a stove. They thought "hey, let's burn wood this winter" and that thought wasn't preceded a year earlier by "hey, let's get some wood in case next year we decide to burn wood". Everybody gets the stove first. And then they are told "burn seasoned wood" so they buy some, but of course it's not really seasoned. Some figure it out, some don't. A lot don't. And I don't think too many guys selling stoves tell their customers, "oh, by the way, you're screwed if you don't have wood yet... unless you want to pay $600 a cord for kiln-dried".

 

[JustWood]

Am I alone in feeling no sympathy whatsoever for those who are forced, through a lack of forethought/planning/whatever, to rely on woodsellers for dry firewood a month before the cold season?

Yes.

NO!
My phone consistently rings up till 11PM on some of the coldest nights of the winter expecting a delivery at that time of night because they "just threw the last armload in the stove". I just don't answer after 8 anymore.
I can't count the # of times this has happened in my wood carreer.

 

[LLigetfa]

"oh, by the way, you're screwed if you don't have wood yet... unless you want to pay $600 a cord for kiln-dried".

Not factoring the capital cost to acquire the kiln, the operating fuel cost to dry a cord with gas is around $40, cheaper if wood waste is used. Add another $20 for labour and $40 for capital cost and the premium goes up to $100. Kiln dried is a step above heat treated so there are no transport restrictions in quarantine areas and no concern about bringing in insects with the wood.

Judging by Lee's experience with people not paying the premium, Kilns only gain popularity in quarantined areas and even there, just to heat treat and not actually kiln dry.

 

[Bigg_Redd]

*sigh*

 

[Wood Pirate]

I bought from a local hillbilly once and got screwed. I dont usually buy wood but this year I had to much going on and picked up an additional 4 cords. One from a local guy down the road from me and 3 from a landscape company out of Warwick New York.

The guy in Warwick has a firewood processor so he will process over 1,000 cords per year. If you get it early enough the following year all the wood has bee sitting for quite some time. Plus the processor debarks most of the logs.

 

[gibson]

I have been buying my wood for two years in Feb/March for the next year. At that time of the year the dealer really has no reason to lie and I was told that it was bucked in December then split sometime after. It was not wet or heavy either time. Stacked and covered for the spring, summer and fall it seems to burn fine with little smoke or creosote build up. It is not the ideal scenario, but it is what it is.

 

[Bigg_Redd]

I have been buying my wood for two years in Feb/March for the next year. At that time of the year the dealer really has no reason to lie and I was told that it was bucked in December then split sometime after. It was not wet or heavy either time. Stacked and covered for the spring, summer and fall it seems to burn fine with little smoke or creosote build up. It is not the ideal scenario, but it is what it is.

It's not? Sounds ideal to me.

 

[smokinj]

I have been buying my wood for two years in Feb/March for the next year. At that time of the year the dealer really has no reason to lie and I was told that it was bucked in December then split sometime after. It was not wet or heavy either time. Stacked and covered for the spring, summer and fall it seems to burn fine with little smoke or creosote build up. It is not the ideal scenario, but it is what it is.

It's not? Sounds ideal to me.

+1

 

[LLigetfa]

I have been buying my wood for two years in Feb/March for the next year. At that time of the year the dealer really has no reason to lie and I was told that it was bucked in December then split sometime after. It was not wet or heavy either time. Stacked and covered for the spring, summer and fall it seems to burn fine with little smoke or creosote build up. It is not the ideal scenario, but it is what it is.

It's not? Sounds ideal to me.

+1

-2

How can burning same year wood be considered ideal? Add a year and it would be close. Two, and it would be ideal.