Is it me or have logs got expensive?
I bought 6 bulk bags last year and we didn't even pay 300 quid all in...
This year its £135 a bag so buying the same quantity this year is £800!
S.
Scavenge. I haven’t bought firewood for the last three years since I got a chainsaw. A lot depends of knowing where to find the wood and whether you can get it home from where the wood lies. I’ve been lucky so far.
Tim
Where friends buy logs in the other side of the country* to you its around 30% cheaper for small quantities, and more so if you buy in larger quantities in one go.
Their price for a single 4.4m3 load is around £450, your price in those small bags is equivalent to £990.
Shop around and/or DIY a larger wood store.
*This is in a rural area where many people have log burners (no mains gas) and the local supermarket possibly has perhaps 100 large nets of kindling on their sales floor at any one time during the winter months. Two large nets of kindling fill a deep shopping trolley.
Can you break up some pallets? Loads of places seem keen to be rid of them.
Well, this is a DIY site :)
More seriously its down to all those folks installing new stoves in an attempt to save on other fuel costs. Higher demand leads to higher prices.
I just bought some at £80/bag inc delivery. That was a random advert on Facebook from somebody in the next village. I paid the same price from somebody else in 2020. There's also an outfit in Cambridge that does 'sawmill offcuts' that I'm tempted by - possibly drier and easier to feed into the woodburner (also for kindling), although the current lot looks fine. They are £70 ex delivery.
I'd look around locally. Nene Valley Firewood seem to be about 55 miles from Nottingham, so I'm not surprised transport costs are going to add up.
Theo
I used to do this but I now have two nippers to look after so I am literally time poor
last year was the first time I've ever paid for firewoos
Thats why we bought 6 builders bags worth last year.....
You call a builder's bag small?
Thats what I am doing.... Many firewood years start charging or wont deliver over a certain distance
Which part of the country is this?
I never buy those nets of logs from supermarkets, 6 builders bags was the most they could get into a Ford Transit van last year to my house....
I used to do that before children came along but am now time poor.
Also many pallets were often softwood and too dry, so they burned much faster than logs even with the air supply cranked down
But only 15 miles from Northampton, which sounds rather more plausible :)
I wonder if it's also kiln dried firewood that's expensive: with the price of gas, it can't be cheap to run those kilns (or do they power them with wood scraps?). Air drying has the advantage of zero energy costs. (As is selling logs with dubious levels of moisture in them, something of a risk when buying via Facebook etc).
Theo
Shopshire
Not the logs but the dry kindling sticks (sold as fire sticks) to start the fire.
My friends have purchased large bags of kiln dried hardwood logs (1.6m3 builders bags rather than the 0.6m3 bags you quote). It's cheaper if the logs are loose and can be just dumped from the back of the lorry.
When they had no front garden or driveway the logs had to be delivered in the 1.6m3 bags. They have since moved and the logs can now just be dumped on the driveway.
Hmmmm
Anyone fancy doing a DIY buying co-operative?
What part of "energy" increasing in price passed you by ?
Welcome to the end of empire.
Not so far from Northampton though :-P
LOL.
its the wholesale gas prices that have gone up....
but then again I suppose very person and their pet animal is searching for alternative heating sources thus driving up demand for logs!
the way things are going, running an electric car will soon cost more than a petrol car apparently!
Not really I'm afraid - this 'cost of living crisis' is testing markets to the max . . .
That may be part of the cheaper prices where my friends live. It's not unusual for logs to be dropped off to next door neighbouring properties on the same delivery.
A transit van stuffed with 6 small builders bags doesn't seem like an efficient delivery method - and not so good for you if you are not getting a discount for ordering more than one bag in the same delivery.
For most EVs with the october prices they'll still be cheaper (counting only fuel cost per mile) than ICE vehicles, but probably more expensive after the next hike in january.
Bingo !
I refer you to my initial statement. Although I imagine my amusement will be short lived as the government fiddle with the energy market to back this ludicrous obsession with EVs. Or milk floats as they still are.
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