Moving firewood on pallets

matdand

TreeHouser
Joined
Oct 9, 2013
Messages
313
Location
Near Montreal, Qc
I just might be pulling te trigger on a small piece of property. This would allow me to keep, produce and sell firewood. I've seen people stack wood on pallets and then move them with forks. My Vermeer 600 isn't very strong, but I think I could move at least a third of a face cord at a time. Anybody do this? What is your setup? How are you reinforcing the pallets?

There's a shop close by that has hundreds of pallets that they give away. They might be flimsy but they are free!
 
My buddy puts chicken wire around the pallets of firewood that he sells and transports. It shouldn't be too hard to reinforce with some blocking and a nail gun.
 
I fit is dry firewood that just needs to be transported to a customer, scrink wrap plastic works fine.
 
Fruit/apple boxes work good, if there's any of that sort of industry around. Possibly not over there though?
 
Matdand, is it Mat?

Seems a loading rack/ holder before wrapping might help. Bundles of wood are often stacked into half of a 5 gallon bucket, then wrapped, and removed from the bucket.
 
I've considered it for my own use but barely make the time to spilt my own wood
 
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  • #8
Sean, ya it's Matt (or Mat). Squish, I'm in apple country, one of my climbers is a third generation apple producer. Never though about apple bins, I wonder if I could get some cheap. I've seen chicken wire and plastic wrap to hold everything together. I'm wondering if my mini would be strong enough to lift a quarter or a third of a cord onto my truck, it's fairly high.

My other thinking was to use the pallets to measure the wood and having a conveyer with some sort of huge funnel. I could dump the pallets into the funnel which would then go into a dump truck with the conveyer. This would avoid having to unload the pallets at the clients place and going back to get them.
 
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  • #9
Willie, I like the idea of having wood to split as bbackup work for the guys, on weekends or rainy days.
 
I hate paying my guys to split my wood, and at $250 -350 a cord it doesn't pencil here. Most people only want madrone and we don't get much of that.
I've been looking for a good lift conveyor for years, one on cl here for $6k!
 
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  • #15
250 a cord!!?? That's insane, it's about 100$ a cord here. I figure if it can keep a guy at 15$ an hour busy on some days, might as well heat my house and sell the rest. I saw two guys split about 25-30 cords in two days with a crappy splitter. If not I'm giving away the stuff (and delivering it some times)!
 
Believe it was Fred on here who does just this. He gets those small crate/pallets I see a lot at recycling yards. The ones that have a metal frame with a plastic bin. Loads and unloads them with his vermeer 600 mini. I for one think its a great idea. If I had a mini thats how I would do it. Drop a full one off and pick up the empty one, or just swing and grab the empty one. Keeps it neat and tidy and cuts down on handling it.

Thats the key with firewood imo, is handle it as little as you can. We have to split it, stack it, let it dry, then load and stack it on the truck by hand, then unload and stack at the customers by hand. A PITA but once we have some land, I'm gonna look into the pallet idea.
 
You can get it cheaper this time of year. A log truck load of madrone runs about $900 and had 8-9 cords in it but you still have to cut and split it!
 
$175 on the high side here. I only made money when I was doing it through a processor. Otherwise, I wont sell it. Its a waste of effort here. I put in as much as I get out. Id rather just stick $175 in savings and skip the labor.
 
Believe it was Fred on here who does just this. He gets those small crate/pallets I see a lot at recycling yards. The ones that have a metal frame with a plastic bin. Loads and unloads them with his vermeer 600 mini. I for one think its a great idea. If I had a mini thats how I would do it. Drop a full one off and pick up the empty one, or just swing and grab the empty one. Keeps it neat and tidy and cuts down on handling it.

Thats the key with firewood imo, is handle it as little as you can. We have to split it, stack it, let it dry, then load and stack it on the truck by hand, then unload and stack at the customers by hand. A PITA but once we have some land, I'm gonna look into the pallet idea.

Yep, we cut each bin to equal the volume of a quarter cord stacked. A third of a cord (face) can get a little heavy for the mini. Adrian is right, the less you handle the firewood the better, and I keep trying to brain storm new ways to make it more efficient.
 
Loading is the issue for me and I have toyed with the idea of palletizing but I am not sure how much time I want to put into and the extra cost of the pallet/crate. I charge for stacking so unloading is payed for plus some profit.
 
I try to only sell small volumes thrown into a 4x8x2' trailer, affixed to which is my 4x8' sign. I park it near a mile and a half down the road at the highway. I may break even on firewood, as filler, and turn about a third of firewood customers into tree work customers at some point.

I've only sold Madrone once. The rest of it keeps my house piping hot in the winter.


1/3 cord $65-80 delivered, depending on mix, seasoning, and season. When it's emptied, wood gets split right into it.
 
I thought this was a good idea. Saw on forestry forum.

Im done selling split wood. Ill only sell log length now. Just under 200$ for 2+ cord trailer load. Less than half the time, and most times ill pull it off a customers and sell it to the next guy.

Conveyors are a life safer, i have $200 and some climbing time into the one willie posted although pulley driven. Works awesome.

This year I'm moving my wood to the house, garage and shed via bulk bags on pallets.
 

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I split onto a conveyor and wouldn't go back. Less twisting and throwing wood. That's exhausting after awhile.
 
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