Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska FIREWOOD COST...??? And how sold...???

I cut and put up firewood for a lot of years...early '70's until we moved down here three years ago. I was pretty happy to turn my saws over to my sons, but now I kind of miss it. Kind of.

I am 76 y/o and still logging firewood off my own property. I do use a log splitter now. The reason I started this thread is I am going to have to move next summer, and expect I'll have a little over seven cords remaining after the winter, that I'll need to sell. So, I wanted to get an idea of market value.

The key to living in the interior is use plenty of insulation... if log house, well yer fugged... use to burn spruce, preferred big rounds as they lasted the longest, need to be dry and need to burn hot once a week to clear the chimney of buildup...

Who do you know that does onsite milling in the interior?

Always fun driving by Mtn Pt when someone has logs pulled out and then seeing people whine on FB because they would take a load home and the logs would be cut and gone by the time they got back. There is a sign right there clearly stating that cutting logs isn't allowed there....... Even saw a guy that posted a picture of a log he pulled out for sale on FB for $350. Took the picture right on the boat ramp.....

Just had 3 cords of split, dry, larch / fir mix delivered in stevens county for 220 per cord. Its a deal in my book. Lotta other stuff id rather be doing than bucking, hauling, splitting wood. Hard to find a good source though. Most guys will short cord ya, slip in a buncha spruce and junk, or green wood. Or all 3.

It's $350 for a cord of oak delivered/stacked in Texas. We cut/split our own here in Idaho.

I'm sure that I'll be cutting some wood for many years to come, but full on heating with wood will end one of these days.
Sitting at a desk for 7-8 hours a day the past 15 years doesn't help.

From what I'm seeing a 3500 type truck w/small dump beds of split hardwoods are going for $500+.

Mainer, what's the make/model of your stove(s)? That's more fouling than I've ever seen in any of (5) non-catalytic epa-certified stoves I've owned.

Vek, different than you'll encounter. When the wood smoke hits the exterior of even double wall insulated pipe, the smoke condenses against the cold walls. The ambient winter Temps are 20-40 below zero.

So if your stove goes cold near morning, so starts the build-up against the cold pipe.

Really big stoves that hold a lot of wood, the smoke is dense, that contributes to a quicker build-up of creosote.

"Burning out" your pipe is something I'll never do. It ruins the metal on everything you run those Temps. I've run a temp probe on a stove pipe where the creosote was being burned out: 1200 degrees f, which is insane.

Better to just sweep pipe more often, and keep your start-up Temps below 500 f., then bring the stove back down to 320-400 f.

I run BlazeKing kings,and equal sized earth stoves.

I've been burning wood as my only source of heat, at my current location for over thirty years. I burn lodgepole pine and Larch. I burn small, hot fires and do not let the stove smolder. I have swept the chimney zero times in thirty years. Last year, I was re-doing my roof and pulled the cap off and shone a flashlight down the chimney. It is absolutely clean. In the last couple of years, I have started doing some back-up heating with a pellet stove (for when we are gone for a couple of days. The pellet stove exhausts directly into the firebox of the wood stove and uses the same chimney. Works great. GD

I sell firewood, I charge 275 for a split load, a load on my 1 ton truck delivered, is about 140cu ft, a cord is 128cu ft.
The most common complaint I see is green or wet wood, and getting shorted, I see that all the time.

So I am bringing more than a cord of Fir or Jackpine, or a mix to my regular customers. Most guys are around 300 and up, I have my regular customers and don't see the need to get greedy with them. I turn customers away because I just can't do 300 cords a year anymore.

I'm in southern BC, when I first started selling firewood (43 years ago) it was 50 bucks a cord, split and delivered.

Not Alaska, but don't seem to make a difference in this thread. As a sideline to my logging business I sell cordwood. I used to dink around around and sell pickup loads, but people would question the amount in the box and want to know what is the dimension of the box including to the top of box rail. Just a hassle. Now I only sell full cords. I made a jig inside of my horse trailer 4x4x8 and with new customers I make sure they see it loaded with firewood.

In addition, I carry a moisture meter with me and if anyone questions how dry the wood is I give them a visual. Most of my customers are repeat business and they all know that I will deliver in September-October. No handling that stuff when the snow flies. Don't call me when the snow is on the ground.

$350/cord. Oak, Cherry, Hickory and Locust mixed. My best customers get an armload of split pine for kindling with each cord...no charge. With the increased cost of fuel and just about everything else, I am charging $375/cord next year.

This is a couple of the piles that will be gone by end of October.

They can't sell it anymore the fbnsb
outlawed it..... I don't know what the hell they're doing with all of it now a daz

I saw that post…cracked me up. Hardly enough room to play with boats there much less haul and buck up firewood. I’ll say this….at least whoever bought that wood knew it was beach wood.

I hear it makes great siding over a layer of 10 pound felt, the bats really like it.

$4-500 for a tri-axle of pole wood.
$700 for a 19-20' tri-axle dump load of cut/split wood.
The pickup guys are a joke.
Nobody stacks it, never see a load I would haul.
I'm guessing 2 of some of their loads would fit in one load stacked.
You don't get much thrown in and only a couple inches above the bed rails
right in the center.

Had one guy try to tell me that throwing or stacking, don't make much
difference.

"You are either lying or ignorant. I've loaded a pickup with wood by
myself too many times. Toss it in until the bed is half full, crawl over
it and start stacking. That half a bed full becomes little more than one
row."

He got all kinds of pissy.
Lying, scheming prick.

Those are the same cons selling a pickup load as a cord.
Run a heavy 3/4 ton weight is not an issue.
Put headache racks in the front and stack the first 3 rows cab high,
no sideboard. Last 2 rows are a little shorter.

Have stacked and measured that at home several times, it's always
around 3/4 of a cord. That last 1/4 ain't going on without sideboard.
Most 1/2 tons aren't going to like it if you are loading oak, maple,
locust.

In WY, I think it is about $275/cord. I usually buy by the truckload that is about 12-14 cords. This year I need some and a truckload is about $22-$2500. I asked for small diameter logs - we'll see what shows up.
The days of me getting it from the forest are over, even if the permits are cheap.

I used to cut and split to feed the wood stove in my barn, when I had my back surgery in 2014 I had to give it up. I will admit that I do miss being out in the woods in the fall and spending the day cutting wood.

mainer, thanks for that explanation. I have seen the same thing - really fast creosote build up in the pipe when burning spruce, even if it is very dry spruce. This is at our cabin near Lake Louise, so also pretty cold temps. Reminds me I need to sweep that thing, if the cabin is still standing. Haven't been there all summer!

At my Cosna cabin, I cut the dead/fallen spruce trees in the yard. It's "free" - Ha! Doesn't need measuring, or hauling so enough is enough, and that isn't much, as we are only there a few weeks in the summer, at most. Missed going last year, and so far this year - outboard fuel pump failed 1/4 mile from the landing in June - which beats 50 miles.... I have a cheap chinee emergency spare now, in addition to new OEM installed ). Gonna make a run at it after moose season, but that's pushing freeze-up some. Probably 3-4 days only, if we can even go. The chimney likely needs brushing again - there is one there.

The expense is in getting there- about a 1400 mile RT. I reckon a cord of firewood (3- year supply?) there runs in excess of $5000. I try to leave it on the stem, but have more deadfall than I can use, usually.

At the rec (spelling varies) Lobo cabin 60 miles away - also wood heat (with propane supplemental) I'm using spruce and birch- mostly spruce from the home yard and perhaps later this year or spring, the rental unit (NG heat) yard. Beetle kill - good stuff, but as Mainer says, spruce creosotes the stacks, so regular brushing is important. We don't have the winter temps here on the Kenai that Interior has, but still. I gotta get up there on the roof this fall yet- not easy as it's 3 stories up.

Plenty of wood around for the taking- I ain't buying any. I have several big live , but likely rotten core- birches that need to come down once the sap is gone for the season. Stuff splits well in below freezing temps, and a year's drying time once split, but I'm getting tired of that maul and wedge - like above, I'm leaning toward a splitter, rented or bought.

Getting too old and lazy for this manual splitting chit...

I agree - my 3500 with 8 foot bed stacked top-of-cab high all the way back might be an honest cord. Plus or minus.-