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

Where you live how much does firewood cost...?? And how do they sell it. Pick-up truck load, true cord, so-called "face Cord" or some other goofy amount...???

Please identify if you live in Alaska.

Lots of ways to get firewood up there...varies from year to year. It pays to be ready...I got a lot of wood on short notice due to having a sharp saw and a pickup. In 5.5 years I got firewood from the JBER firewood area, from the BLM or whatever office property off Lake Otis (birch bucked to length), some guy on AOD who needed trees cleared out in Wasilly, and neighbor's client's place out by biglake. Heated exclusively with wood and never bought any. Prevailing word was that any wood purchased up there was wet, so drying time needed accounted for. I had no problems cutting in the spring and summer, splitting it small and burning it that year.

That’s a good question because I haven’t met an honest firewood guy in Ketchikan yet. A truck load can go $250 and I’ve seen “cords” go around $350 depending on species. “Cords” are always short…and usually from a short bed pickup plastered with monster energy decals.

Gave up on easy and just pull my own.

SE Oregon here. $250 a cord for split Ponderosa Pine. Cut it yourself and the forest used to charge $5 a cord. This year an 8-cord permit is free. We can take standing or fallen dead. There's 3.6 cords in there, and we typically use 2.5. Five layers deep at 15-inch lengths. All Western Larch. Most sales, however, will not do stacks that tight. A local industrial level commercial guy does about $500 K a year, but he packs it down to treeless Nevada and probably doubles the price.




Have about a six-year supply stacked just yards away.

Pure Alaskan birch goes $400 a cord delivered up here in interior Alaska. In the fairbanks area, it's illegal to sell green wood.

Seasoned Alaskan birch has similar BTU's as oak,maple or beech.

If available, its a much better deal than spruce, which is terrible firewood.

A cord is 4x4x8ft stacked. I fell, buck and split about 20-30 cord of birch a year.

I also mill a bunch of birch and spruce.

Hell, Mainer. It’s almost illegal to burn wood in Fairbanks.

210.00 - 240.00 a cord delivered for mixed hardwood around here {upstate NY}. Most commonly sold by the face cord {4'x 8' x 16"} at 70.00 - 80.00 per.

Here in MI, when they logged our property they would deliver a trailer to a person for $1000. Roughly 10 cord. You gotta cut and split. Logs are roughly 10'long.

We don't have much logging going anymore, but a load of 32 footers used to be about $400 at about dozen cords.

Only time I’ve bought “firewood” was a load of slab and ends from Northland Wood in Fairbanks. Good stuff for kindling.

Can’t quote you the current price, but my Crew Cab Silverado’s bed, which I think is just short of 6ft, holds a face cord when stacked in and level with the top. Sort of a rough measure to keep your wood guy honest. I’m just feeding a fireplace seasonally, so I usually can cut enough on our place for that.

A guy in Hope, Alaska is selling cord of split mixed Birch/Spruce for $400.00

One gallon of #2 fuel oil is 140,000 btu. One cord of douglas fir is about 21,000,000 btu. One cord of doug fir equals about 150 gallons of #2 fuel oil. Assuming a gallon of fuel oil is $4.00/gallon. 150 gallons is $600.00 dollars. Guys selling cords of wood delivered in the range of $250-400/cord are cutting their own throats. Around here in rural Ea. Wa. $250-300/cord is about the going rate. These guys do not put much value on their time.

That's what its worth, its cheaper than oil otherwise most would not fool around with burning wood. Good backup, but a lot of work even if you have it delivered. Aurora E gets over 400 delivered, there are people that will deliver tree lenght cords for around 3 bills a cord.

I burn solely wood as my primary heat source. September to middle of May.

That level of hard cold, unassisted by heating fuel or natural gas, makes this Suburbia, hobby stuff yall talking about, seem like childs-play.

Many others up here in interior Alaska burn solely wood. It like having a second fkn job. Come 20-50 below zero for months, you're married to that stove.

Anyhow, so many horrific house/cabin fires up north here by folks who burn spruce. The sht is so caustic, it eats a stove pipe to a brittle shell in 2 years of continuous use.

When the pockets of pitch errupt into sparks, the pressure draws up the pipe, and the sparks can get through the pipe joints and catch your trusses on fire. My neighbor almost lost his home, two months after he switched to spruce. He ran out of birch.

This is what a pipe looks like after 1 month of spruce. You must sweep the pipe every 3 weeks, just to get safe:

We don't get/stay quite that cold for as long but still burn about 6-7 cords here in the Virginia Appalachians.Oct-April.
100% wood heat
All seasoned hardwood-oak, locust, hickory and little cherry.

As I approach 60 I can see this as being unsustainable for much longer and also cannot see where buying firewood would be a wise choice.
Just my .02

Just paid $325 for cut, split, delivered, seasoned one year hardwood mainly maple, ash, oak, and some birch.

Raeford,there are many older fellas in my area who put up wood in their 70s and 80s. When they stop, is when they pass away.

Keeps the Ole fellers moving.

But.....They're Alaskan old men. A different breed of gruff, stubbornness,and toughness.

Been heating solely with wood for 35 years and cut for my FIL for 5 or so prior.

10 more years would be my max[if I can go that long].

Hell, I even stepped down to Echo on my last saw purchase after 30 years with my 028
Not cutting for another 30 years so save $200

AGL4now;
Good afternoon, I hope the day is a good one up in your part of Alaska and you're well.

From the south Okanagan in BC, it looks like mixed pine and Doug Fir runs about $275 a cord and Doug fir is averaging about $350 a cord.

There seems to be no set way to sell it, some vendors by the pickup and some with dump trailers.

Hopefully that was at least somewhat useful for data.

All the best.

Dwayne

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.-

Had some oak and hickory left from last year, but very little. Earlier this spring I found a guy that had 3 big oaks cut. Had a sign free wood. Got 2 cords of white oak already cut to length. All I had to do was haul, and split what needed splitting. Gotta replace stove pipe this month though

All kinds of ash for free on craigslist all over the east coast. Damn beetles.

Last winter/spring I was getting about one a week, across my damned driveway!
Never realized how many I had[all on the upper side of drive of course!]

A couple years ago I had taken a couple of big 100’+ Doug Firs down and bucked them into 16” rounds. We don’t heat with wood since we have a heat pump and propane furnace. Our UPS driver was a nice guy that was local not living far from us. He asked me how much I wanted for the pile of wood and was surprised when I told him that he could have it all as long as he cleaned the area up after he got it all loaded. He loaded up what was easily 2+ cords in several pickup truck loads and cleaned the area where the wood was. A few days later he stopped by on his day off with a thank you card and some of his wife’s fresh preserves. He told me that they have 5 kids and money can be tight but having a couple months of heating wood on hand would loosen the pressure on them a little.

His appreciation and the card of thanks was more than I expected and in many ways it was better than whatever money I could’ve got if I’d sold the wood. I was happy that I gave it to someone who would appreciate it.

I took down a couple of big alders last year and bucked them up and split it all earlier this spring. It gave us around 3+ cords of campfire wood which the kids have made a serious dent in with their nightly summertime campfires. I split that by hand, it felt good to split wood by hand again.