Timberwolf recently competed at at the Sawlex 2009 wood splitter demonstration. We had a lot of great fun and we want to thank our crew who blazed through that woodpile in record time!
Sawlex 2009 Timberwolf TW-5 Log Splitter in Competition from Stephen Roberts on Vimeo.
The soaring cost of home heating has some home owners falling back on an old standby. This fall, firewood is hot. Some firewood dealers are having trouble finding enough wood for their new customers. And - like everything else - the price of firewood has been creeping up.
In a state blessed with abundant forests, firewood looks like a sensible alternative. But in the eyes of pollution officials, wood heat may not be the best choice.
Duluth, Minn. � This is Kent Price's busy season, and this year it's a lot busier than usual. His business, Price Firewood Company in Cloquet, has been getting a lot of phone calls.
"Yeah, a lot of new customers out there, looking at their first purchase of a wood stove," Price says. "And a lot of old customers that had quit burning wood when the pricing of fuel and propane and natural gas was down. They're coming back and calling me and restocking their supply."
Price, his son and two other employees, are working long days, splitting and delivering truck loads of seasoned oak firewood for Cloquet area customers. Business is up about a third over last year. It's a kind of panic buying he's seen before.
"One of our busiest times was the first Gulf War," says Price. "We could not keep up with the demand. Now, with the second Gulf War, and ... now the price of fuel, it's very very busy. But it does not seem to be as busy as with the first Gulf War."
People are worried about fuel supplies, but mostly they're worried about the cost. Price says you could heat a typical home, with cut, split and delivered firewood, for maybe $1,000 to $1,200 a year.
While that sounds like a lot of money, it may not be, considering natural gas prices are predicted more than 70 percent higher this winter. Heating oil is expected up about 34 percent.
"I think it's a great thing," Price says. "It's a renewable resource. When you cut a tree down another one will grow. People in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan; I think it's a great value." The rush is on at the Fireplace Corner - a Duluth store that specializes in wood and gas stoves and fireplaces. On a weekday afternoon, customers are looking for help, and the phone just keeps ringing. Store Manager Jason May has met many concerned homeowners.
"They're really worried that with the rates natural gas is going at propane's going to go up," May says. "Oil's going to go up. So, they just want to have another alternate way to heat their home or at least supplement it, so they're not getting bit so bad when the gas bill comes."
It's not just wood. May says there's a lot of interest in wood pellet stoves and even stoves that burn corn. And he says modern stoves are far more efficient and far cleaner than their counterparts from just a few years ago.
Unfortunately, a lot of older stoves are still out there. Bob Beresford, air quality specialist with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency in Duluth, say a return to wood could be a return to the bad old days. Beresford says there's not much the MPCA can do when people complain of a neighbor's wood smoke.
"That would be a concern," says Beresford. "And we really don't have much in the way of regulations at the state level here that would allow us to get at the problem of wood stoves if a problem develops."
Wood smoke carries at least 14 chemicals known to cause cancer. Tiny particles in the smoke can get trapped deep in people's lungs. Beresford says, having a wood burner in the home is like adding a smoker to the family. In some places, wood smoke is a huge problem. Communities from Oregon to Colorado have banned wood burners from new construction.
"Wood stoves are definitely a dirtier source of emissions," Beresford says. "Any solid fuel whether it's coal or wood, is going to have a lot higher emissions than oil, which in turn has a lot higher emissions than natural gas."
The rush to wood has even caused spot shortages. While Kent Price in Cloquet says he can get what he needs from his Minnesota and Wisconsin suppliers; other dealers in Duluth and Northern Wisconsin say it's getting hard to find hardwoods like oak and maple. And what you can find, is getting more expensive.
One in five households consume wood for either heating or for the enjoyment and ambiance a fire provides. The domestic firewood market uses more than 27 million cords of wood a year. 34% of the households which burn firewood purchase their wood, making total annual firewood sales 9.18 million cords a year. If two-thirds of the firewood sold each year is sold in bulk, the domestic market for bulk firewood is 6.15 million cords. United States Packaged Firewood Market 76% of firewood purchasers are urban consumers who are increasingly predisposed to purchase their firewood in packaged bundles. With limited access to cord wood suppliers, limited storage capabilities, time limitations, and ever the increasing difficulty finding seasoned bulk firewood, today's firewood consumer is more and more likely to buy packaged firewood. A cord of firewood is 4 feet wide, 4 feet high, and 8 feet long - a total of 128 cubic feet of wood. A typical package of split, seasoned firewood holds 0.75 cubic feet of wood, so a full cord of wood will provide approximately 170 packages of split firewood. Assuming an average price per cord of $120 for bulk firewood, and the average price per package is $3.95, the retail value of a cord of packaged firewood is approximately $670. At this time there is no packaged firewood supplier mass producing a nationally branded product that fills the market demand.
Rutland, VT � Commercial firewood dealers are keeping the price of firewood down, but increasing their profits by using higher quality log splitters and firewood processors to produce more firewood in less time and with lower labor costs.
The Timberwolf log splitter does the work of three men, and it does it faster and more efficiently, according to information at www.TimberwolfCorp.com. The durability and reliability of the made-in-the-U.S.A. machine enables firewood dealers to produce more firewood in less time. They are able to keep their prices down and still make a higher profit.
�Consumers need an alternative to the high cost of home heating oil, and firewood dealers need to be able to process their wood quickly and efficiently to keep their costs down. The Timberwolf log splitter automates their production, and helps them to keep the cost of heating with wood more affordable for consumers,� explained David Therrien, Timberwolf's president and CEO.
Commercial firewood dealers cannot afford any down-time in the production process. If they purchase a poorly made mass-produced log splitter, they usually discover that it is unreliable and costly. Timberwolf log splitters are the �Cadillac� of the industry, and have a reputation for being an extremely well built, and reliable workhorse.
�We don�t cut corners when it comes to quality. We know that our customers rely on our equipment to keep their company in business. We use heavy-duty components with state-of-the-art welding techniques of the highest quality workmanship. As a result, Timberwolf's log splitters are faster, easier, and more reliable than any other log splitter out there,� said Therrien.
Timberwolf has been producing log splitters for 11 years, and has fast become the world's leading manufacturer of log splitters. Firewood producers can split big, gnarly logs all day long in winter and summer without even a whimper from the Timberwolf equipment.
Timberwolf ignores competition from the low-end splitter market and focuses solely on customers that insist on buying the best. Buyers of the imports get little or no training on how to use them, with no service warranty for break downs. The initial costs for Chinese brands may be lower, but the real cost comes later when the machine does not produce as much firewood and breaks down frequently causing a halt in production.
�We recently sold our 10,000th log splitter. Firewood dealers are looking for quality and dependability from a log splitter made in the U.S.A. We offer them the peace of mind that comes from knowing that our equipment is made to last, and backed up with a network of servicing dealers that is second to none,� said Therrien.
WCSH News-Portland, OR
With the cost of heating oil higher than a year ago, some firewood dealers we spoke with say they are seeing an increase in demand. Paul Reed Junior of Reed's Firewood in Durham says business is up 15% from last year and the phones are ringing steady.
Reed thinks more people are turning to firewood because they're uncertain about how high the cost of heating oil will go.
Reed says, "we're getting between 20-30 calls a day, which usually didn't start until September last year... And this has been going on for the last couple of weeks. And before that we were getting 10-15 calls a day which was still up. I mean, we're booked 4-5 weeks ahead and we're not in September yet."
Dealers we spoke with from Wells to Belfast are asking between $220 and $270 a cord for seasoned wood and $180 to $200 a cord for green wood. But if oil prices remain high, they will likely drive those firewood prices higher too.
View the feature on Timberwolf that recently aired on WCAX Channel 3 News.
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Ok, so it's not a story about Timberwolf splitters. But if you're into splitting wood by hand (and you know how we feel about that...), Michael Holigan of DIY TV fame did a segment you should see. See the pix, read the script and watch the video. Some great basics about hand splitting firewood.
http://www.michaelholigan.com/Departments/TVShow/seg_index.asp?ts_id=5747
The price of firewood is all over the place. Makes sense that the savvy firewood producer will zero in on the metropolitan areas where there’s less supply, more demand and higher household income. See how you stack up.
http://www.firewoodcenter.com/
From the Pennsylvania woods, Snyder & Sons talk it up with Timberline magazine about how Timberwolf products have contributed to the growth of their firewood business.
http://www.timberlinemag.com/articledatabase/view.asp?articleID=893