The homeowner or restaurateur seldom has the time or means of to go after & cut his own firewood. On the other hand, there are farms & lots covered with leaves & heavy brush whose owners don't have time or energy to clear. If he combines these two problems the solution to both may be a profitable business!

Cut firewood sells for $50 to $200 a cord these days (depending on the season & part of the country).

A cord of wood is 128 cubic feet (a stack 2 feet wide, eight feet long & eight feet high, or four feet wide, eight feet long & 4 feet high), or a good 3/4-ton pickup load.

A couple of people with a chain saw could fill their truck with poles (small logs) take them to the "yard" & saw them into firewood, then load, deliver & stack the wood in a few hours time.

With a larger truck, they could do two cords at a time: twice the profit with only about 25% more cost & effort. He can cut poles to insert in the pickup or truck bed to form a "rack" to hold the maximum load. Be sure to run a cable or heavy rope across the load at the top of his rack poles to make them secure (keep them from bending outward).

It would also be wise to measure his truck so he can show marks to indicate a half cord, full cord, etc. To save loading time & possibly, arguments.

An easy way to do this is to compute the area of the bed & divide that into 128.

For example, if his truck bed is 4 x 8 feet, or 32 square feet, divide that into 128 to get 4. This means when the wood fills the bed & is 4 feet high, it is one cord of firewood.

Prices for firewood vary with type (oak or elm), age (green or dry), whether or not it is split, the amount purchased & if it is delivered and/or stacked by the seller.

Split, seasoned wood brings the highest prices some vendors invest in hydraulic wood splitters for this reason. The price of firewood is also affected by the season & often, for a temperature. A cold winter stirs yearning for a nice warm glow in the fireplace especially Christmas.

For this business, he will need a place to saw to length, split & store his firewood; preferably a place where people can come load their car trunks & pickup.

A truck is a necessity, as are a couple of chain saws & crosscut saw & a wood splitter would be nice. His yard does not have to be in an exclusive area - just so people who want firewood can find it & it's not too far out.

Put signs on his truck so people can get his name & phone number when they see a truck loaded with firewood.
  
Put a small ad in the paper as winter approaches & if he can afford it, also put an ad in the yellow pages.

This is not a business where fancy letterhead stationery & business cards are all that important, but it would not be a bad idea to have a business card to hand out to people who might want to call on him later.

He must have a telephone, however it would also be wise to have a sign at his wood yard, especially if it can be seen by passers by: why waste the advertising opportunity?

In his wood yard, arrange his products by category & make easy to sell. Stack your firewood by type wood, size of the logs & length (he will soon learn the most popular wood & size in his area. He can also save a few poles that can be cut to custom lengths (some people have unusual sized fireplaces or bar-be-ques).

If he lives in an area with termites, invest in a gallon of chlordane & spray the ground (never the wood) before his stack the wood. It is also advisable to place a treated wood (like landscape timers) as a base, so his firewood does not actually touch the ground (this keeps it cleaner too).

He can apply the chlordane with an inexpensive hand sprayer just be sure to follow the directions on the label explicitly.

During the summer times, make a few wood holders that measure out a half, quarter cord when filled. These can be used to measure wood that is loaded into the trunk of a car or back of a pickup. Smaller holders can be used to measure out bundles of wood and/or kindling that is tied into bundles.

If he does a lot of sawing at the yard, save any valuable sawdust, like hickory or mesquite, which can be sold as "flavoring."

Note that if he burns charcoal or ordinary wood, he can dampen hickory sawdust & sprinkle it around the edges for a hickory smoked effect. It may not be the same as real hickory smoke, but it is better than nothing - this idea has been profitable to many a wood yard.

Another trick is to tie bundles of wood of about 15 pounds & wholesale them to stores for winter sales. He can also sell these bundles along the highway on cold days, especially during the holiday season. Vendors have really make good money doing this. The price per cord for wood sold in these small bundles is awesome. Also, don't throw away those small pieces package & sell them as kindling.

If he has enough business, it could even be profitable to invest in a composter something like the city uses to chop up trimmed tree limbs so they will fit into their truck (consider buying their chopped brush!).

With a composter, he can turn waste sawdust, leaves & small branches & twigs into compost that can be sold by the sack or cubic yard. When considering a composter, make sure to think about using it a work sites.

For example if he clears a large lot, he can compost the trash & harvest the firewood. This would undoubtedly make his clearing service more valuable.

You might also check into picking up left over lumber from lumberyards, construction projects and tree trimmers. Perhaps he could even sell newspaper logs ( or the machine that makes them).

The message here is to figure out how to make a profit from what would otherwise be wasted time, effort or material. This is often the difference between a successful business & one that just survives.

Naturally, his heaviest firewood sales will be in winter, which means his income may be limited in summer when he is preparing for the selling season.

It is possible to receive some income from clearing lots & removing trees, however & there are always the restaurants & BAR-BE-QUE houses. The bottom lines are that with a part-time summer effort & a modest investment he can have a very nice winter income.