Selling Firewood – A Worthwhile Business?

Are you an arborist, contractor, or tree doctor with a yard of wood you need to turn into cash? Firewood is a valuable resource that is very often generated as a by-product of vegetation and tree-management operations. Producing firewood allows you to utilize tree waste for profit and maintain productivity in your operation. By processing firewood, you can avoid dumping fees and chipping costs while adding significant value to what would otherwise be wasted. If you already have trucks, excavators, loaders, yard space, and staff, investing in firewood processing can generate a lucrative income stream.

According to the ABS, around 10-13% of Australian households use wood as a source of energy in their home. Considering an average household consumes 3 tonnes per year (although this varies from 1.3 tonnes in QLD to 5.8 tonnes in TAS) this means that Australians domestically burn 7.5 million tons of firewood annually. When considering industrial use, this number jumps to 8-9 million tonnes. Most of this consumption occurs in the cooler south-eastern regions of the country, with over half being consumed in New South Wales and Victoria.

Is firewood a worthwhile business?

Since 2005, we have worked closely with wood yards, arborists, and commercial firewood wholesalers in regional Australia, servicing blades and supplying firewood cutting machinery. The growth in the firewood industry over this time has been remarkable, with demand for firewood for domestic and industrial use continually increasing particularly in southeastern states.

When selling firewood to consumers in Australia, prices can vary from $300 to $500 per tonne, subject to the timber species and region. While there is some variation in weight per cube, as an approximation we estimate that 1.6-2.0 cubic meters equals one tonne of firewood. Arborist and tree management operations can very easily generate well over 1,000 tonne of tree waste in a year, giving ample scope for healthy profits if converted to firewood.

SAWQUIP Bench Saw Return on Investment

SAWQUIP range of firewood processing equipment.

Towable and PTO Firewood Bench Saws (Sawbench)

How you should cut and split your firewood depends a lot on the timber available and existing machinery you own. The SAWQUIP Firewood Bench Saw range (SBS36, SBS30, PTOSBS36) is ideal for limb timbers on Rural properties and small commercial operations as it allows you to tow the machine to the timber, perfect for cutting on site and contract work. Utilising these machines eliminates the need for carting timber as it can be cut wherever it is lying. From client feedback, these machines have the capacity to cut a b-double load (roughly 40t/64m3) of hardwood firewood per day.

Cutting with a tungsten saw is where you truly notice the difference in production and speed when processing timber. If you have a lot of lengths of timber (limbs, sleepers or fence post) to turn into firewood a bench saw is ideal, as you will be about to process more than double the amount compared to a chain saw before needing to give the blade any attention. Using a bench also takes the back strain away from bending down with a chainsaw to cut up the blocks, and provides consistency with the size of the cut blocks.

LogRipper Excavator Saws

The SAWQUIP Excavator Saw Range (X18, X15, X12, X10 X09 & X07) enables you to take the processing to the larger timbers. Utilising the efficiency and practicality of the excavator, attaching a circular saw to your machine allows you to attack large timber of various shapes and sizes with ease, providing you the ability to also rip down large timber longways to further process them down to smaller splitable pieces. There is plenty of large timber on properties that hold tons of sellable timber that can often look to risky or difficult to process manually. Not anymore! Excavator Saw help you to utilise all of the tree, including the stump, ensuring no good timber is left behind.

Adding a LogRipper to your attachment range, can also help when contracting, allowing timber to be easily processed on site without requiring excessive timber haulage.

SplitEx Excavator Splitters

Splitting timber can often be an arduous task, especially when it comes to heavy hard Aussie timbers. Trying to work a 20Kg log onto a stand-alone log splitter is not easy task and get very old quick, especially when you are doing a lot of it. SAWQUIP designed the SplitEx excavator splitter to provide a safe and easy way to split down large timber, all from the cab of your excavator. Designed for 1.8-8T machines, these splitters utilise the excavator’s hydraulic system to split the wood, and the manoeuvrability of the machine allows you to pick the timber up from the ground and split straight into a trailer or tipper, removing all manual handling.

Excavators have a lot of power behind them, and as a result these splitters have been put to the test with several different size excavators and hardwood, to ensure that it is designed in such as way that the hydraulic cylinder is protected, and it is equipped with high grade still to take the wear from the harsh conditions of splitting timber.

Should I buy Australian Made equipment?
Australian Timbers are some of the hardest and densest timbers in the world, and consequently some of the best and longest burning Firewood. The SAWQUIP Saw Bench & Attachment range are manufactured in Australia to handle Australian Timber and are backed by a 2-year manufacturer’s warranty. The Honda and Kohler powerpacks come with a 3-year manufacturer’s warranty. Our machinery is built using readily available components, ensuring quick replacement times should spare parts be required.