Chop, chop: Firewood dealers struggle to meet demand
By Daniel Dunkle
Business/Enterprise Reporter
(July 24): Local firewood dealers say demand for their product has never been higher, and they cannot keep up with orders coming not only from locals, but from Southern Maine and out of state as well.
Rising heating oil prices, a shortage of loggers and increased demand for wood by the paper industry have driven up the cost. In addition, residents who used to wait until fall to order their firewood started buying it up in May or June this year.
"I've sold every stick coming off the machine," said Fred Lemon, owner of Four Seasons Firewood Co. in Searsmont. "I can't keep up with the demand."
Lemon said he won't be able to sell seasoned (or dry) wood this year because people are buying his entire supply while it is still green.
"I've got a feeling there isn't going to be a lot of seasoned wood on the market this fall," he said. "If you wait till the last minute, you won't have any wood at all."
Lemon said the people who used to use wood, but changed to oil, have gone back to wood, giving him new customers. In addition, people who have never used wood before are looking to it as an alternative to skyrocketing oil bills.
Lemon's company delivers wood from Belfast to Rockport, and sells as far as Thomaston and Winterport. He said he has received calls from people in Connecticut and the Boston area looking to bring a tractor-trailer truck to Searsmont and load it with his firewood. Lemon said he turned them down, saying he would serve his local customer base first.
"People are going to decide whether to eat or freeze this winter," he said. "It really is that bad."
Lemon said he sold a fitted cord of green wood for $185 last year. This year, the price has risen to $250 for that same fitted green cord.
Some dealers are currently asking for $275 per cord.
The wood dealer argues that it is not just the price of oil driving up the demand for wood. Paper mills have converted their operations to biomass and are taking all of the hardwood to power their plants. Lemon said it's easier for loggers to send wood straight to the paper mills than sell to the little firewood dealers. Some of the loggers are now under contract with the mills, he said.
Maine Department of Conservation Commissioner Patrick McGowan argues Maine has enough wood to sustain industries and residents, but said the real problem is the shortage of loggers working in the woods. He said the infrastructure for the logging industry needs to be improved.
"Families that were in the logging business in Western and Northern Maine are not staying in it," he said. "It's very troubling."
McGowan said the cost of getting into the business has increased. The old days of getting a skidder and a few guys with chainsaws are over, he said, and estimates that starting up a logging operation now costs about $1 million.
McGowan said his department is running a loan program for loggers to help with this infrastructure problem. He also anticipates action from the Small Business Administration and FAME to help. Another action that might help loggers would be if the feds increase the weight limit for trucks on the interstate, making it easier to get wood out of the forests.
McGowan also pointed to the costs of fuel to run heavy logging equipment. Lemon said those fuel costs are being passed along to consumers buying firewood.
Lemon said many loggers dealing with the high fuel costs have found it's simply easier to get another job. He also blamed the taxes on off-road diesel. In the past Lemon said it was almost $1 cheaper per gallon to use off-road diesel than on-road. Now it's taxed almost as heavily as on-road diesel, making it only 20 cents cheaper per gallon.
"That's what they use in all their equipment in the woods," he said. "It's a big ripple effect."
Wayne Ely, owner of Wayne's Landscaping & Logging in Stockton Springs, said he has already spent $10,000 more on fuel in 2008 than he did during all of 2007, and five months are left in the year.
Ely has a six-man crew and has about 100 firewood customers, up significantly from last year. In the past, he said, people waited until September to start looking for firewood, but this year the calls started in early May and June. Ely said he's also getting calls from Southern Maine and towns on the New Hampshire border.
"They can't find wood down that way," he said.
Tom Doak, executive director of the Small Woodland Owners Association of Maine, said firewood is always more expensive in Southern Maine than it is in the Midcoast, driving more people to look north for deals.
He said the spike in demand is a mixed blessing for landowners. On the one hand, they can now earn higher prices for their firewood, but the market for quality lumber, including white pine, is down due to the crash in the housing market. One part of the market balances the other, he said.
Doak, too, has seen the trend of more people buying green firewood because wood dealers don't have time this year to season wood before it is purchased. He said this year there may be more firewood dried in kilns.
Doak said he is seeing wood piled in dooryards in July when he never used to see that this early.
"Firewood producers didn't have a chance to get a supply built up of cut wood this year," said Pete Lammert of Thomaston, a forester with the Maine Forest Service. "The smart people put in orders for green wood right off."
He noted there aren't that many firewood dealers in the Midcoast. Lammert remembers a time when there were a lot of local farmers who would cut 25 to 50 cords and supply their neighbors. He said that group is literally dying out.
"A lot of people don't work the ground anymore," he said.
Lammert is concerned that so many people don't know how to properly store their green wood so that it will dry. He said people dump it on lawns and then cover it in a tarp, causing the wood to retain and absorb water.
Lammert said wood should be stored in a windy area, on pallets at least four inches off the ground, with a roof of plywood. He said it's most important that the wind can blow along the ends of the sticks of wood.
In addition, the piles should not be too high to avoid the wind blowing them over, and there should be at least six inches of air space between each row. The plywood roof should over hang the woodpile so rain runs off the end of it without ever touching the firewood.
Lammert said the recipe for dry wood is "Time, temperature and turbulence." By turbulence, he means airflow, and the warmer the temperature, the better.
Lammert expressed concern about people burning green wood. When steam is hissing out of the wood, he said, 50 percent of the fuel value is being wasted.
McGowan and Donald Mansius of the Maine Forest Service said they are concerned with public safety. People burning green wood have an increased risk of chimney fires. The state is urging people to get their chimneys cleaned.
The skyrocketing costs of fossil fuels make alternative energy options more viable.
"We're seeing a strong increase in people looking for ways to move toward renewable energy," said Phil Coupe, owner of ReVision Energy based in Liberty and Portland.
His company sells and installs high-efficiency wood and wood pellet boilers, solar hot water and electrical systems, and other renewable energy alternatives.
Coupe is quick to point out that his company provides Tarm wood boilers that boast 80 percent efficiency and little to no visible smoke. These are different from outdoor wood boilers that can be seen sending up smoke and are 50-60 percent efficient.
The Tarm wood boilers gasify the wood, using all of the gases and smoke coming from the wood as fuel, Coupe said. The boilers are also very safe, with less chance of chimney fires, according to the company website.
"The wood boiler business is up more than 50 percent this year at a time of year when people normally have little interest," he said.
Lemon said he used ReVision Energy to put a Tarm wood boiler and propane backup in his house. At the time, he wondered if he was making the right decision, investing $20,000 in the installation. "This year I'm laughing," he said.
McGowan is working on the governor's Wood-To-Energy Initiative, which will issue a report on how to change state-owned buildings over to wood technology, including wood pellets and chips to help reduce greenhouse emissions and use of fossil fuels.
He argues that people who convert from oil to wood will save 60 percent on their heating bills and their money will stay in Maine.
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