Are IBC Totes Really Worth Using for Firewood?

for so most of the channels who make videos about firewood split their firewood into these IBC totes and I've been doing the same thing and I love using them but I've also been giving it a lot of thought to the cost of these totes because I'm looking at expanding how much firewood I do and if I expand it a lot I'm going to have to invest invest a lot of time and money into these totes and I mean a lot of money so it got me thinking today is it worth it is it just a YouTube thing or are professional firewood guys doing this is it worth it for a homeowner who just does enough for them is it worth it for a small business is it worth it for a big business so I'm going to prep all these totes to get them ready for firewood and then once that's done I want to have a real conversation about how convenient these are and you know what they cost you so I normally take all the Fasteners off to take these top rails off but they all have different types of Fasteners and I don't feel like it I'm going to see if it's easier just to cut those top rails off and then lift the toad out and then cut my front and this battery's dead I don't know why I had a two amp on it so that is one tote prepped and I've got nine more to go and be really repetitive to show all those so I'm not going to but I did a video a couple weeks ago comparing different metal cutting tools and I want to see if the reciprocating saw is actually more efficient on these totes than the grinder well with those two blades I feel like it's faster and easier with the reciprocating saw and it's not you know throwing those little metal Flex at my face so I'm going to go ahead and do the rest of them with that and then I'll be right back okay so I've got all these totes cut down I now have 11 empty totes so I'll be able to work for a while before I run out but definitely that I mean that's not going to last all winter 15 totes or what did I say 11 totes 11 totes is a little bit less than four cords of wood so the these totes aren't going to last me all year so I've been questioning you what if I do 20 cords am I going to buy that many totes so let's talk about time and efficiency and then we'll talk about the money so the first year I started cutting firewood I saw a lot of people on YouTube using these totes I thought man that looks so handy because I've burned firewood to heat my home in the past and most of it I would split some wood with a splitting mole and I would buy some wood and the big hassle was they would dump that firewood in my driveway or my yard and I would have to stack it and then i' it usually end up stacking it again and the first year I cut firewood I'm like man I'm stacking wood multiple times I stack it down here and then I move it up there and stack it and then I take it in the house I thought those totes would be the perfect solution and I'm not going to do that much firewood so I think I think I bought six totes and I've been using those I think this is three years I've been using firewood totes and I love using firewood totes it's so convenient because like I've been saying it just it prevents you from handling the wood as much and you can take it wherever you need if you're going to sell a tote of firewood you can pick it up and set it in the customer's bed and uh that's a win-win the only hassle there is you have to go to the trouble to make sure you get the totes back or if you're taking it to them or whatever the case may be you may tell them you've got the choice that you can either take this tote and bring it back to me or you can unload it into the truck bed so that is more of a customer preference thing but you do have if you're doing a lot of this's say you were doing this for a living it'd be a major hassle trying to always get your totes back if you're selling 10 totes a year or 12 totes a year like my memory is that good or I can make a little list but if you were selling hundreds of totes of that's a lot to keep track of so now we've talked about the convenience factor and it's definitely a win on convenience but now let's talk about cost so for a homeowner who says they do let's say three cords a year you'll need nine totes but really you might need 18 totes because you'll have the three totes full of wood that you cut last year that you're going to use this year but now you need to cut the firewood this year that you're going to use next year so you really need twice as many totes as the amount of wood you use in a year so on average around here a firewood tote cost around $50 and they used to be 25 and 30 now I'm seeing them for 60 and 80 but let's just say $50 and I I get mine off Facebook Marketplace and it may vary what's available in different areas but let's say $50 a tote then you're going to spend $900 on firewood totes so in year one that's a huge waste to spend $900 to store firewood when you only burn $450 of firewood a year but the thing about it is you're going to be able to reuse these for a long time and you don't have to buy them all at once you could get two totes this year and just get two totes next year and you might hardly even notice that money you're spending but it does add up then you've got someone like me who's doing enough firewood to make a little bit of side money but it's definitely not my job so last year I didn't do that much I think I did six cords and six cords that's 18 totes for one year's wood but if you're putting all your wood in it you need that twice so now you're talking about 36 of these totes at $50 a piece you're talking about spending $1,800 on top of your chainsaw and your tractor and your splitter and your grapple and your fuel and your depreciation now you're trying to make a little bit of money and you're spending another $18 00 so that you don't have to stack the wood as often it probably honestly doesn't make sense another way to think about that is that the tote cost almost as much as the wood in it is worth so essentially every time you buy a firewood tote you're splitting the first stack of wood in that tote for free to pay for the tote and that doesn't sound really appealing to me to say you're working for free your first year just for the totes not to mention all your other equipment that cost a lot of money and then talk about a big firewood operation you know some of these operations do 500 cords a th000 cords a year trying to think about I mean and that that's turning over a lot of money in a business like that but trying to think about the logistics of handling a thousand of these totes so what my friend Paul does for those of you who don't watch this Channel all the time I have a friend Paul case who earns a large percentage of his living by selling firewood he does not use Totes and I wonder if most of the guys who make a good percentage of their their living selling firewood don't use these totes now the guys I see on YouTube who don't use the totes are just stacking their wood a lot oh Ohio wood burner kind of brags about the more times you touch the wood the better off you are and he Stacks his wood and then he restacks it and then he Stacks it in the trailer and then he Stacks it at the customer's house and he seems thrilled to stack his wood for five times every time and he kind of is talking about that the way he's handling it and the way he's cutting it and the way he's drying it and the way he delivers it in neat Stacks makes it a premium product and he charges more for his firewood so it's worth it but doesn't seem like that's the route I want to go an alternative my friend Paul splits all of his with the Halverson firewood processor or most of his and most of it he never touches once he picks the log up with the machine splits it with the machine from the cab makes a big pile brings the rock bucket in on a skid steer or a regular bucket or whatever and shoves those piles up and then when he's ready to sell it he comes in and grabs piles of firewood with his bucket dumps them into his dump truck which for some of you that might be a dump trailer just Scoops it up with that dumps it in the dump trail trailer knows what one load loose stacked loose thrown like that is and drives to the property and dumps it so now you're talking about someone who's serious about making some money with this and he never touches that tree he cuts it down cuts it again loads it on a log trailer dumps the log trailer picks the firewood rounds the logs up with his machine he can he can take a standing tree to a sold piece of stack of firewood and never touch the wood and I find that highly appealing but also firewood proc processors are really expensive so are these totes worth it I think these totes are awesome and if you like to split firewood and you're going to do it whether it's profitable or not get you some totes they're handy but if you're making all your decisions from a dollars and cense standpoint it might not be worth it and my thought is I think I'm going to continue buying these totes maybe not enough of them for all of my firewood this year but I'm going to just continue accumulating totes as I find deals on them and think of it as a long-term investment that these totes should last for several years and they'll pay for themselves over time and I can acquire a lot of them over time probably kind of a long-winded video but the point of these videos is not that I like to talk the point is I'm trying to decide what makes sense for me and I want to compare that with your experience to see what makes sense for all of us so I appreciate you taking time to watch this video I'll put links on the screen to a couple more of our videos and I'll see you next time

Channel: Rockhill farm

Views: 9,898

Keywords: John Deere, farm vlog, homestead, 2038R, 325G

Id: kcndkQWms7I

Length: 13min 12sec (792 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 23 2023