Are IBC Totes Really Worth Using for Firewood?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 ต.ค. 2023
- Are IBC Totes Really Worth Using for Firewood?
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They are really super convenient! I luckily have a company that has them for $10 for the 330gal. Great video!
Lucky
You are very fortunate to have a source of IBC totes at that price! Tim in northern TN
Could always charge a higher deposit on the tote and give credit back on next purchase or return. Maybe 2x your investment deposit per tote. Kinda like Beer Kegs..
Excellent idea
I love using totes. It is the perfect solution for the homeowner with a machine capable of moving them when they’re full of wet green wood. It saves a huge amount of time, and I love knowing exactly how much wood I have at any point. Big tote guy. I’ve consistently been able to find them for $25-$35 a tote. Bonus tip: getting rid of the bladders is easy if you put them for free on marketplace, I spent hours cutting up some to take to the dump before I tried that. Great video Brock!
Brock thanks again for the information. Ibc totes are very usefull. Ive also used some in the last for goat V feeders. They work out great.
I live in the northeast where the frost period lasts about three months.
I log my wood in the winter on my property and my woodyard is six hundred feet behind the house.
I make sixteen-foot logs which I load with a grapple onto my trailer (I only have a thirty-five-horsepower compact tractor).
I stack the logs until I have the quantity necessary for my personal use.
I made a live deck out of old telephone poles on which I load the logs, at the end of which there is a roller conveyor on which I cut the logs into two-foot pieces.
At the end of the conveyor I placed a table to store the two foot pieces and the splitter leans against the table.
I am lucky to have access to IBC totes for free.
I place two IBC totes near the splitter and stack the split wood into it. I put the totes away when they are full and bring in other empty ones until I have filled all the totes.
You can see is has a poor man wood processor!
I leave the totes in the woodyard and bring them to the outdoor boiler as needed during the cold period.
I need about sixty totes to heat my house and my workshop.
This setup allows me to only touch the wood when I split it and when I use it in the boiler.
Leaving the totes far from the house avoids problems like ants and other bugs and it doesn't leaves debris near the house.
Since I started using IBC totes, I handle the wood a lot less, which is good for avoiding fatigue and back injuries.
Good vid, I've been having this same conversation with myself. I use 3 cords a season and I couldn't stomach even buying 9 totes for my personal use. There is a very decent free solution. Pallets are given away all day long. I use 3 pallet (one base, two side) and a 2x4 across the top. They've held up well for 3 seasons, my only cost was the screws to put them together and a 4' hunk of 2x4.
Commercial speaking in the north east when you see firewood pre-loaded into a tote you can know you're paying top dollar for that firewood because they've baked in the cost of the tote.
Maybe do it like LPG tanks. Charge a deposit and work an exchange system. Build up return customer base.
Good morning Brock. I don't sell any firewood so what we do is for our own use. When we moved to the mountains the first year we lived here we bought our firewood but the next year I built a woodshed 20'×10' the center of which is level with our front porch and approximately 25' away. We keep a 4' ring on the porch and usually fill it every other day. We carry the wood in a wheelbarrow and it's level with the porch so there's no struggle to push it. The shed holds 10 cords of firewood and we generally go through about 4 a year. We'll alternate between sides year to year so we always have seasoned firewood on hand. I know that this was way too long but it might give someone else some ideas. God bless and have a wonderful day. 👍👍🙂
I burn about 20 totes of wood each year. I use totes and love them. I have about 100 of them and when I sell a tote of wood to a pick-up customer, I charge them for the tote. when they bring it back I return them the deposit. Some ask for the delivery of the wood in the totes, this is not a great of an idea so because now you need the loader to travel as well. I love the totes, keeps the wood off the ground, and neatly staked, easy to move and or load into the dump trailer. I get most of my totes from a farmer that is trying to get rid of them, so the cost is not as much of an issue.
Thinking out loud always has its benefits. I prefer the totes because I only produce firewood for my own use. I have forty acres, but most of that is undeveloped and hilly, so the area I have available for use is limited. I'm constantly doing things to improve my property, so having a bunch of firewood stacked in one spot is very inconvenient. I have to move it around a lot depending on what I'm doing at the time. The totes make this a simple and efficient method of relocating my firewood. The cost was noticeable, I have thirty totes, but what it saves me in time more than makes up for it. Especially when you think about how many years a tote will remain useful. Thanks for always thinking out loud. I appreciate that.
Howdy Brock! If I were heating with wood, or at least supplementing with wood, I would love to use totes like that. Very convenient - can just set the tote by the back door and grab it as I need it! Unfortunately I don't currently have any kind of wood burner. Out of curiosity I might have to look around and see what they go for around here. Thanks for sharing 🤠
There’s always a cost for convenience but also if a person considers the time it takes for stacking numerous times that is a cost to them as well. I’m on the fence on this one. You explained both sides very well. I enjoyed this video thanks Brock
I use the IBC totes personally. I have a bout 45 of them. I found a place that sells them $20 per tote(265 or 330 gallon). I like to have the ability to move them around as needed. All of the big fire wood sales in my area create piles of wood off the processor they use. It is sold by by truck loads that is loaded from large buckets on skid loaders or front end loaders.
Brock first off I don’t sell much firewood but I burn to heat my shop. Totes have definitely gone up here from what they used to be. I was buying them for $20-$45 each then I stopped buying them. Then I lucked out and had a farmer up the road was using them for irrigation and didn’t need them anymore so he gave me 35 of them for free. I now have 55 of them. I love them. Stack full and make cover tote out of the tanks. I bring in a full one into the shop and when it’s empty take it out and bring in another full one. I cut a year ahead also and found that wood dries great. I would use what I can and keep your eye out for good deals on them.
hi there all you said was spot on . long before the totes and having a sawmill i started making wood boxes , over the last 30 years i have made them in many sizes , and think i have settled down to my perfect size , i did buy 20 totes in years bast and use them as well .i stack my wood right at the splitter into both boxes , I do it then because i dont want to pick it up twice . i like the wood boxes a lot more . i cut my totes different , but the rails back on in a different spot witch no one else does , stack my wood in differently. and cover them also different than anyone , i sold the bladders for 10 each ,wish i didn't. but did lower the cost .i use about 15 cords a winter but dont sell it . i have used or done about about anyone could emanage with firewood , just ordered some of the firewood bags from A>J Shaver ,to give them a try .pallets with boards worked for a while but rot fast and drop nails , WOW this is getting out of hand long but good to think about , the key is the price of a tote , best to all john
Thanks for the feedback. I need to check out your boxes
hi wow that was fast , yap i do everything a bit different around here best to all john@@RockhillfarmYT
I’ve found that there’s always an extra cost involved in convenience and time work savers
I make all my money selling firewood.. started using cages last year and purchased some rotating forks to make it more efficient.. the wood generally doesn't stay in the cage for too long... we load the totes from the disc cleaner and flip them into the trailer.. I like them because it keeps the wood clean and undisturbed.. no rocks and minimal loose bark.. makes for nice firewood.. keep adding every now and again..
We’ve found a source where we can get them for free so a couple times a year we’ll go pick up 14 at a time. I think right now we have about 80 totes or so.
That makes a big difference. Best I can usually find is $40 but a lot of people want 80 or $100 per tote
I thought about charging a deposit for the tote and if they bring it back they get credit for the tote. Or just exchange for a full tote. Kinda like milk bottles back in the day.
I've found positives and negatives to using the totes. I can't stack firewood very good - so the totes contain the wood and overcome that for me. But they are hard to move around sometimes with my smaller tractor. The cost isn't a factor for me. I made a video about how I find them cheap. I used to get them for $10 each. Now that's up to $20 each - but still a good price for many times I re-use them.
Hey Brock, definitely some good food for thought in this video. However, I think if you were to sit and talked with Paul Case for a little while, and got him thinking back through his childhood, and some of the things may be his father, and maybe even his grandfather had to go through, in the earlier years of their farming lifestyle, you might find that all of the cool equipment that Paul has for milling and maintaining the farm and doing the firewood and all that stuff took a lot of manual, labor, and handling of many other things to accumulate the financial ability to acquire those more modern conveniences that Paul gets to use nowadays. So he might not have to handle the firewood so much the way he’s doing it but there’s a whole heck of a lot of other things. that he hast to handle to make money to maintain all of that equipment so there really is no such thing as making money without manual labor involved in some fashion.
Brock, you may want to consider firewood bulk bags. I've started to use them this year and they hold 1/3 cord tossed in. Saves time on stacking and they cost less than $20 each as well. Just a thought.
I have those as well. The only thing that bothers me with the bags is now you need pallets or cribbing to place them on. The other thing is they aren’t pretty to look at, at least when the wood is stacked in a tote it looks a little nicer, just my opinion though, I’d rather not have the tote to look at either but I don’t want to touch the wood that many times.
@AroundTheYard-MN all a matter of opinion really. The thing I like about bags is, when not in use, they take up very little room. Could store 100s in the footprint of one tote. Looks really nice to me in comparison. Like I said, all a matter of opinion.
Big companies just make a huge pile on concrete or pavement and scoop it into dump trucks / trailers with a loader.
Always thought the totes must be expensive
I cut the inside blaster from corner to corner all the way down,this will make two pup tent halves,drill four holes near the edge you cut attach them to the top of tote with zip ties to hold them on ,use black zip ties they stand up better to the sun.
I think for personal use they are awesome if you have equipment to move them. In my area the sellers stack the face cords in 16"x 4'x8' stacks. I think if I sold the wood that I had in totes I would either dump the wood in a trailer or have the customer unload them. I wouldn't like chasing people to get stuff back or constantly putting out money, going to get more totes and prepping them. Where I get wood I have to load it and unload it. At the end of the day it's what ever makes sense to you though.
I'd love to be able to use totes, but I don't have a way to move them around. If I had a tractor, I would probably use the totes because I only cut wood for my use and I handle the wood a lot.
I laughed out loud at the 2 amp battery comment, I’ve ask myself the same question so many times, I have an army of 2 ah’s I never use unless I didn’t charge my squad. Great video
Yes sir
I would model a firewood business, small or large, after Mr Case’s process. Totes seem like more junk you have to deal with(buying/modifying/ repair/tracking), But convenient for partial cords. Keep it simple.
Use the tub to go over the top of the wood. It can help keep the rain off the wood.
what do you do with all the plastic?
I use the totes for all my firewood. Half my business is firewood and other half is tree service. I have hundreds of totes. Well worth it. Touch the wood once when stacked and you know exactly how much wood you have.
I love using them. But I don’t base my living on the firewood being profitable, so I always wonder if it makes sense for someone who’s really in business
I miss having a wood stove, there's nothing like hugging up to a wood fired stove after working outside in the winter.
I'm a widow. This is my second winter (upcoming) without my husband. This year, I tried to cut or gather as much free firewood as I could, and in total have almost 2.5 ricks. I found a local business that sells hardwood offcuts for $20 a pick up load. I'm wondering if I could store them in totes for convenience, since they are not standard sizes like firewood is, and if that would be the most efficient way to deal with that type of resource. What do you guys think?
Add the cost of the totes into the sale.. its a deposit fee double the cost of the tote so if it doesn't return you can buy 2.
How much is your time worth?
I put a 8 inch block on my wood splitter and i could not believe how much faster i could split wood .not only the stroke,but the return of the wedge, so much faster.and i can fill a tote so much faster versus stacking. And as far as you cutting the metal bars off ,i would use a 1/4" inpact with a torx bit , much faster. Thank you for the video,
I use a big bolt cutter, the cage is easy to cut. And all the big firewood vendors I see in my area just have a pit of split wood that they load into customers trucks or their delivery truck. Its a low margin deal...
I feel your pain LOL. I bought 30 330 gallon IBC's this year. Because I bought those 30 at one time, I paid 30.00 each for them. That's still a considerable chunk of change to just get the firewood process started. I'm not done either. I may buy another 30 or 60 of them next year. So I do a lot of mental debating with myself the same way that you are right now. What you didn't mention, which maybe isn't a factor for you, because maybe you're just a better operator than I am, or you have better visibility with your machines than I do, but I've ruined the "pallet" portion of a few IBC's when shoving my forks under them to move them. So then that's 30.00 or 60.00 or 90.00 dollars wasted, as I won't be able to use the ones that I've damaged again. All just things to factor in and consider when making the financial decision on if IBC's are right for an individual.
In my area it seems that most people that do sell firewood that use totes only use them for their own personal wood.
Not here in south east pa. People charge a arm and a leg for them
Where will you stack the empty totes? If have several empties, seems like waste of money and space.
🤭🎃🤣Halloween is coming up you could hide in one have it delivered to your most favorite costumer and jump out and scare the hell out of um
Maybe for personal use IBC totes, than yes...
For firewood sale, u cannot beat good old pallets.
How are you using the pallets?
Brock how about a DEPOSIT💸 on a TOTE you determine the value to you and if the tote can't be retrieved will you've got your cost back😎
looks like i need to go in business of reselling IBC totes, I can prob get them for $10-$15 from local manufacturer if I buy truckload
#ROCKHILLFARMS BROCK, you ever thought about going to camp sites and selling to the camp goers??? The old timers come through at the camp sites with permission from the dnr. They do good especially when it's nice and chilly.
I’ve been thinking about bundling the wood, smaller and trying to sell it at campsites. One of the reasons I went with the type of splitter I did.
@RockhillfarmYT you should be able to clear some good money from it. I hope you and good luck man👍👍
The re-stacking of firewood is time. Time is money or time is time taken away from doing something else. In time the cost is worth it. LOL. Totes make an old guy's life easier. We use them at our place.
I think the totes are good for the homeowner that understands the "time value of money". As far as a large operation, the guy never touching the firewood has it down.
Great conversation! I have been wondering the same thing. How to expand and how to store the wood. I currently have about 40 totes, I burn about 6 totes a year, and have maybe twenty or so filled at any given moment with seasoning firewood. Hoping to get to a point where I can sell about 10 cord per year or 30 totes. That would give me 6 for myself this year and six for next year. - - Just my thoughts. Have a great day Around the Yard! - Brent
time is money
Holy cow, they are $15-$20 in my area. Find a farm chemical company or industrial facility that have them and you can buy them direct or sometimes you can find them for free. You can also charge a deposit fee to insure you get your totes back…..like the way we did soda bottles back in the old days.
Charge a core charge
If you can get them free, and have a way to move them around when they are full, great idea...otherwise not worth it...if you can't move them when they are full, they're useless...if you have to buy them, it isn't worth it....companies used to give them away, then came the youtubers and now they're $50-100 and I've seen them occasionally as high as $150 for food grade totes.
The log-lift bags are legit. $18 a bag. I charge $20 deposit. I get most all back with a new order (customer retention). I reuse them over and over again. I have not retired one yet. The bags store way easier than the totes and the 1/3cord measurement in the bags is exact, unstacked.
Where do you get yours
@RockhillfarmYT the best bags are made in Indonesia. Do not buy the ones from China. NNZ is who we order from. @Shaver Specialty Services & Sales, Inc. and @hotasswood are a couple of TH-cam channels that do a good job showing off the bags. You can buy bags from either of them. Both good men.
Nawww, you guys should be buying jumbo bags also known as super sacks. They are strong and light weight, hold up to 3300 lbs. Store easily, about $11 or less depending on the quantity it is less. I have a buddy who works at a company who makes them. Free delivery.
What do you do with the empty plastic containers? I don't split wood or anything, but that'd be my worry I think because I would think you'd have to pay somebody to get rid of those plastic containers and who knows what was in them so it's not like you'd really want to use them for anything.
Btw, I'm seeing those totes for $20/each here in PA on marketplace
I’m Sure it varies by location. Looking this morning, I can get them in the nearest town for $80 or I can get them for $35 if I drive over an hour away.
We cut the top off and use it as a lid. Probably 5 or so inches down from the top. The rest we chop up and recycle.
s’more firewood makes homemade totes out of pallets.
a lot of people charge $250 a tote for the firewood. if you are charging $50.00 per tote of wood. Then you are under charging at least for my area in Michigan. charge a deposit for the tote. if they return it than they get a refund. if not then you have money to replace your loss. just my two cents.
I wish someone would sell them without the plastic container. That’s what stops me from buying them. Disposing that big jug!
I THINK TOTES ARE GOOD FOR ANYONE WITH THE MEANS TO MOVE THEM. PAUL & LARRY HOTTEL, GOT IT GOIN' ON WITH THE PROCESSER AND DUMP VEHICLES. AND EVEN FOR YOURSELF, YOU COULD CHARGE THAT 50 OR SO DOLLARS AS A DEPOSIT. BRING BACK THE TOTE, GET YOUR DEPOSIT BACK. I THINK FOR YOUR OPERATION, TOTES ARE BENEFICIAL FOR CONVENIENCE AND EASE. IF NOT FOR CUSTOMERS, FOR YOURSELF... I LIKE THE WAY YOU ANALYZE THE SITUATION AND OFFER A SOLUTION, OR EXPLAIN THE INS AND OUT'S OR UP'S AND DOWNS OF A PARTICULAR TOPIC... KEEP PUSHIN ON AND PEACE FROM CREEL CHIHUAHUA, MEXICO... I WISH I HAD A TRACTOR WITH FORKS, I CAN GET TOTES HERE FOR 5 OR 10 DOLLARS. IN SOME CASES FOR FREE.🗻
I deliver 99% of the fire wood I sale so I just pile it up and load it into dump truck as I deliver it .
it would help to charge a deposit if the customer wants to keep the tote till its empty that way you arent out any money
You're buddy Paul, must produce some pretty dirty firewood with all of the moving and loading with a skid steer bucket. I watch many of the youtube firewood channels. My $0.02 worth is that IBC totes are great for personal firewood use. If you have a piece of equipment that can move a full tote, it certainly reduces the amount of handling the firewood by hand. If you are selling firewood as a business, then the large pallet bins that Chris at In the Woodyard uses are the way to go. Saves so much time in stacking.
👀
You do to much thanking lol
I hate using them, honestly a large pile of firewood for me seems to dry better than anything, once you know how much wood in your dump trailer is a cord, I see no reason to stack or use totes
Why not sell the tote with the firewood. Then refill it when your customers bring it back.
If you have to buy them probably not worth it. But they are very plentiful around me I get them for free
Yikes! $300 (and up) for a tote according to their website! You got yourself an investment there!
If you have plenty of money yes there nice and handy
But why not stop spending money and use the ways our family did 100 years ago 😊
Charge a deposit for the tote
Why not use the pipe you cut up and make some totes with your own design. If you had to buy pipe it would cost more than you're paying for the totes.
That is life, do you really think everybody is getting rich the first few years when they start ?????
No, I’m shining a light on that reality for people who are considering doing this but maybe had not thought it all through
I feel like too many channels don’t talk about the things that make it harder or less profitable…
I see a bunch of different ways to do the same thing and I test them all and try to provide a point of reference on the pros and cons. It’s kind of the point of having this channel.
Brock, I can connect you to someone who sells 275 gallon IBC totes for $5 each. Located in Valley Park, MO.
Might be a bit of a drive, but if you have a big enough trailer you could get 20 in one trip if you are willing to haul them stacked 2 high
I want that connection. I wasn’t finding any deals like that.
Kcfan491@gmail.com
@@RockhillfarmYT I will send you an email in about 30 minutes
@mattnicol8882 I just checked the location on maps. That’s not as close as I was hoping when I saw Missouri. about four hours from here.
@RockhillfarmYT that's a long way for totes. But if you can get 20 of them for $100, does it make it worth the trip?
He really wants to move these. If you have a way to buy even more he might make even better deals
Deposit
charge a return Deposit like old days with pop bottles
you are way out of hand.
we work the OLD FASHION WAY. stack that darn wood on free pallets. period.
yeah…hand-sawn/split and, of course, delivered by an old farm wagon pulled by mules.