Okay, to conclude my series on my business "waste" is the last bit - the bits that are truly unusable. This can be for many reasons, split, knots (dead knots fall out), too small to work safely. the list goes on. I try to keep it to a minimum, and being a one man band I know the amount of wood that gets to this point is really small.
But I've loaded us up with enough kindling to last a year (and I tell everyone here to burn a lot of it when starting a fire) and our elderly neighbours have politely asked me to stop bringing it to them.
Instead, I'll see if I can sell it in bags locally.
The plan is to list it on village Facebook page when things start to get a bit colder. I'm thinking £5 a bag, although not strictly kindling as there are some larger bits in it, it's all dry and starts a fire easily.
I do also end up with some metal scraps, mesh that didn't make the grade from my baskets and nails and screws that need taking out or are misshapen, these get collected in a big barrel and occasionally get taken to the scrap man for melting down. Saves taking any of my materials ending up in landfill.
A perfect way to use everything up, I'm not a hoarder, but I do keep thinks which might come in handy or can have a different use, mainly for use in the garden. We burn our off cuts in our chimera on cooler summer evenings, sadly our chimneys were blocked and some of the bricks taken away.
ReplyDeleteYeah we burn these in the pizza oven as well and the children love having little fires to cook the odd treat, so many uses for all the wood, I just produce too much. It's the first year where it's been like this and I think I've been making just that little bit more stuff, and doing a little bit less work "on site" to make that change.
DeleteYour stack of scraps made me think of Jenga, the stacking game.
ReplyDeleteYeah, if only I could compete with a big factory on making it! Some of these wouldn't even make blocks that small. and they're softwood.
DeleteI usually end up with a few 5-gallon buckets full of scraps that will keep me in fire starter throughout the winter for our fireplace. Any left over go on the outside firepit in the spring for our first fire outside. The resulting ashes go into the garden. Nothing goes to waste.
ReplyDeleteWhen I did more site work I used to carry a bucket with me where ever I worked for this reason, all the little bits got picked up and used.
DeleteOur local Tesco sells bags of kindling in autumn and winter, so they obviously think that there's a market, but I don't recall how much they were charging.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I often see bags like this about the shops. Never paid any attention for how much it was, I'm going to look next time I go. Already sold some at £5 though.
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