Sales of firewood rocket with hike in energy bills

SALES of firewood have soared as people search for ways to offset the effect of the energy crisis.

Businesses say people are panic- buying logs to heat their homes using an open fire or wood burner to save on the rising cost of gas and electricity.

Domestic energy bills have increased by more than 50 per cent since April and were due to increase by another 80 per cent this month but the Government’s new energy price guarantee will limit the price households pay per unit they use.

This means a typical household in the UK will pay around £2,500 per year for the next two years, providing a saving of £1,000 a year, on average, on energy.

Alan Mackrory, a partner at Mackrory & Sons at Nettlebed Sawmill, said: “Firewood sales have gone through the roof, it is absolutely mad. Normally, people don’t order until the clocks change but we are already at Christmas levels — it is very, very busy. We are probably doing about 60 loads a week, which is at least double what we usually do at this time of year. Each load is 145lb, 1.1 cubic metres.

“With the cost of gas going up, people are looking for cheaper ways to heat their houses and the sales of log-burners are said to have gone up 40 per cent.

“We have been in business since 1946 and haven’t run out of logs yet but I haven’t seen demand like this before.”

Don Macleod, of D J Macleod Forestry and Woodland Contractors in Parmoor, said his customers had doubled or trebled the size of their winter orders. He said: “The average amount of wood for a house over winter is between two and three cubic metres and a lot of people are saying they can’t afford the gas so they will be wanting more wood.

“People are quite worried about the cost of living, particularly older people.”

Karl Price, manager of Medmenham Fire Wood, said the soaring demand might cause prices to rise.

He said: “People are panic-buying because they think having firewood will be cheaper than running their gas or electric.

“The problem is all it will do is put massive pressure on the suppliers, which will push the price up.

“One of our suppliers in the Midlands has already done a third of the season’s wood in the last five weeks. Another supplier has sold their entire season’s wood.

“The wholesale price will just go up if customers don’t calm down. It has been hard for us to keep customers happy.” Mr Price said the company had delivered to one customer who already had a pile of wood at the front of the house, inside it, in the shed and in the garden from four different suppliers.

He added: “It’s just like with the fuel crisis.”

Hannah Williams, who co-owns the Henley Log Company in Sonning Common with her husband Laurence, said: “We have had quite a few orders already, potentially more than we usually get, but we don’t know yet if there is this great demand because we are so early in the season.

“I’m sure the orders are in part down to the cost-of-living crisis but it also could be because our prices are a bit lower so people could have just been more organised and shopped around.

“We will have a better idea of where we are in about six weeks’ time.”