As the temperature drops it may feel good to throw another log on the fire. But some Vermonters who rely on woodstoves for heat are finding it hard to replenish their wood supply at an affordable price.
The challenge has been noticeable lately for Roscoe Jones, who lives in Ira and has been delivering firewood as a side business for more than 40 years.
“People that really need wood, and they’re running out, they’re going to have a terrible time finding dry wood because it’s just not going to be there,” he said.
Kiln-dried fire wood is available in parts of the state, but with prices often running more than $400 dollars a cord plus delivery, it’s not cheap.
Mother nature is making the situation even worse, said Jones.
“When it’s 14-below- or 10-below-zero like it is now, you can cut wood all day long but the thing is, it needs to season," he said. "And when it's so cold, the moisture isn’t going anywhere 'cause it’s frozen right in the wood.”
Wood that hasn’t had time to cure costs less, but burning some types can severely damage stoves and chimneys.
Fewer loggers and people willing to cut and deliver fire wood is adding to the shortage. “If you're a logger, it's a lot easier to take your logs and move them than it is to cut 'em and move firewood,” added Jones. “So most times, if you're a full-time logger, you're not doing as much firewood.”
A lot of loggers and firewood suppliers have retired, according to Reggie Charbonneau, who operates a firewood business in Pittsford. That's also affecting supply, he said, and raising the price of a cord of wood as well.
“It’s becoming more and more difficult in this area for people to buy log-length firewood that you can buy throughout the summer and winter from loggers because there’s less and less people logging and less people with a log truck to haul the logs,” said Charbonneau.
“It’s hard to get someone 25 or 30 [years-old] to enter the field,” agreed Grahm Leitner, a logger and forester who owns Vermont Greenwood Resources in Waterbury.
“It’s tough, like dairy farming or any other land-based industry right now," he explained. “I mean the state is doing everything it can to support the logging industry, but it’s tough to make a living.”
And Leitner said a lot of people who deliver firewood in Vermont are not set up to do it in the winter. They typically deliver loads of green firewood in the summer when customers have time to let it dry out and snow cover is not an obstacle.
A lot of people who are scrambling to get firewood now likely didn't plan well for this winter, said Leitner. Previous winters haven’t been as cold, he said.
“So people got used to buying less firewood and after having a couple winters where they had wood leftover they maybe thought, 'this year I only need to buy two cords instead of three,'” he said.
Now that they need more, they may have to pay a premium.
