Selling firewood is a straightforward business you can start with minimal equipment, but doing it well requires attention to wood quality, proper measurement, and local regulations. Whether you’re clearing your own land or buying logs wholesale, here’s how to turn timber into a reliable income stream.
Source Your Wood Supply
Your first decision is where the wood comes from. If you own wooded property, fallen trees and storm damage can provide a steady supply at no cost beyond your labor and equipment. Many sellers start this way, scaling up as demand grows. If you don’t have your own timber, you can buy standing timber or logs from landowners, purchase from tree service companies that need to offload wood, or pick up loads from sawmills that sell slab wood and cutoffs cheaply.
Tree service companies are an especially good source. They’re often willing to deliver truckloads of logs for free or at low cost because disposing of the material is expensive for them. Build relationships with a few local companies and you’ll have a more consistent supply than relying on your own property alone. Hardwoods like oak, hickory, maple, and ash are what most customers want. They burn hotter, longer, and produce less creosote than softwoods like pine. Offering premium hardwood lets you charge premium prices.
Season the Wood Properly
The biggest quality factor in firewood is moisture content. Well-seasoned wood burns cleanly and efficiently. Green or wet wood smokes heavily, creates creosote buildup in chimneys, and produces far less heat. Your target is moisture content below 20%.
Getting green wood to that level takes at least six months, and dense hardwoods like oak often need a full year or longer. This means you need to plan your inventory well ahead of selling season. Wood you cut in spring should be split and stacked immediately so it has the full summer and fall to dry before winter demand hits. Splitting is critical because it exposes more surface area to air and sunlight, dramatically speeding the drying process.
Stack your wood off the ground on pallets or rails, with the top loosely covered to shed rain but the sides open to airflow. A moisture meter costs $20 to $40 and lets you verify that your wood is ready to sell. Being able to tell a customer “this wood is at 18% moisture” builds trust and justifies your price.
Know the Legal Measurements
Firewood measurement is regulated by consumer protection agencies in most states, and using the wrong terms can get you fined. The standard legal unit is the cord: a neatly stacked pile measuring 4 feet high, 8 feet long, and 4 feet deep, totaling 128 cubic feet of stacked wood (roughly 85 cubic feet of actual solid wood, with the rest being air space between pieces).
A face cord uses the same height and length but is only as deep as one row of cut logs, typically 16 to 20 inches. That makes a face cord roughly one-third of a full cord. The term “rick” usually means the same thing as a face cord, though definitions vary by region. Many states require sellers to advertise and sell by the cord or fraction of a cord. Selling by vague terms like “truckload,” “pile,” or “rack” without specifying the volume can violate consumer protection laws. Check your state’s weights and measures regulations before you start advertising.
Set Your Prices
Hardwood firewood generally sells for $250 to $500 per cord, with the price depending on your region, the species of wood, and whether it’s seasoned or green. Seasoned hardwood commands the highest prices. Green wood sells for less because the buyer has to wait months before burning it.
Most sellers also charge a delivery fee, typically $25 to $75 per load or around $2 per mile from your location. Stacking the wood at the customer’s home is another common upsell, often $25 to $50 per cord on top of the delivery charge. If you sell smaller quantities (half cords, face cords, or bundled firewood), your per-unit profit margin goes up. Bundled firewood sold at gas stations, campgrounds, and grocery stores for $5 to $8 per bundle is one of the highest-margin ways to sell, though it requires more labor to cut, split, and package.
Price your wood by checking what competitors in your area charge. Call or look up other firewood sellers within 30 miles and set your price in the same range. Competing on quality and reliability tends to work better than undercutting on price.
Handle Transportation Rules
Moving firewood is a major pathway for spreading invasive insects and tree diseases. Pests like the emerald ash borer can survive in firewood for more than three years and travel hundreds of miles when someone transports an infested load. Because of this, many states restrict how far you can move untreated firewood. These rules vary: some states set distance limits of 10, 25, or 50 miles, while others define restricted zones by county or region.
If you’re selling locally, these regulations rarely cause problems. But if you’re considering selling across state lines or shipping firewood to campgrounds in other regions, you need to check both your state’s rules and the destination state’s rules. Some states prohibit importing untreated commercial firewood entirely. Heat-treating wood (kiln drying to USDA standards) is one way to legally move firewood across quarantine boundaries, but it adds significant cost. For most small sellers, staying local is simpler and keeps you compliant.
Get the Right Equipment
At minimum, you need a chainsaw, a log splitter (or splitting maul if you’re starting small), and a truck or trailer for delivery. A hydraulic log splitter costs $1,000 to $3,000 new and pays for itself quickly if you’re processing more than a few cords per season. Manual splitting with a maul works fine for small volumes but becomes impractical once you’re filling regular orders.
A pickup truck can haul about half a cord per load. A dump trailer expands your capacity and makes unloading far easier. As your volume grows, a processor (a machine that cuts, splits, and conveys firewood in one operation) can handle 2 to 5 cords per hour, but these cost $10,000 and up, so they only make sense at commercial scale.
Find Your Customers
Firewood is a hyperlocal product, so your marketing should focus on reaching people within a reasonable delivery radius. Start with these channels:
- Online classifieds and marketplaces. Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, and Nextdoor are where most people search first when they need firewood. Post clear photos of your stacked, split wood and include the price per cord, species, and delivery area.
- Roadside signs. A simple “Firewood for Sale” sign on a busy road near your property works surprisingly well, especially in rural and suburban areas heading into fall.
- Word of mouth and repeat customers. Firewood buyers tend to reorder every year. Deliver on time, stack neatly, and give honest measurements, and your customer base grows steadily without much advertising cost.
- Wholesale to retailers. Gas stations, campgrounds, hardware stores, and grocery stores buy bundled firewood to resell. Approach local businesses with sample bundles and a wholesale price. This channel provides consistent volume but requires you to keep up with packaging and restocking.
Timing matters. Most residential firewood sales happen between September and December. Start advertising in late summer, and have your seasoned inventory ready before the first cold snap. Campground and recreational sales peak in spring and summer, so bundled wood gives you a year-round revenue stream.
Business Basics to Cover
Even a small firewood operation is a business, and treating it like one protects you and keeps things running smoothly. Register as a business with your state or county if required. A simple sole proprietorship or LLC works for most sellers. Collect and remit sales tax if your state requires it on firewood sales (some states exempt firewood, others don’t).
Keep records of your expenses: fuel, equipment maintenance, chainsaw chains, truck costs, and any wood you purchase. These are all deductible against your firewood income. Track your inventory by species and seasoning date so you can tell customers exactly what they’re getting. A basic spreadsheet showing when each batch was cut, split, and stacked keeps you organized as your operation grows.
Liability insurance is worth considering once you’re making regular deliveries. If a log rolls off your truck or you damage a customer’s driveway, even a basic general liability policy can save you from a costly claim.