Supplying Finest Quality Ash Logs For Over 35yrs

Established in 1989 by selling our cheap sawmill offcuts in the Bourne, Sleaford, Spalding, Peterborough, Stamford, Deeping, Grantham, Rutland and Lincolnshire area, the business soon expanded by responding to demand and providing more expensive but better quality ash logs. Nowadays, 99% of the 1000+ tonnes of logs I sell each year are my trademark 'Finest Quality Ash Logs' and as always, I rely on the quality of the product, repeat work and word of mouth to keep my full time business prospering - which it has for over 35 years now. Please note there are no stock photos here - all photos are of our woodland, our yard and our machinery and no one outside our family is employed in the business, helping to maintain the highest standards in all departments.

LATEST APRIL 2nd 2024 - There's plenty of lovely semi seasoned ash and/or oak logs available now for those wise ones of you wishing to stock up for next winter. Details below but summarising here, my market nowadays has evolved to supplying what I believe are the finest quality logs on the market AND at the very cheapest prices too, way cheaper nowadays than most other suppliers in fact, but for that they'll need to finish seasoning for another month or so in your log store rather than mine! And yes, I do also supply larger and more efficient logs for bigger stoves that many folk ask for. Hope to see you soon.

Prices For Ash Logs 2024-2025 Season

£135 half load - no longer available	£250ffull load, approx 2m3 or 1 tonne (fills 3 x 'tonne builder bags')	The same £250 load logs. Look, Trailer is 3m x 1.7m!

Barn dried logs
	Double Trailer £490, Approx 4m3 : Truck/Double Trailer £705 Approx 6m 3	FSC 'managed' timber

NB. A £250 load of ash logs fills 3 bulk/dumpy/builders bags, that's equivalent to less than £85 per 'builder bag' of ASH logs!! Cheap products are not always inferior - in this case it's down to ever increasing efficiency! Delivery is free to all areas on map below Sleaford, Bourne, Grantham, Peterborough, Stamford, Oakham, Deeping, Spalding.

Phone/Text - 07973 819821

Please leave me a mobile phone number to enable me to text you confirmation of order and then later I'll call you to sort out a mutually convenient delivery date.... Thank you

Need more detail? Please read on as I've tried to cover below most questions people ask.

LOG SIZES

Please be ready to let me know the length of the logs you need when ordering (or preferably measure the internal width and depth of your stove for me to work out your ideal log length). With just a simple change of splitting wegde my machines split the timber from between 2 logs to 10 logs depending on requirements, therefore all sizes of logs are the same price. Generally, logs are delivered loose and tipped out at the closest point I can back up to. A sheet is useful to put underneath, if you have one, to collect any shavings (which are then great for kindling!) if you have a gravel driveway.

KILN DRIED LOGS

Looking for kiln dried logs? I'm swimming against the tide here maybe (or in this case against the sugar coated Agenda 30) but I'm afraid I don't sell them - in my opinion kiln drying is a waste of my time and effort and a total waste of your money. At the time of writing, Clearview Stoves instruction book page 1 for their 650/750 models not only states that logs just simply need to be air dried to 25% moisture content (remember, effective air drying can dry logs out if need be to 15% or less) but also advises to BURN WITH CAUTION if you do burn kiln dried logs - their stoves are getting too hot....! So, why ruin your stove and waste your money on kiln dried wood - which will only take in moisture again anyway according to the relative humidity of the ambient air. Economic pressures also often mean the logs are not left long enough in the kiln, especially the case with the denser woods like oak ash and beech - your moisture meter may read 10% when you test the log, but cut 2 inches off the outside then test it again for a proper internal reading, which may well be over 50% still. Anyone whose tried cooking a large joint of meat too hot too quickly will know what I mean there...! (And that's why kiln dried suppliers often sell poor quality 'hardwoods' as they dry (and burn ..!) much quicker). The traditional way of seasoning wood worked well enough for thousands of years and it still works for Scandinavians, Europeans, for the wiser ones of us here, and of course for those who don't like throwing money away (just check other sites to see how much you're paying them to dry logs that you could save simply by thinking a little ahead...)!

ASH LOGS

Ash is almost universally recognised as the best all round firewood, burning nicely with low smoke, lasting well, looking nice, storing well with virtually no shedding of bark, no mould or fungus problems and also, very importantly with an open fire, burns with no sparks and all that's the reason why the well known firewood poem ends with 'Ash wet or Ash dry, a King shall warm his slippers by' !

 

We are timber merchants, not tree surgeons, and as you can see from the photo below on the left, our logs come from straight clean trunks from managed woodlands, whereas logs sourced from tree surgery are usually from garden trees, resulting in bent, knotty, knobbly logs. Many of the logs come from our own woodlands near Bourne and Sleaford which I personally have managed since my teenage years. The fine stand of maturing timber in the middle and right photos is the result of a lot of hard work, progressively weeding or "thinning" out the weaker trees over many years, as they crowd each other out. This is something I greatly enjoy doing in the summer and this year, once again, I can offer traditional rustic poles for sale, complete with bark, as I remove the conifers now they have done their job of forcing the hardwood trees up straight as they compete for sunlight. Please ring for details.

Click to enlarge

Delivery is free to all areas on map below Sleaford, Bourne, Grantham, Peterborough, Stamford, Oakham, Deeping, Spalding. Please phone if you wish to discuss anything further, or place an order.

William Cox

Hanthorpe House Sawmill

Bourne

Lincolnshire

Stamford (01780) 762886 (Please note my home Stamford landline number is no longer in use).

Mobile 07973 819821

PLEASE NOTE ALL ENQUIRIES / SALES ARE BY PHONE ONLY. HEALTH / SAFETY HAS FORCED ME TO KEEP THE BOURNE YARD CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC. SORRY

With bases in South Lincolnshire near Bourne and near Stamford, the map provides a general guide to the coverage area although this will shrink to somewhat closer around Bourne and Stamford as peak season approaches. I deliver full loads of ash logs to Market Deeping, Peterborough and Spalding, as well as full loads of ash logs to Grantham, Oakham, Sleaford, Rutland and Lincolnshire. I will also consider a complete parcel of truck and trailer load of logs delivered much further away from my Bourne / Stamford base outside peak season eg I've been asked to deliver to someones holiday cottage in the Yorkshire Dales, and places in the Lincolnshire Wolds/Norfolk - all of which provide great days/weekends out for me in summertime so please feel free to enquire!

Click on map to enlarge

 

Weights and measurements are as accurate as I can be (and I got A/O level maths at school so one of my cubic metres is a real cubic metre!) but purely to cover myself in this modern era, I sell my loads as 'sold as seen'. The photos are there to provide a clear guide and I don't try to deceive people with phrases often used over the phone such as:
i) "a load on a tonne truck". For example, either of my loads on the truck are "a load of logs on a 1 tonne truck"! And more recently, ''a builders tonne bag'', which actually holds around just 300kg when full of logs rather than sand!! Dumpy bags are the builders sand/gravel bags, and for price comparisons with other sites, these are nowhere near a cubic metre in volume (around 0.7) or a tonne in weight when filled with dry logs as some sites suggest, in fact I guess they weigh less than 300kg which is why you often see companies delivering multiple loads or 'bins' loaded on just 1-1.5tonne capacity delivery vans.
ii) "a heaped load of logs " - could be anything from 20 logs to a 300 log heap like the one in my top middle photo!
iii) "a load of mixed hardwood logs". Because even most log suppliers don't seem to know the difference between hardwood and hard wood, 'mixed hardwood' could and often does mean a load of poor quality poplar and willow logs, which will spark and if kiln dried will burn like newspaper! Contrary to how they are marketed, in my opinion kiln dried logs are no better and will last no longer than a conventionally dried log, buying kiln dried is just paying someone to speed up the natural drying process whilst simultaneously speeding up the destruction of the environment - and how ironic it is to see how these kiln dried logs are marketed when we consider Agenda 30, although even that pales into insignificance when we consider that in 2020 Drax power station burned 1.23 million tonnes of woodchips shipped all the way from Canada (and another 800,000t from the Baltic States). I wonder how many people know this stuff, but I'd better stop there....

My weight figure is determined by consistently getting more or less 25 full loads of logs from a 25 tonne lorry load of mixed, fresh felled hardwood. Ash loses little weight as it dries. However, sycamore logs, for example, will lose significantly more and sold dry will not weigh a tonne, even though I buy it weighing a tonne and label it likewise. ( I recently checked this again and got just over 28 loads of oak from a 26.9t lorry load giving a load of size of around 0.95t (minus bark and sawdust obviously, which is left behind here)! My volume figure is measured as actual load space (not volume of wood). This is worked out accurately and is not rough guesswork but please remember a 4 cubic metre load on anyones trailer for example, will not be 4 cubic metres when stacked.

Although this website now saves me an incredible amount of time by not having to explain detail over the phone, it actually began in 2007 simply with just minimal text and two photo's - primarily for potential new customers to be able to visualise the load sizes and compare this with what my competitors offered rather than compare what are often exaggerated volume and weight figures quoted over the phone (and now websites) but it still keeps expanding - everytime someone asks me a question not covered here already! Increased business from this website was partly responsible for me going full time in 2008 (as far as I know, at that time that made me unique in the region) enabling me to now supply at any time of the year.

Thankyou for reading and I hope to see you soon!

 

LATEST September 1st 2022. For first time customers please note due to increased demand the coverage area is now limited to the inner half of the map below (my rat run is Bourne to the Deepings). There's plentry of decent well seasoned ash logs this year, with the moisture content generally down to 20-30% now we are in September. Whilst this doesn't quite meet the required level of 20% to let me label it "ready to burn" I'm regularly told by past customers, returning after being duped into buying elsewhere, that my logs are drier than the "kiln dried" logs they bought from other local firms last year!! And why all of this? Well, drying logs commercially below 20% is extremely tedius and expensive, there is no easy/cheap way. Air drying requires massive amounts of stock and processed logs simply don't dry easily stored in the huge heaps you'll see in some barns as the air simply cannot get inside. And different economic pressures all to often result in the kiln drying fraternity leaving logs in their kilns nowhere near as long as they should. Purchasing your logs a month or so before you need to burn them cuts out the stress and last minute panic like when your supplier runs out at the time you need him most, cuts out the absolute stupidity of wasting fuel and electricity used in kiln drying logs (as well as wasted labour involved in double/triple handling them), and, it saves you enormous amounts of money - my 4m³ load is currently around £200 cheaper than other firms 'kiln dried' and it amazes me just how much money people seem happy to waste. By letting me (and the great free kiln in the sky) do the bulk of the years drying and leaving you to do the last month (this simply involves leaving them in the dry), I can stay focussed on providing the finest quality, consistent and uniform logs at the cheapest prices. There's more details plus the new legal stuff regarding 'dry logs' in red at the bottom of this site. Please note, my vehicle and trailer are now more purpose built than the outdated photos below but the quantities remain the same. Thank you for reading.

LATEST - October 2020. MAJOR UPDATE - NEW GOVERNMENT LEGISLATION RE LOG SALES, PLEASE READ CAREFULLY. February next year sees new legislation comes into force regarding log burning/sales. Basically, for anyone still wishing to buy their logs from me, there are now certain guidelines you must follow and it seems the onus is now on you, the customer, to ensure that the wood is dry before you burn it. The government are wanting everybody to burn kiln dried wood which will have what they’ve termed the “ready to burn” label attached to it supposedly leaving you with nothing to worry about (ha ha, I wonder... the company Certainly Wood even say on their website that their moisture content is ''hopefuly'' below 20%....!). I'm not going down that route though and I will still be allowed to sell logs in quantities of 2 m³ or more but legally, no matter how dry it is, it will now legally be classed as “wet wood”. This means, summing up government rules as I understand them, you will now be required to make sure that you have an adequate log store to enable the logs to dry out and you will be required to buy a moisture meter to make sure that the logs are under 20% moisture before you burn them. Technically I think a reading should be taken from each end and then from a fresh cut face and make sure the average reading is below 20%. Please don’t ask me about the practicalities of that or who is going to enforce that, write a letter to BJ instead, this is another of his wonderful ideas, not mine. I just legally had to tell you that but I know everyone today sees through all this government stuff, don't they........?! 

However, I have actually been gently encouraging people for several years to order early and I am now going to be taking advantage of the fact that the government is now legislating to ensure customers dry their own logs. I'll still be selling them part seasoned at 25-45% moisture content (please remember fresh timber is often over 70%) which will mean you may have to leave them a little while to finish drying, depending when you get them and where you leave them. And, air drying logs can easily get the moisture down below 20% if you are a real stickler for that sort of thing. Best for you would be to order your whole winters worth of logs in one go in the spring or summer, which many of my customers do already and this legislation won’t affect you. Best for me though, to spread my work, is for some of my customers to have two log stores on a rotation ie burning from one whilst the other is drying and keep alternating like that (and that will hopefully avoid everyone buying logs from me in the summer and me having nothing to do in the winter)!! 
Or, you could of course buy kiln dried from another supplier and I'm fully aware of that ! However, these are often varied quality, are super expensive (the aforementioned Certainly Wood are almost double my current 2020 prices) and buying just a single large load from me will save you enough money to buy another log store!! Log stores are only expensive once but kiln dried logs are super expensive every time! My selling point will be that I still aim to do better quality logs than anyone else in the region whilst watching the pricing structure of my competitors continue to race ahead into the distance!! And don't forget, order early and you'll naturally air dry your logs down to 20% moisture or less which is well below the 20-25% mark that kiln dried logs legally have to be. Finally, a huge ‘Thank you’ to the huge number of my lovely loyal customers over the years (and just updating here at the start of 2022, thank you for making the changeover so successful for me last year. I really do appreciate how many people did order early).  

Thank you for reading.

 

GENERAL UPDATE NOVEMBER 2019 - After 30 years doing this job I now supply the vast majority of my customers with firewood logs well before they need to actually burn them and this forward thinking, along with me supplying 6m3 bulk loads, is the direction I am leading my business ie no last minute rushing, efficiency, and cheap prices whilst making a stand against the absolule stupidity of kiln drying logs. I built my business selling the finest quality dry ash logs at top prices but nowadays (some...) other people are selling good dry logs too and my main selling point now has become still selling these prime ash logs but rather now part seasoned and at greatly reduced prices. I have now found an ever growing market from well organised people for my regular, uniform logs (both regular in size and species, and user specified) which, due to all the work that keeps coming my way, is obviously more important to customers than very expensive logs unecessarily dried artificially in a kiln (both naturally drying and kiln dried logs soon meet midway and find their common moisture content which ultimately, I believe, is always that of the environment they are kept in). This is where I can beat the competition, most of whom still seem to supply random sized lumps of wood rather than nice uniform logs, as well as totally random species - lime and willow included (which are technically hardwoods although not hard wood of course and when kiln dried 'burn like paper' to quote one new customer of mine....), and as long as you are able to order a couple of months or so before you want to burn them you will still get the finest logs and also now find me cheaper, sometimes considerably so, than just about every other major supplier nowadays. Doing it this way also takes the stress out of the job in hand, both for me rushing to keep up in peak times and for you panicking as you try to avoid running out! I apologise for how all of this may affect some of you whom I have spoiled over the years (!) but the blame lies with the very questionable government policy that has forced this change upon me and with all the sheeple who continue to blindly follow whatever our government tells us - in this case, 'we must kiln dry our firewood'!! Criticising government - oh dear, I'd better stop there, a few more years and I'll be jailed for something like this........Thank you for reading.

 

 

Site last updated April 16th 2024

 

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W Cox Logs - Supplying Ash logs to Bourne Sleaford Stamford Peterborough Deeping Grantham Oakham Spalding Rutland 07973 819821

(Seasoned hardwood ash firewood logs for sale delivered in Bourne, in Stamford, Market Deeping, Sleaford, Rutland, Lincolnshire area, also bulk loads of ash logs to Spalding, logs to Grantham and logs to Oakham areas. Full loads of ash logs to Peterborough, and full loads of ash logs delivered to Sleaford areas).