Would fuel briquette venture be worth it? | Hearth.com Forums Home

So here's my situation, and I would like everyone's advice.
I work at a large sawmill and have access to virtually all the sawdust, planer shavings, and wood chips I could ever dream of. I have been contemplating on getting a sawdust briquette press and getting myself a side business. I am within an hour and a half of St. Louis so that would probably be my avenue for selling. I have noticed on the net that nearly all of the briquette sales are in the northeast. I have been crunching numbers and I don't think I could get the briqs shipped up there and still have any profit left. I have heard pros and cons to burning them. I'm afraid if some occasional users buy them, they will have a lot of trouble getting them to burn correctly or satisfactory hence, not a repeat customer. I think if I could create a market, I could make a decent profit. As long as the product(dust) is dry the machine will basically run itself. So I could work on other things in the shop while the press squeezes out briqs all day long. One part of me says it's a no-brainer. Another part of me is scared my market is too limited and with a fairly high press cost, I don't want to bite off more than I can chew. Maybe I'm just asking for one of you to give me a kick to get going or quite possibly for you guys to put me in my place. With all the environmental concerns, it's an awesome fuel.
Well, that's it for now.
Let me have it. Thanks for the website webmaster. I get paid to tinker everyday. One of those would be right up my alley. I'm going to say this and I may regret it. I was actually thinking of building my own press, but If I can get one of those and rebuild it for the right money-okay. Yes, I actually build a small press with a would splitter. Putting nearly 20,000psi on sawdust can make a guy a little nervous the first time. It works beatifully. I have a large amount of hydraulic experience and I'm actually an electrician by trade. So it definitely would be plc controlled. I have invested many, many hours looking over the 3 most popular designs on the internet and I have a complete press drawn up with a parts list. It's still pretty expensive. As far as the briqs go, it seems the smaller biobricks are the most favored. I need to study this website you gave me. Now you got me all excited again. I lose interest every 3 weeks or so just because I'm worried if the market is there. Most of the people in St. Louis only burn wood for ambience and such. I assume very few actually do all of their heating with wood. From what I have read briquettes are a little hard to get started and they don't offer the pretty fire firewood offers. So what I'm saying is I will probably get a lot of first time buyers, but unfortunately few repeats. I have burned many of my prototype briqs and they all burned well, but I have wood heat my entire life so starting fires and such comes naturally. One thing I'd be careful of is any type of 'conflict of interest' with the sawmill. Are they OK with you (as an employee) pilfering the sawdust, then selling that for a profit? If they aren't and/or you quit your job to pursue the brick making full time, will they still allow you free access to the sawdust?

I've worked for a couple companies and basically had to sign a waiver that any idea I come up with while at work can't be sold/used/etc for my personal benefit, but would be considered company property. Likewise, when I used to live in Springfield, MO, there was a railroad tie plant. They would crop the ends off the oak ties to make them uniform length, then put out the scraps - which were usually 8"x10" oak chunks between 5 and 12" long - as 'free for the taking'. One enterprising redne...uh...person...would be down there every morning to grab up a load of the best scraps. He'd then haul them back to his house and put them out for sale. It only took a couple trips of this before someone (ahem!) mentioned his practices to the plant. Once they saw the big piles of free scraps 'for sale' in his yard, he was no longer allowed to get wood from the plant.

So just make sure everything is in line and good luck! Honestly, I haven't talked with them about this idea yet. I'm am in a higher position in the company so I know they aren't going to just jumping up and down if I pursue this. I will actually be purchasing the dust from them. It's cheap. I developed the idea on my personal time in my shop so they can't claim it was a time conflict of issue. Except sometimes my mind wanders at work so I guess they could bill me for that. This mill is quite large so if it's not dealt with in trailer truck loads they are not very interested. So I'm sure conflict of interest will not be a problem at first when the sidebusiness would not be showing signs of much profit. I do realize if the venture would take off they would start to notice. I'm torn about what to do. Do I tell them and hope they don't steal my idea? Or, do I play dumb? I love working here and I know they wouldn't fire me, but I really don't want to disappoint them either. I'm not really as concerned as much about stepping on my employers toes as I am my marketability. I have a very good relationship with them so if I begin this venture I will let them know and see what they have to say. You have to remember sawdust is a byproduct, not the major cash source for us. In fact, sometimes it's hard to get rid of. I don't see a pellet mill popping up anytime soon. That's more of a north-northeast localized item. There is one in central mo, but I'm not sure of how they are doing. I actually got the briquette idea after contemplating making pellets. For anyone wanting to learn about home brew pellets there is an awesome website www.makeyourownpellets.com that you should visit. I am not affiliated with them, but I learned a huge amount from their forum. I believe you can make briqs from ag byproducts such as straw. I just don't see it as being feasible. I live on a working family farm. Our cheapest 6x6 bales go for 20$+. Heck, last summer we custom baled and charged 15$/bale. And they only weigh lbs. So with dust go for 15-20$/ton, it just only seems logical. What makes the briqs stick under pressure is a product called lignin. It actually changes to a liquid state under pressure and then rebinds the dust. I'm not sure straw or hay has that. It may have to be some for of mixture with wood. On that pellet forum, they make pellets with them, but they use a product called pellet bond. So I think with that it would be possible. I have thought so much about this. I have talked myself into and out of business more times than I can count. It just seems so logical though. A machine that practically runs itself while you can tinker with something else. The only cost is the initial which I could keep to a minimum by going used or build myself. Random thoughts:
Better to try and fail than blah, blah, blah....
With the world wide shortage of pellets, why briquettes? We're even shipping pellets overseas! Seems like it'd be worthwhile to ship to northeast. Wholesale them and let someone else handle all the headaches with trucking and selling?
It does seem like there's a basic flaw in pellet stoves that people need to be so fussy as to what they feed it. I can load up a basket and put it in my woodstove and it doesn't care if they're dirty or too big or whatever the problems are. Maybe that's why briquettes? I've just never known anyone who used them.
You mentioned "creating a market." That's another whole ship to sail and you can't be on two at the same time.
Here's a story for your boss- Use to be some pig farms around who capitalized on the by-products of a cheese factory and numerous vegetable packaging houses.
Once these by-products had value, they started charging for them.
The pigs lost profitability and sold out.
The by-products are a burden again.
I wouldn't base my desicion on what might happen.
The whole fad with veggie oil has subsided or at least quieted. People got dissuaded by the fact that the growing demand for the used veggie oil was causing it to be sold. I got a buddy that does real well with free WVO. He just doesn't brag so much about it (hint, hint,) or he tells about how much effort for so little return.
You enjoy working in your shop and the worst that could happen is that you have a nice machine to sell. So the worst you could do is make money? I do just want to mention first that I really appreciate all of your opinions. I've been quietly searching this forum for awhile. There is just so much valuable info. I looked at the possibility of pellets. If you don't have 100g up front, you're not going to get much. Also, there is a very large feed mill close by that my brother works for. He has heard numerous stories about how much maintenance the pellet mill is. Part of that is because they will hire just about anybody. But it can't all be human error. I have also read the makeyourownpellets forum from front to rear. There is a huge learning curve, and I just cant see them guys making a profit with the smaller mills. They do have some talent though. One guy hooked a 6 cyl engine to his mill. I enjoy reading that kind of stuff. Anyways, that is why not pellets.
I don't see how I can get away from some form of marketing. I could sell them to the fireplace shops and such. I don't know how it's done everywhere else, but in the midwest a lot of city gas stations sell small quantities of firewood. So that would be another. I would just sell each station a pallet at a time. There's also big box stores. That might not be worth it's time. Who knows. I've never tried to sell lowes or home depot anything. That would be a learning curve itself. Anyways, in some form or another I would have at least market to these guys. I wouldn't try to market to the end consumer other than having some fancy box and fact sheet about how they our good for our earth. I've noticed the guy from biopellets has been on this forum. I wish he'd reply. As far as I know he's the mastermind behind BioBricks. It seems he knows what he's doing. I can't really see that I would be stepping on his toes because most of his products are in the northeast. Here's a random thought... When I was in Vancouver my house there has a fireplace and I used to buy those sawdust logs for it since they burned in a nice controlled manner and gave off little creosote. One brand I used to buy had coloured flames... green, purples, reds, blues and some whites. I hate to say it but that sold me on the product because my wife was on it like a fat kid on a donut. To further this, a little mom and pop department store in town sells those packets you add to your camp fire to give those same coloured flames. It's as dead simple as dropping the packet in the fire and they it's non toxic etc etc etc... (my kids loves em). I've made enough homemade fireworks to guess at the metals used and I'd have to agree.

You could either incorporate a product like that into your dust or add a packet to each bundle or something to help differenetiate your product over others. Might give you a nice marketing twist to focus on for a low cost.

The guy near me who makes windows and doors has a brick press, he flogs them to campgrounds in the summer in the puck form in poly bags.. (as opposed to log form). There's an easy market. Campgrounds and stores near campgrounds, we sell a lot of firewood to campers and private campgrounds.

Final thought... when you make your business plan , stick in X hours every week to the task: marketing and DO IT. I have a lot of respect for you for giving this serious thought - if the numbers work out, best of luck - a true entrepreneur

A few comments on your last post - selling to gas stations. People who buy firewood from gas stations are not doing it to heat their house, they are doing it to have a fire once in a while - I've seen someone else on here post that gas station/supermarket prices work out to about $800 a cord. People who buy pellet stoves are in it to heat their house - they buy a pallet at a time, or at least 10 bags - I would believe it's a volume sale. That said there's a gas station around here that will also sell you a pallet, or even deliver, but you're not going to convince your average gas station to do that.

I don't know how Lowes/HD buy their pellets, but to go in with the "buy local, sell local" thing could be a bonus especially with a green product such as pellets. Go speak to some employees in the aisles. Ace hardware stores (or your regional equivalent) may be great for a local manufacturer.

Speak to a someone who sells pellets - how many pallets do they sell a season, what is is the pattern of demand? How much you could produce - if you had one seller just like this, is that all you would need given supply and need to make money. Most importantly go speak to anyone in your market who buys them. Where from, how much, how much at a time, satisfaction, what could be better....

Being the distributor as well adds a whole other layer of cost, but of course cuts out the middleman. The power of both the internet and your connections to pellet buyers would then be key.

I wonder if there's a market for delivery of raw sawdust to pellet makers elsewhere - you'd have to compress it, but maybe a trash truck could do the job....

Go sort out the distribution/price point of your business before anything else. Write a business plan, and most importantly be honest with yourself about what you think you can achieve. Shield yourself from liabilty and protect your assets and family.

I'm sure you've thought of these things, but I just wrote as things popped into my head. Best of luck. Actually, I am near the rail lines. My employer owns a switch. Never even thought about that. Hey, if anyone here is a distributor for any of the other compressed logs, pm me. I have a question for you.
I know this is something I should just do. I need to make calls next I guess. Then setup a llc. I checked for patent issues and the only things I found that my pertain to the idea expired. At least, I'm pretty sure. Any of you guys tried to navigate the United States Patent Office site. Can be very time consuming.
Well, I have the whole summer to get the press running and setup a distribution network.
I forgot to mention earlier about the dust shortage at all the pellet mills. Since the housing market tanked, sawmills are closing left and right. The market is just saturated. And it's both hard and softwood mills. If the fuel prices go back up, you'll be talking about 2x4's as something you used to see as a kid. I am so ready to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Here I go hijacking my own thead.
Appreciate the time guys. You all just told me what I knew, but needed someone else to say.

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Briquette Carbonization Process