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As cold nips at the bay area's nose, more residents are lighting their fireplaces. And that's good for business, wood sellers say.
By JOUNICE L. NEALY
© St. Petersburg Times, published January 12, 2001
The cold has been kind to firewood sellers, whose customers have been cozying up to their fireplaces during the unseasonably chilly winter.
"They're buying it like crazy. We're supplying other tree people because they're out of wood," Melissa Shay, whose husband owns Shay's Tree Service in Largo.
"It hasn't been like this in the last four years."
Last month, the Tampa Bay area had four days with lows in the 30s and eight days with lows in the 40s.
Temperatures like that have kept Mark Hughes working 12- and 14-hour days.
"Right now we're working from morning until night," said Hughes, a yard foreman for Hughes Land Management Inc. in Tampa. He has heard a lot of customers say how much they've used already this winter. "By this time last year they still had wood from previous years. They've been turning it over, burning it up and coming back," Hughes said.
Mike Johnston of St. Petersburg said he already has gone through a cord of wood since November. A cord is a pile of wood that is 4 feet wide, 4 feet tall and 8 feet long, or more commonly measured as a pickup truck load.
That much "usually lasts me a couple of years," Johnston said.
Forecasters say there won't be another cold snap for at least several days. Temperatures are expected to be seasonal with lows in the 50s and highs in the 70s.
"When it gets cold, I love to sit in front of the fireplace," said Grady Johnson of St. Petersburg. Plus, it saves him money.
Johnson said his utility bill only went up by about $30, while a friend of his without a fireplace saw the bill go up about $100.
Burning wood as a source of supplemental or alternative heat is a trend that has played out nationally.
It also has prompted firewood suppliers to raise their prices as good wood becomes scarce, said Joseph Smith, associate director of the Forest and Wood Products Institute at Mount Wachusett Community College in Gardner, Mass. Nevertheless, the price of firewood still is more appealing than the price of other heating sources.
For example, a typical Florida Power residential customer in Florida using 1,000 kilowatt hours will pay an average of $89.70 a month.
A truckload of wood, which could last the entire winter, depending on how frequently residents use the fireplace, costs $65 to $150.
Both Hughes and Shay have heard of price gouging but say they've kept their prices steady.
For example, some places have charged as much as $20 for a wheelbarrow full of wood that costs $10 at Shay's, for instance.
"A lot of these guys are getting top dollars," Shay said.
More than its practicality, the Johnsons' fireplace in their 1920s home is an emotional relief. "You can go to sleep and you can relax and you can forget all your worries. And you don't care what's on TV."
- Information from the Washington Post was used in this report.
Expect a chill from your utility bill (January 11, 2001)