You work for free too ?
Find your local one here .
It would be helpful (to those who are trying to help you) to say where you live. The options may vary.
One thing to keep in mind when buying wood is if you have a fire place or a Swedish stove (free standing stove). A fireplace can normally take longer logs. A stove normally needs 25 or max 30 cm long logs. You need to measure your stove if you have one. Logs that are too long will not lay down making burning more difficult.
The next question is are you planning a romantic fire every once and while or whether you would like to have a fire 1-2 times per week. Where you buy and what you buy will vary. Do you have space to stack and keep dry a certain quantity of wood or are you restricted to a little space on a balcony.
A few more details would be helpful.
The price for cut wood ready to burn can vary hugely from area to area and from seller to seller. We buy wood a year or 2 in advance to stock and it is much cheaper. Fresh wood does not burn well - and wood older than 3 years burns too quickly without much heat. A stere (1 metre 3) of ash to store, cut in 33cm, is about 70-80 CHF here - but ready to burn good quality wood in Geneva or Zurich could be an awful lot more.
It would be interesting to know about prices elsewhere- both for ready to burn, and for storage.
It's probably just better just to take a few pieces from a few of your neighbours, when it's dark - they wont notice just a few piece missing, and you wont have far to carry it.
Ask in you local "gemeinde." They will put you in contact with the local forester who sells and usually delivers.
We just ordered.
And the fact you are a doctor suggests you are educated and thus shouldrealise that nicely stacked wood in a forest is unlikely to be free of charge.
To buy large quantities, i presume you mean more than 3 or 4 cubic meters, try the local farmer, look on the Coop/Migros annoucement bnoards, check yopu local newspoaper, ask the commune.
I don't know where in Switzerland you live, but if it's near Geneva, I found a guy who charges 250 chf for 500 kilograms delivered. I haven't ordered it yet, but plan to as soon as I get around to it. It's too long to fit in the fireplace, so when mine gets dropped off I'm going to have to cut each piece in half with a hand saw or maybe spring for a small chain saw, but it's about 50 chf cheaper than buying the small boxes, so given that we pretty much have a fire every evening, it's worth the hassle.
If anybody is interested, pm me and I'll pass along the contact info.
For those who speak French, a recent ariticle from the'Terre et Nature' magazine:
Le prix du bois de feu
L’hiver approchant, il est temps de faire un tour au bûcher pour s’assurer que le stock de bois est suffisant. Faut-il acheter du bois en stères de 1 mètre ou déjà coupé en bûches? Tout dépend de ses disponibilités en temps. Acheté en bûches, il coûtera un peu plus cher qu’en stère car il aura été façonné. Selon les essences, le bois en quartiers de 1 mètre se vend de 65 à 130 francs le stère (vert, départ forêt à port de camion), prix indicatifs hors TVA d’Economie forestière suisse à Soleure. Il faut compter un supplément pour le débitage en bois de cheminée qui va de 35 à 50 francs le stère selon la taille des bûches (25, 33 ou 50 cm), voire jusqu’à 75 francs pour le petit bois.
In short, wood in 1 m lengths between 65 and 130 CHF + VAT (TVA) + 35 to 50 CHF per stere to cut to size, 5, 33 or 50cm. We have central heating (oil) but our large 'pierre olaire' stone clad wood burner 8kw- can heat the whole house happily, with solar panels for hot water- so we buy quite a lot of wood, thank goodness it is quite resonable in price around here. We will cut a couple of ash trees on our boundary next year, so we will have plenty for a while
We don't really burn that much wood so I just go with the 15kg boxes at Landi. Apparently though if we contact the commune we can get cheap wood from the community forest. So it might not be a bad idea to get in touch with your commune.
The wood in the Landi flyer that is 8.95 for 15kg is hêtre (beech) and comes in 24-27cm pieces. 2ft sounds really long. You'd have to cut that down or have a very big fireplace.
I don't want to be chopping wood. Actually, no one wants me wielding an axe.