La demande a “carrément explosé, on n’arrive plus à suivre”: face à la hausse des prix du gaz et de l’électricité, le bois de chauffage connaît un véritable boom, contraignant les vendeurs à “rationner”, voire à refuser customers.
In mid-December in Alsace, the mercury has been dipping well below zero for a few days. A firewood seller in Wissembourg (Bas-Rhin), on the German border, Christophe Glad came to deliver logs and pellets to the Moose company, a specialist in stoves and fireplace inserts, based in Vendenheim, near Strasbourg.
Mr. Glad has been practicing “for 23 years” but this year is special: “I’m always on the road delivering. We have to ration, deliver in two or even three times so customers can start delivery ‘winter’ , explains the man who chairs the trade union of firewood merchants in Alsace.
Speculation
Many of his clients are in Germany, where “speculation” with wood is important: in France, the stereo ranges between “90 and 100 euros”, compared to “70 to 80” before. On the other side of the Rhine, where the dependence on Russian gas was very strong, it can reach “200 euros”.
“There are more and more people who want to save money” and “firewood”, both in main heating and in addition, is “the cheapest energy”, confirms Laura Menrath, Moose’s administrative assistant. She sees an explosion in wood stoves this year, well ahead of pellet appliances.
The Ukrainian conflict “boosts the European market,” said Patrice Escrieut, president of the Federation of Stove and Fireplace Installers (FIPC), in November. With the consequence “a bottleneck at the factory level” and stove manufacturing times ranging from “four to twelve months”, he explained on Sud Radio. “Too late,” therefore, for those dreaming of buying a stove this winter, he warned, urging customers to order now “by winter 2023.”
Faced with this surge in demand, lumber sellers, who traditionally build up their stocks at the beginning of the year, have been struggling for weeks to keep up. Normally, “we deliver during the summer”, but this year we continue to have “between 30 and 50 calls a day”, with peaks “of up to 100 a day”, confesses Glad. He had to give up delivery to people who, fearing an excessively high energy bill, opted, unfortunately too late in the year, for wood heating.
bloodless market
“The market is totally exhausted, dry wood stocks have been at zero for a few weeks,” confirms Jocelyn Auffret, a firewood seller in Gertsheim (Bas-Rhin). She recently also had to turn down orders from “people who hadn’t had the reflex to order soon enough, whereas in May or June, I was already in the red.”
Retired in Nordheim, west of Strasbourg, Joël Bûcher, 69, opted for wood heating “in 1988”: in the living room of his 220 m2 house on the heights of this village at the foot of the Vosges, is an imposing tiled stove. A typically Alsatian “kachelofe” whose old technical framework boasts the refractory qualities that allow a large part of the accommodation to be heated.
Like every year, he placed his order for five cubic meters of wood well in advance and did not notice an increase in the bill. At most a few extra euros in transport, logical repercussion of the rise in the price of fuel, he points out.
But next year, he expects things to be a little different: “Everything is going up, so I think we should also expect an increase” on the firewood side, explains Mr. Bûcher, who was asked by his lumber seller. advised to place an order at the beginning of the year.
Source: BFM TV
