Firewood suppliers across the country are experiencing unusually high levels of interest from their customers this summer.

John Sherlock from Sherlogs Firewood said he has been delivering firewood all summer when usually, this time of year, sales would be quiet.

“People are panic buying, they’re afraid of an energy shortage this winter.

“It’s a perfect storm at the moment because there’s a huge demand for firewood but there’s also a huge shortage of supply.

“Meanwhile, lads who owned the big harvesters sold them because work had slowed up due to a lack of felling licences,” Sherlock said.

Stoves

Sherlock added that many of his customers have installed stoves over the summer to combat energy price increases.

Edward Kennedy, a firewood supplier in the mid-Tipperary area, told the Irish Farmers Journal that last week he was as busy as the week leading up to Christmas.

“Normally in August you’d only sell four of five bags per week, last week I sold 40 bags.

“The price of energy is gone crazy and people are panic buying.

“However, the problem that is going to stem from this is supply,” Kennedy added.

Fermanagh is another area seeing a surge in demand for firewood.

“We are pretty much as busy as a usual run-up to Christmas,” said Richard Armstrong from Surefire Wood in Tempo, Co Fermanagh.

The cost of production is going up for firewood suppliers and prices are going to have to rise also, so therefore people are trying to beat the price increases, explained Armstrong.

Also expressing concerns around supply, Armstrong said stocks will be very low by the end of September and beginning of October.

“Our regular customers are ordering firewood now that they usually wouldn’t order until before Christmas.

“It’s only sensible though because prices will go up; coal has doubled in price; oil is up by 60% and 70% but firewood shouldn’t go up any more than 20% to 30%.

“It’ll still be the cheaper energy source at the end of the day,” he said.