FIREWOOD SUPPLIER’S BUSINESS RUNNING HOT
VETERAN Gold Coast firewood merchant Phil Regan says after 21 years chipping away business is booming – including rising demand for fuelling home pizza ovens.
Mr Regan, started his company PR Firewood in 1998 in the front yard of his home, selling some of his mate’s cuttings. When Bunnings Warehouse opened in the city in the early 2000s he decided to take a chance and offer to sell them bagged wood.
Two decades later, he has 12 employees, sells on average 4000 tonnes of premium wood each year and supplies wood to all Queensland Bunnings stores and another four northern NSW stores. Staff include his 20-year-old daughter Sylvia Regan.
Among those demanding his logs were increasing numbers of Gold Coasters with wood-fired pizza ovens and outdoor fire installations.
“It has become a viable business – there’s so many people who have a pizza oven in their backyard now, or need it for camping,” he said.
“It’s a business run from home. Having grown right from the smallest possible start to what it is now, it’s like one of my children I suppose.”
Over the years Mr Regan said he had been able to find and stock “the best” firewood.
“It’s the Western Ironbark. It’s renowned for being the hottest burning wood available,” he said.
“It’s the most sought (firewood) in the country. I have wholesalers in Victoria and NSW trying to find out where I get the product from.”
Although the climate is a bit too warm for anyone to be buying wood for their home, Mr Regan said it had become popular again in recent years. “It’s definitely seasonal. Not everyone wants to heat their house,” he said.