There’s no good firewood
With weeks of winter weather still to come, Taranaki is in the grip of a dry firewood shortage that has left many households with nothing to burn for heating.
While hundreds of people have queued for hours in Christchurch to stock up on firewood, here the region’s biggest supplier, Woodwards in Bell Block, says the situation is even more dire – there’s none available.
July and August are traditionally the coldest months in Taranaki and the temperature is set to plummet to 1 degree Celsius during the weekend.
While there were still limited amounts of dry wood available from smaller outlets, Woodwards’ owner Heath Priest said demand was outstripping supply.
‘‘It’s just the same as every year, there’s a high demand and we can’t keep up with it,’’ Priest said.
The De Havilland Dr business offers a range of products from pine blocks to split pine, macrocarpa and gum but at the moment there’s nothing available.
Priest said they used to get a steady supply of pine blocks from local sawmills but it had dwindled over the years.
‘‘We used to get up to 20 bins a day, now we are getting not even one a day. Saturday morning used to be our busiest time but we are not even open Saturday morning now because we haven’t got anything to sell.’’
He said while many people might think cold snaps were good for business it wasn’t always the case. ‘‘It doesn’t make us any busier because we have got nothing to sell, we are just turning more people away.’’
Priest said he hated turning customers away, which sometimes could result in things getting heated.
‘‘If you can’t get warm, you get angry. Most people are pretty good, we haven’t had too many angry people this year.’’
While there were some people advertising dry firewood Priest warned potential buyers to beware.
‘‘There’s a lot of cowboys out there who say it’s dry when it’s not.
‘‘I always tell people to have a look at it before it’s tipped off and check the stuff underneath as well. As sometimes they just put the dry stuff on top.’’
On Facebook others who had sought dry wood agreed they had been caught out.
Katy Jayne posted she had bought wood she was told was dry and it wasn’t.
Jamie Jeffreys said they had gone through their normal load faster than usual and struggled to find a supplier who would deliver to Stratford.
‘‘Ended up buying a load off Trade Me that was supposed to be ‘kiln dried’ according to their listing but is too wet to burn even if the fire’s cranking.’’
Other Facebook users complained their power bills were mounting up after having to resort to using electric heaters to warm their homes.
Priest said people could tell if wood was dry by its weight, feel Roads flooded in parts of Taranaki as the region was lashed by downpours that exceeded MetService’s measurements for severe heavy rain.
Metservice said 77mm of rain fell on Inglewood between 3.30am and 3.30pm yesterday – two thirds of which arrived between 1pm and 3pm.
‘‘The rain in Inglewood far surpassed our standards for a severe heavy rain warning,’’ MetService meteorologist Andy Best said.
‘‘It’s what we call a ‘hybrid event’ – it’s localised but very intense.’’
Other areas hit by the deluge were the Everett Park Scenic Reserve, where 37mm of rain fell during the 12 hour period, and New Plymouth’s Brooklands Zoo, which was soaked by 44mm.
Best said MetService considers 5mm/hr enough to issue a warning, with 15mm considered as heaviest. ‘‘We would call that a downpour,’’ he said. ‘‘And conditions around New Zealand have been saturated making it difficult for rain to be absorbed.’’
MetService had issued Taranaki with a severe weather watch yesterday as a front carrying bands of heavy rain swept north from the South Island.
Surface flooding on State Highway 3 near Inglewood slowed traffic to a crawl during the late afternoon.
A blocked culvert in a roadside paddock was believed to have exacerbated the flooding, just south of Inglewood near the intersection of Lower Dudley Rd.
Several cars stalled in the deepest parts of the flooded road and traffic was reduced to a single lane.
A police spokeswoman said several calls had come in from Tariki, between Inglewood and Stratford, warning of ‘‘severe surface flooding’’.
Central District Police urged drivers to take care with poor driving conditions expected.
‘‘There is surface flooding around the region so please be careful and drive to the conditions.’’
While Best said the worst of the rain had passed, the wet weather would continue.
‘‘There’s still some showers around but nothing at the intensity you have already seen.’’
MetService said the front, preceded by northwesterly rain and followed by cold southerlies, would continue to cross the North Island throughout today.
The weekend is expected to be fine in New Plymouth, although temperatures will fall to 1 degree centigrade on Saturday night, followed by cloud and light winds on Sunday, with more cold weather next week.
Victoria University climate expert Professor James Renwick said: ‘‘We are in a pattern of unsettled weather that could last another week or two." and it should make a crisp crack when banged together.
He encouraged people to think ahead when working out how much firewood they would need for the winter months.
‘‘I think people have go to the point where they don’t think about it until it’s cold.
‘‘Normally I tell people if their woodshed is empty fill it up, it doesn’t matter what time of the year it is.’’
Priest said summer was their busiest time. ‘‘We are flat out doing five to six truck loads a day and that’s about all we can handle.’’
Buying green wood in the sum- mer was cheaper but people needed to store it properly and have the space to do so, he said.
‘‘If you get it around Christmas and provided there’s adequate airflow it’s well and truly dry before winter. If it doesn’t get adequate airflow it won’t dry properly. You need a dedicated woodshed if you have got a fire, that’s all there is to it.’’
A Metro Fires spokesman said demand for fireplaces was declining as property sizes decreased and people found more convenient ways to heat their homes.
‘‘In smaller sections people don’t have the room to put wood sheds anymore.’’