Can I make a buck?

[Blakesmaster]

I went to my soon to be new apartment to meet my landlord on Friday...

LL- "What do you do for a living?"
ME- "I remove trees in residential areas."
LL- "Do you sell the wood?"
ME- "Umm...yeah, if it's worth milling and we also process firewo..."
LL- ...interrupts. " 'Cause I got a tree this big ( holds arms open wide ) that's over my house ( my eyes start to roll ) that I can't get a lumbermill to come look at. It's gotta be worth somethin' but they don't want to bother with one tree."
ME- "So...when is garbage day around here?"

It still boggles my mind how homeowners have no idea what is involved in our profession. Not only is it residential timber, if it's that big around here that probably means it's an old, rotten sugar maple that isn't even worth the gas to haul to a mill. Yeah buddy, I'll not only spend all day taking down the tree, removing ton after ton of debris and clean your yard up, I'm gonna make sure YOU get paid for all my effort and skill.

I'm wondering what other similar stories you guys have...

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

My response is that s2s dimensional lumber is a value added product, where timber is the raw recourse.

The value of the timber will occasionally defray the cost of the project, but the cost of transport on top of the cost removal and extraction in timber lengths makes it cost more then the value of the one or two logs that you will get.

If we in the industry would take a little time to educate people the public on what we think of as silly misconceptions, they may see us as more then semi skilled labor "Oh, you cut trees, ey?"

 

[OLD CHIPMONK]

A very good point! When it comes to business ( I'll pay your rental price for the apartment & you pay me my price for the tree you need removed ) Always keep it on a professional level.

 

[NorCalCutters#3]

I have seen it work out a few times with a one tree deal. On one tree the owner was paid $50,000 for a redwood and the other was $45,000 for a Eucalyptus. granted the redwood had a 20' diameter burl stump and the Euc. was almost all burl but it does happen . At first the mill did not even want the log from the rewood figuring it was all over ripe but once that saw cut in, it was all sweet and tight .

I would just keep the transactions separate and have the lord get a few quotes and do your best to beat them all, seeing as you only have to step out your door to get to the job.

 

[techdave]

Hi Norcal...

I always wondered about Euc burls and market value.

I hav eseen lots of wierd stuff with euc, love ot mill them for custom benches and stuff. Got my eye on some monster Oak burls I can buy at firewood prices.

Thanks for the inof.

 

[Blakesmaster]

Granted, I may have gotten something for the log but, like I said, every tree I see around here that gets that large is usually rotten. He came off as expecting to get paid and obviously had no clue. I will tell him to get a few bids and come in under them if I can but I will make sure he has a good idea that the timber is worthless. Unless it's a black walnut or something, in that case I may have blown off the wrong guy.

 

[treeclimber jul]

Did you say Black Walnut, I have access to tons of Black walnut trees

 

[Slvrmple72]

Educating homeowners to clear up their general misconceptions regarding tree work costs vs tree value is the bulk of my talks with potential customers. Keeping it professional in the face of blatant disregard of the high calibre of skill and ability, equipment, training, maintenance, and costs is the hard part.
Example: The tree in the enclosed backyard over the deck and the above ground swimming pool that is dying and worthless for timber or firewood requiring lots of rigging work and or a crane to effectively/safely remove it. The homeowners reaction at the written estimate::jawdrop: followed by the classic response: " How much will you deduct for the value of the tree? Its really large and that much wood should make a lot of money as firewood or even selling it for making furniture."
I can convince some of them, others price shop till they get taken or vice versa, others reach an amicable agreement with me. The really honest ones will fess up later on that I was right and after having charged them a fair price to drop the tree and remove the "fluff" they didnt make as much money for the firewood as they thought they would compared to the work involved. I still see some of the wood rotting away in the yards of some past customers. Such is life.

 

[ATH]

If they still don't get it, maybe give 2 prices:

"Your log is worth $x. I'll pay you that for the log.

It will cost you $yz for me to get the log down and to the mill and your yard cleaned up. If you want to get the log to my mill some other way, I will still pay you $x."

 

[gr8scott72]

I recently helped a friend remove this:

I, kind of for fun, process extra wood and sell it. He asked me how much would I make with that much wood. I told him once it was all said and done, probably about $500.

Later he asked me if I was going to grind the stump for him. I told him he'd have to give me something that I couldn't just run my grinder for that long for free. He said "but I gave you all that wood..." and just has no idea how many hours it is going to take to cut, split, stack, cover, season for a year, advertise, sell, load, deliver before I ever see a dime from it. It's just hard to explain to some people.

 

[Slvrmple72]

Scott, did you guys drop the stump back down? Looks like you got a "few" cords from that tree! I found a chipper! I pick it up next week near Rochester.-Kevin

 

[gr8scott72]

Scott, did you guys drop the stump back down? Looks like you got a "few" cords from that tree! I found a chipper! I pick it up next week near Rochester.-Kevin

Left the stump right where is was. It was perfectly balanced and wouldn't budge either way.

This was one of 3 loads I took home:

 

[ropensaddle]

I just tell them fine you think it is valuable my price to cut and clean
the top is;1000 stump is 50 I will cut the log to length for 50 and you can
sell it! These people are sometimes dumb, however most are just friggin
con artists fishin for a fool!

 

[Blakesmaster]

Slvrmple72, you're absolutely right. I should have been more professional toward him but I got the feeling he was just a con like Ropensaddle said. However, I like ATH's idea of breaking it all down but because I'm not a timber grader I don't really know the worth of the log so I'll break it down even more. I'll chip and remove the limbs and chunk wood for $x, and haul the log to a mill for $x and have them cut you a check for the value of it.