Free Fire Wood/Whole oak Tree (Black River Falls/City Point)
Date: 2011-02-18, 7:32AM CST
Reply to:
[email protected] [Errors when replying to ads?]
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Huge oak tree must be taken down, you keep the wood for cutting it down. Must have insurance.
Location: Black River Falls/City Point
it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
PostingID: 2220930481
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Here's what I had to write back:
"I have to respond to your ad. I don't mean this to sound disrespectful but I think you misunderstand what you are offering/asking for.
First, I don't think anyone with commercial liability insurance in the Madison area is going to haul themselves all the way up to Black River Falls area to cut down a tree that is worth almost nothing.
If you want someone to have insurance to take down a large tree, you should expect to pay them for their services and, more importantly, their skill.
Most paper mills and lumber yards won't take 'city trees' or 'yard trees' because they generally have a lot of metal in them. If this tree is as huge as you say, it's been around a long time and there are probably more than a few lag screws grown in there. The damage to equipment makes them not worth the fuel it costs to transport these trees, much less the risk to take them down.
It's not firewood until it is cut (a day or more of labor and fuel), split (another day of labor and fuel), stacked(a half a day of labor) AND seasoned (at least two years' storage with oak). Three days of labor and 5 gallons+/- of fuel and lubricants can cost upwards of $1000 for just the cut down and removal.
It's not lumber until it is cut appropriately, rough sawn (wear and tear on a band saw), stacked, let to dry (THREE years for furniture-grade wood), and planed down to make the sides square to each other(more wear on equipment).
All of the lumber-making talk is dependent on whether or not the main trunk is in good enough shape to be made into boards. Sometimes, the tree forks too quickly, has a big twist in it, is full of knots/burl - although, in that case, you might be able to cut out those parts and sell them to wood turners but I don't know how that works.
You don't have 'firewood' or 'hard wood for furniture' as a product to trade. You have raw material that isn't properly prepared to be turned into a marketable product. Its like saying that you have a field that's overgrown with weeds you have hay to trade for someone to cut your grass.
Good luck,
Respecfully,
Tony in Madison
Give a man a fish, he eats for a day... Teach a man to fish and he spends the rest of his life finding a way to go fishing more often.
Every day I break my own previous record for number of consecutive days I've stayed alive."