leaving wood?

[treeman82]

I'm bidding a swamp maple removal where the guy wants to keep the wood. Originally I had been looking at removing all the wood, which had to be carried out by hand due to narrow pathways and stairs, plus no crane access. Now the guy wants to keep the wood, and have it split up for firewood. Only problem is, he wants the wood cut up to lengths between 30 and 36" in length. Any thoughts on how much time this could take??? Tree is roughly 30" DBH. Probably have to do it by hand.

 

[kkottemann]

just charge him your hourly rate for your time....i bid jobs based on time and material, so remove material disposal from the equation and charge time.

 

[treeman82]

I'm just wondering about the fiesability of splitting logs that size by hand. If they were 16" my guy could bang them out no problem... but 30"+ is another story I think.

 

[tree md]

I will usually give a customer who is looking for the best value a price to put on the ground, put on the ground and cut up and they handle it, cut and stack or complete removal (haul away).

Just figure out your time in the job and charge accordingly. Subtract any cost for labor or equipment you would use for hauling the stuff away.

I personally don't split wood. I may let one of my guys split the wood for them for an hourly wage (or whatever he wants to charge them) on his own time but I am in the tree business, not the firewood business. I have found that the money in firewood just isn't worth the effort.

 

[Tree Pig]

The bad news is your not gonna find a splitter that could handle that either... at least none I am aware of. They usually max out at around 26". But it can be done by hand its just a real pain in the ass. A friend of mine has a log cabin home with some high efficiency fire place (real narrow but high) well he can put up to 4 foot long logs in this thing and you stand them kinda t pee style. I helped him with some wood one year and what a royal pain in the ass splitting that long #### is.

 

[rmihalek]

Score each section lengthwise with the chainsaw maybe 3 inches deep, then drop a couple wedges in the kerf and pound away.

 

[turnkey4099]

Score each section lengthwise with the chainsaw maybe 3 inches deep, then drop a couple wedges in the kerf and pound away.

Sounds like unecessary and extra work to me. Just put a wedge in the end and follow the crack with more wedges. I split a batch of locust fence posts that way and It is no big deal. I for sure wouldn't want to do it for firewood though.

Harry K

 

[Rftreeman]

Score each section lengthwise with the chainsaw maybe 3 inches deep, then drop a couple wedges in the kerf and pound away.

that's how I do it, split it in to slabs about 4 inches thick then go to town with a maul, as for price, hourly is the best way......

 

[ozzy42]

What is this ''firewood'' thing everybody is talking about?

 

[beastmaster]

I would just cut those 30 inch rounds into 4 pieces(or half) then split em up with wedges or a maul. It'd go pretty fast really but is labor intensive.