palm weight and uses?

[imagineero]

just wondering if anyone has a rule of thumb / formula / log chart for palms. I've got the log weight chart thats been floating round the net for ages, but no palms on there. For most trees, weight isn't a factor until cranes come in. We chip everything and sell or at least give it away, so the weight of the tree isn't especially important. I've gotten pretty good at guessing how many cubes most trees will chip down to, and then how many trees I can fit in the truck fully chipped.

Palms are a bit of a different story. I cant give them away, so they always end up being taken to the tip. Most tips in aus are now charging an extra surcharge for palms over and above the 'green waste' dumping fee and i some tips it's as high as $230/tonne. I've taken a minor hosing on palms a few times now; just last week I did a phoenix that wasn't especially tall (I did the crown from the ground) but tipped the scales just over a tonne! Where possible I try to just put the whole thing on the truck, but if we've got a lot to do I'll put them through the chipper.

It would be great to have some Idea of how to calculate weights. 90% of the palms I'm doing are cocos and phoenix, with the occasional washingtonia. And while we're on the subject.... anybody got a clever use / way of getting rid of the pulp?

Thanks,
Shaun

 

[ozzy42]

WOW 230 a ton sounds like a bunch to pay to dump.
Here [in Florida] they are charged the same as everything else. I think parts of California put the extra charge on them though.

As for the weight on them ,it's kind of hard to narrow it down to black and white ,as they lighten up considerably as they dry.My guess would be 48-50 lbs for a 12"dia. x 12" long cocos log,maybe a little lighter for the washies.

I have often wondered the same thing for what we call Austrailian Pine/cuasarina[sp] here. Those things are like concrete and heavy as hell.

 

[imagineero]

The last few years have seen a lot of changes in waste management in aus.... city dumps are no longer doing landfill, they've all become 'waste transfer stations'. The upside is that they do a lot more resource recovery, the downside is $230/tonne for palms ;-)

Some outer city dumps are not yet differentiating palm from other green waste, and charge about $130/tonne for green. Rural dumps are charging as little as $50/tonne for green, and some even have deals where you can dump an entire trailer (no weight restriction) of green on a weekend for $15, but only if you're a local resident.

A lot of my work is inner city thesedays, and it just isnt worth driving far out of town for the cheaper rates. If you're doing half a dozen good size palms we might be talkign 3-4 tonnes, times $230=nearly $1000 plus labour to load it all and driving time, this could easily add $1500 to the cost of a job which is really only 2 hours work onsite. This makes palms incredibly expensive to remove compared to other trees you can chip and sell.

I've had some luck with customers who were short on cash and happy to hang on to the wood until it dries out, then take it to the tip themselves and save $$$. For me, it's the same amount of profit, or pretty similar whether I do a straight fall or a full removal. I actually prefer to just do the falling to be honest, it's all cream.

Shaun

 

[Koa Man]

We pay the same price to dump palms as all other green waste. Your tip fee for palms is extremely high. If I had a lot of land, which I don't, I would dump all my palm debris on it and take it to the dump after a month. Palm debris are extremely light when dried out. Trunks take a while to dry out, but the green parts dry out very quickly. A large coco frond that weighs 20 lbs. green will be 5 lbs. in about 15 days in the sun. I have also found coconut trunks to be a lot lighter at the top and heavier as you cut down, even when they are the same diameter. Making a weigh chart would be difficult as the trunks retain more water the closer you get to the ground.