Scrounging Firewood (and other stuff)

[dancan]

Well it was a bit thoughtless of you to break your leg when he needed you do cut trees for him .

Of all the wood that you cut roughly what proportions or volumes do you burn/sell/give away?

I'll burn about 6 cord for the season , Jerry polly burns 2 and polly 1 at his daughters place .
In the past I would give Billy a couple of cord each year . Since Billy passed I gave away a couple of cord and sold 4 of the mixed small stuff but I don't try to sell the scrounged stuff .
Up behind the gate has plenty of wood to keep us warm for a long while but it's not big timber and it's spread out so we do a lot of traveling .
I did have 50 cord of selling wood but that's gone , polly not gonna do that anymore since the young fella that would do the split/load/deliver now has a full time job .

 

[JustJeff]

Would you charge for a job to cut black
Locust? Less than a mile from home and guy wants to get them out.Only pics he sent are below. Supposed to go check it out later in the week. We have so many blow downs from the winter nor'easters, I can be picky. Free wood is good wood, but trying to be logical with operating cost and time commitment. I do a little firewood on the side, teacher by career and locust would fetch higher $ per cord.....

It would depend on how badly I needed wood and who the fella was. I’ve gone to great lengths to get wood when I was running low. But now when I’m two years ahead, it would have to either be a favour for a friend or neighbor or a paying job. As a welder I can buy a seasons wood for a couple days wages. I scrounge because I like the independence aspect of it and it’s something different than my day job. That and I hate paying for something I can do myself. Saws take fuel, oil, chains...truck...splitter etc. So you have to attach a cost to it. Firewood goes for $80+ a facecord around here. It takes me an hour to cut a facecord, hour to load and haul, hour to split and another hour to haul it to where it needs to go and stack it. Works out to $20/hr minus fuel, chain, oil.... I figure I make around $15 an hour on my firewood and while I’m willing to work for myself for that, beyond my firewood needs I’m not really willing to work for others for that so I usually charge a bit to sweeten the pot if it’s not a favor for a friend or neighbor.
Sorry for the long answer! Lol.

 

[Ryan A]

It would depend on how badly I needed wood and who the fella was. I’ve gone to great lengths to get wood when I was running low. But now when I’m two years ahead, it would have to either be a favour for a friend or neighbor or a paying job. As a welder I can buy a seasons wood for a couple days wages. I scrounge because I like the independence aspect of it and it’s something different than my day job. That and I hate paying for something I can do myself. Saws take fuel, oil, chains...truck...splitter etc. So you have to attach a cost to it. Firewood goes for $80+ a facecord around here. It takes me an hour to cut a facecord, hour to load and haul, hour to split and another hour to haul it to where it needs to go and stack it. Works out to $20/hr minus fuel, chain, oil.... I figure I make around $15 an hour on my firewood and while I’m willing to work for myself for that, beyond my firewood needs I’m not really willing to work for others for that so I usually charge a bit to sweeten the pot if it’s not a favor for a friend or neighbor.
Sorry for the long answer! Lol.

I'm a low volume, low cost operation. last year I sold 6 cords entirely scrounged using only a wheel barrow, maul, and a mini van. It funded Christmas for us (kids). This year i have a 2 series husky to help and hopefully a truck soon as well. I enjoy the workout of manually splitting and the business aspect of it. I'm a teacher and it takes me away from what I normally do everyday. I will post back with pics when I go to his property to check it out.


I'm also interested in what the market will hold come fall. Supply will be up from the nasty winter we had in the Northeast but on the other hand, I would hope a true cord of locust would fetch a higher premium if people are willing to pay. Currently getting 90$ for a 1/3 cord of mixed hardwood.

 

[flatbroke]

Since I'm retired from doing tree work, I look at things a little different from most scroungers. I don't do hard work for free. After I retired from tree work I worked at UPS. I moved the trailers around the yard, which was really easy work, and I made $35 an hour, with 15-20 hours a week overtime, at $52.50. So, I would charge at least what I make at my real job's time and a half rate. I do cut wood free on a couple friends farms, but it's in the woods and I have no clean up, and they have front end loaders and load the wood for me. They also let me hunt the farms, and with hunting property at such a premium around here, it would cost me at least $1500 a year to buy into a lease. Doc's farm is also old enough that she replaces about 100 Oak fence boards a year. She lets me have all of the old boards, which I make Bluebird houses and squirrel feeders out of. I get $40 per house and $25 to $100 for my feeders, so nothing is really free.

WhTs a

Since I'm retired from doing tree work, I look at things a little different from most scroungers. I don't do hard work for free. After I retired from tree work I worked at UPS. I moved the trailers around the yard, which was really easy work, and I made $35 an hour, with 15-20 hours a week overtime, at $52.50. So, I would charge at least what I make at my real job's time and a half rate. I do cut wood free on a couple friends farms, but it's in the woods and I have no clean up, and they have front end loaders and load the wood for me. They also let me hunt the farms, and with hunting property at such a premium around here, it would cost me at least $1500 a year to buy into a lease. Doc's farm is also old enough that she replaces about 100 Oak fence boards a year. She lets me have all of the old boards, which I make Bluebird houses and squirrel feeders out of. I get $40 per house and $25 to $100 for my feeders, so nothing is really free.

what is a blue bird house? Any photos?

 

[rarefish383]

The Bird House on the bottom is a Bluebird House. They like a specific amount of space, specific size hole and a specific distance from the floor for the hole. The truck with the red cups is a Baltimore Oriole feeder. The big flat spot on the bed is for half oranges. The Orioles like grape jelly, blackberry jelly, black grapes, oranges, and hummingbird nectar. But, they usually like the feeder in bright orange and red colors. Don't know if they will like the truck.

 

[LondonNeil]

I like the truck. We all like the truck. We'd all like it a whole lot more if you filled the bed with half a cord of Oak rounds and a couple of saws though

 

[farmer steve]

thanks to @bear1998 we were able to scrounge some good wood today.mostly locust but s.ome cherry and mulberry too. @James Miller showed up and we worked his ported echo on some big stuff. not many pics 'cause we were sawin fools.

 

[James Miller]

No wasted trips when there' free locust. Saw a perfect example of a sharp chain being more important then a big saw. Steve was noodling some big cherry rounds with the Del saw beside a 661 and the 590 just walked away from it. Going back Monday to get the rest if it' still there.

 

[James Miller]

thanks to @bear1998 we were able to scrounge some good wood today.mostly locust but s.ome cherry and mulberry too. @James Miller showed up and we worked his ported echo on some big stuff. not many pics 'cause we were sawin fools. View attachment 647860 View attachment 647861

Most of the stuff in the top pic is noodled in half. I ran the Del saw out of gas before I left .

 

[farmer steve]

View attachment 647853 No wasted trips when there' free locust. Saw a perfect example of a sharp chain being more important then a big saw. Steve was noodling some big cherry rounds with the Del saw beside a 661 and the 590 just walked away from it. Going back Monday to get the rest if it' still there.

nice pic James. @dancan will be proud.

 

[dancan]

Well , I went to see King Di ck this morning , here's the stump of that tree in the vid

But this is in the way now

He gave me the tour of the house , I was surprised , it was very well laid out and nice ,,, but , he's still a Di ck lol
I told him what the day rate was and told him not to wait too long to decide because time is short and I've got plenty of things to do .
I could see the squirming as he was hinting that he could drop some of the trees and would use my chipper , I told him "My chipper doesn't travel anymore , I use Jeff to do that work now , don't wait too long to decide , the busy season is soon here ..."
More squirming lol
I guess he shouldn't have told me the house got assessed at a million and that the rock wall work alone was 40k around the house .
King Di ck .
So this afternoon all I did was finish splitting all the scrounged wood that I've drug home

Everything is split , now I'm ready to drag some more home

 

[dancan]

And here's a 120 ish year old piece of tamarack

The butt round was maybe 12" , slow growth .

 

[woodchip rookie]

Hey, we all know that Husky's fall over on their side if you let em idle

Thats a thing??!! All my saws fall over if I set them down running. I thought it was me setting them down in the wrong place.

 

[Cody]

No pictures but got a little bit split from the mess I made, before that ugly mess of snow came down over a week ago. Still need to wait for more of it to melt but hopefully tomorrow takes care of a lot of that. I cut down what I thought was cottonwood yesterday but I think it was a group of Linden trees, only cut a couple small ones and one that was a foot or so diameter. Split it all up today, as well as some ash for camp fire wood. The linden smells kind of minty, hopefully doesn't stink too bad later this summer. Due to the snow, our daughter's pony found a way to cross the fence, so instead of a temporary strand of barbed wire, I piled up all the brush on the fence there. Was supposed to redo the fence last year but never found the time. Kind of a lazy fix but logical one in all reality. Sure hope my back holds up over these next couple weeks, I've got a lot of catching up on splitting, and scrounging. Damn weather.

 

[Cowboy254]

I put my angry pants on the other day and split up the cord of dryish peppermint I scrounged a couple of weeks ago. All fiskaring and mostly one hit splits. Didn't take long.

 

[Cowboy254]

Today I went out to do a couple of things. Firstly, I knew of a nice green log of rubbish wood at a farm that would be perfect as part of the core of the community bonfire next month. Secondly, I needed to run the monkey saw. Since Cowgirl organises the bonfire and I obtain the material and build it, I was sure she'd let me borrow it. Besides, I needed to test it to make sure the repairs had been carried out before I gave her saw back to her. Duty of care and all that .

So I hooked up the trailer and trooped off. With a mild sense of trepidation, I pulled the cord on the monkey saw. Bang! Yay, it works! This log had been limbed but whoever did it got scared when they got to a bit where it was slightly suspended and stopped. Lucky me.



The saw ran very well in wood slightly wider than its 16 inch bar so I was happy with it. Soon after, it was time to pull out the big boy. After having a wee, I got Limby out and freed the log from the stump and worked my way back from there.

It didn't take long to get the job done. There was a strong eucalyptus smell to the wood. There was also a healthy colony of small black ants there as well. No major harm but they get everywhere quickly and bite you in all sort of places .



Then I loaded up and took it around to the bonfire site and unloaded.



Less than two hours from when I left home to when I returned. A bit better than third of a cord all up.



It was good to run some saws again after a pretty ordinary week.

 

[rarefish383]

I like the truck. We all like the truck. We'd all like it a whole lot more if you filled the bed with half a cord of Oak rounds and a couple of saws though

I think I can do that. I'll add a load of saw logs, since it's a tandem axle, today, and put the feeders on top of the logs.

 

[OnTheRoad]

WAIT!!!! The 572xp is finally out? Great, where do I buy one?

And sorry about your cowcat. Sure is a good looking critter.

 

[JustJeff]

Beautiful 15 degrees C today. Took the blower off the tractor and swapped on summer tires. Then enjoyed a beer cooled on my deck.

 

[rarefish383]

I like the truck. We all like the truck. We'd all like it a whole lot more if you filled the bed with half a cord of Oak rounds and a couple of saws though

Neil how's this. I was thinking about lettering it AS Logging. I have binder chains for it, but I have to paint them black.