Turning Wood: Trash into Treasure

[treeseer]

TD's a boxelder yesterday; I do not like doing big removals but took this one to train an apprentice climber. The wood was not that pretty; only a few streaks of red, but still I got everything >8" diameter hauled for free. Plus I get a finished piece or two from this guy: http://www.alanleland.com/gallery.htm

Plus the client saves by not paying me to haul, and may well commission a piece so they have a memento/artifact from the tree. A win-win-win-win deal; the biggest winner being my 54-year old back, which does not have to pick up or process the wood.

The thread with the firewood pile prompted this post--how can 2/3 of your wood go to the dump? No portable mills, woodturners, pulpwood haulers in your town? Waste not,... I find splitting wood with a maul therapeutic for body and mind, and educational for an arborist, but there's only so much of that fun a body can take.

And it's hard to think about firewood when it's in the mid-90's every day.

 

[Redbull]

I've been having this same dillemma with what to do with the wood from removals. Especially wood like maple, boxelder, or other wood that is undesirable as firewood. I'm trying to locate anyone who can make use of the stuff. I just hate to see it go to waste. I have picked up a wood lathe, but it needs some work before it's operable and I won't have time till this winter to mess with it.

 

[Lumberjack]

I cant seem to find a decent person to haul logs so what I have started doing is grinding them into mulch to mainly use around our property. I hold one end in the grapple on the front end loader and grind with the RG85. Works decently well using what I already have. Actually I unloaded about 10 logs tonight from a job.

I can only do that when I can use the tractor to load the logs however, and I have no chipper (right now ) so I burn the rest, or split it into firewood, which we dont use alot of.

See ya in Nash Guy .

 

[treeseer]

See ya in Nash Guy .

Yeah I'm gettin psyched. :angel:

Have you guys just tried googling 'wood turner' or Portable wood mill" and your town's name? Or call around a little? Man I just cringe at the thought of all that useable stuff mulchified, or worse yet buried.

 

[Lumberjack]

A primary use for that mulch is to mulch around the trees we have planted to get our property back like it was. These trees were planted in fields so mulching helps supress weeds and makes it easier to bushhog without hitting them. The secondary use for it is to help the soil on the path to the burn pile which travels near other trees (compaction and other issues).

The problem with the milling onsite is 1. What will I do with the wood? 2. Is it really saving me money if they do it for free, as I have to cordinate everything and CMA (cover my rear) if the dude doesnt show.

I remember something like $125 per 1000bf or something like that. What would I do with the wood anyways?

I would like to find a better and practical use for it, but this is all I have found so far. I MAY get into small scall logging/forrestry in the future (perhaps next year) and take care of my logs myself. I plan on getting a chipper to take care of the rest of the waste next year and using the mulch around my property and then I am not sure what else I will use if for after I have all I need.

 

[texasnative]

I hate to waste wood as well, and I do waste alot. I could sell woodchips as fast as i could produce them if I had a chipper. There is one in sight, but right now it is something that I can't afford, but can't afford not to have. Whenever possible, if I do a takedown that has salvageable wood for lumber, I take it to a woodyard, who then takes it to the mill. The woodyard operator will come and get the wood if he doesn't have to drive all over the county to get it. All of the smaller debris could be made into toothpicks or pencils, but mulch seems more practical and profitable...especially for the arborist who has a use for it and can eliminate it as an expense for soil conditioning. Instead of selling someone else's mulch to your client, sell them your own. Pay for your monthly chipper note with one load of mulch.

This is all coming from someone who doesn't have a chipper. But there is one in my business plan for next year. It breaks my waste so much wood, but I will burn my pasture when I burn my woodpile, then spread the ashes after they cool, providing a great source of potassium for root growth in my grass. So all is not lost, but mulch is more profitable than ash.

 

[Lumberjack]

I dont think I could make a chipper payment from selling any amount of mulch here, dont forget the hidden costs of selling mulch, its not overly profitable normally, I hear being able to give it away is a sweet deal in most areas.

 

[Mike Barcaskey]

man, I couldn't conceive of having to pay to landfill wood waste.
In 6 years of business I can say I've never made that trip.

I have developed markets for all but the rakings from the jobs.
About 25% of my chips are sold and the remaining 75% go to a landscape supply dealer who grinds them again for mulch. Those I give him for free as he will take pine chips, rakings and it's only 1/2 mile from my house

I get $5.00 a ton for stump grinder spoils in the landscape market

All hardwood gets split for firewood and sold (even maple)
Lumber quality logs go to the mills (I get .20 pbf for spruce and pine)
pulpwood markets take a punch of the smaller diameter stuff
and pine under 10" in diameter and 8-9' long goes for $100 per cord to a special market

not a whole lot of money in any of the markets, but I don't have disposal problems and can tell the customer that the tree does not end up in the landfill

 

[stehansen]

Firewood is not a viable solution in my area either. The air pollution control board has begun issuing "no burn" days in the winter when the air is stagnant. There are not very many no burn days but every one is scared that there will be a lot of no burn days or there will come a time in the near future when you can't burn at all and they don't want a bunch of wood. I was taking my chips and wood to a recycling place where they make compost from it, but they charged $20.00/ ton. I recently found a place that charges me $8.00/load for chips or wood and they make animal bedding from it. Ninety percent of time when I get a good firewood tree, Oak, almond, eucalyptus, the customer either wants the wood or knows someone who does, so consequently I end up with a lot of wood that isn't much good for firewood.

PS. The county here owns a co-generation plant that burns all the garbage in the county, so the only thing that gets landfilled is the ash from this plant. Also no burning of non agricultural waste is allowed.

 

[Lumberjack]

I have been working almost 2 years now and have paid $7.20 in that time to get rid of any debris. It was for some nasty stump chips with glass and trash in them, about 1500 pounds of them, took to the land fill.

 

[Nickrosis]

Good topic. We sell a lot of firewood in a year that we split over the course of the year using a Timberwolf. Sometimes, the wood is split on the job and tossed onto the back of the truck - depends on how much room we have for round wood to be sitting around.

All the wood that will fit into a 17" chipper gets chipped. Branches, etc. of course. Some of the debris from weeding and small trimming/shearing work does get thrown in the dumpster, but that's not my decision.

We have about 1,000,000 lbs. of compost in our compost pile that I just turned over a little bit ago. Next year, it'll be really helpful and will save us from buying it by the bag. A little rabbit trail...we have a huge supply of clean fill that we're able to get for free from graders and sell to customers in landscape installation jobs. Our cost is storing it, and the land rental is something like $100/acre/month. No biggie at all!

There is some wood that gets landfilled - the really gnarly willow butts and wood with rods or cables in them. It's just much easier, and I don't have a better solution, really. They'll get buried either way, and I figure we'll be mining our landfills shortly anyways. They're impossible to split, they take too long to tub-grind, and they're easy to throw in a dumpster!

Oh, the chips. They get ground a second time in a tub-grinder, and we sell them for $75 for 3 yards, delivered. The cost drops if you buy more.

The upshot of all of this is that we pay nearly zero for disposal fees. In the past, it was ok to dump all this off the bluff into Lake Michigan, but we now have laws about that. By doing this, we have a competitive cost advantage against those that a dump millstone around their necks PLUS a series of marketable products - firewood, chipper chips, landscape mulch, compost, fill, etc.

 

[Lumberjack]

Happy birthday Nick, now a day late though.

It sounds like the Crawford clan has it going on when it comes to TCOB with regards to waste.

 

[Lumberjack]

And I was browsing Nick's website and came across this:

http://www.crawfordtree.com/top_ten_insects.pdf

Good read, great info.

 

[rb_in_va]

Have you guys just tried googling 'wood turner' or Portable wood mill" and your town's name? Or call around a little? Man I just cringe at the thought of all that useable stuff mulchified, or worse yet buried.

Also you could email most mill manufacturers like Woodmizer or Timberking and they will give you phone numbers for mill owners that will process your wood. Then you can keep or sell the lumber.

 

[ProfessorPlum]

In Colorado, 95%+ of our takedowns are Cottonwoods and Siberian elms. No lumberman is losing sleep over that wood being ground into mulch.

We generate about 30 cu. yds. of raw chip a day, all of which gets tub ground and then dyed into colored mulch using a rotochopper and sold at $20-24/yd. The tub grinder we rent as needed. When our operation was smaller, we shared the rotochopper, but now we generate enough raw material on our own to run it full time.

 

[treeseer]

Re the boxelder, the client ordered a few pieces from the woodturner, so they could have part of their tree forever. Client was also effusive in thanks for "all the trouble" (1 phone call) I went to to see that the wood did not get wasted. My back is grateful, too, for the non-lifting.

I'm a big believer in mulch, which for some species is the best use. My hat's off to you guys who are smart enough and organized enough to make that part of your business.

 

[Ax-man]

I wish I had more talent when it comes to carving figures out of wood, you could get rid of some wood that way. I've seen a lot of wood that I turned into plain old firewood that would have made unique looking tree furniture if the wood were to be sanded down and had a couple of coats of poly put on it. Unfortunately, I don't have the time, maybe some day I will. Mrs. Ax is still waiting for the end tables to match the bench that our television sits on. I made the bench from some Red Cedar logs that were almost blood red, burgundy in the middle, this was almost 18 yrs ago when I did this.

Larry

 

[treeseer]

Mrs. Ax is still waiting for the end tables to match the bench that our television sits on. I made the bench from some Red Cedar logs that were almost blood red, burgundy in the middle, this was almost 18 yrs ago when I did this

Bout time Bud. I had a buch of red-cedar milled for boards to line a closet; the scrap hunks have made some really interesting pieces. Mrs. treeseer made a few tables herself; maybe Mrs. Ax will want to get creative while hubby makes the dough.

No law sayin that men are the only tool-users is there?

 

[Woodchuck_]

Well, maybe I can help some of you out.

My wife and I are wood turners, and we're always looking for wood. Almost anything, except pine. I've got a pickup truck, and a 16 foot trailer, to haul the wood away. Heck, I've even got a couple of Stihl saws, and will help you with some of the bucking.

If any of you are in the northern IL area, and have a job coming up, give me a shout, and I'll swing out to your job site, and take your wood.

I had one guy that used to call me all the time, and I'd drop off my trailer at the tree site in the morning, then I'd go to work. On my way home, I'd pick up the trailer. Worked out well for both of us.

I'm self employed now, so can take off afternoons every now and then, and that would permit me to assisting with sawing/loading.

Give me a shout.

-dirk

[email protected]

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

Will you travel up to Milwaukee

I do a little turning in the winter, mostly. I love whiter oak crotch wood and burley Russian olive.

Here in the Metro MKE area there are a lot of nurseries that will take loads of chip from us small operators. There are a number of firewood guys who will take a dump load, and farmers that will take stuff.

We know a few people with boilers that will take silver maple and better and one company in norhtern Ozaukee who will take willow. Cost ranges from 50-150 a load, and we build the cost in.

Hey Nick, what do you charge people to tip at your place. That lady a few doors down took all 5 truckloads and the big wood