What's A Wood Snob?

[rarefish383]

Growing up 4th generation in the tree business, in the Mid Atlantic area, we only brought home Oak, Hickory, and Black Locust. Every thing else we wholesaled out to a local farmers market. Long retired from the tree business, I still have access to all of the Oak I can use, and jump at the chance to get Black Locust. I have a good friend that works for UPS. One of his customers had the power company clear a right of way behind their house, and stacked up the logs and told the home owners to have at it. He took my small trailer and I took my dump trailer. The logs we took all needed my 36" bar. I thought he was going to start crying when I drug several big Poplar logs out of the way. He's ranting it's all good wood. I said yes Mike, it's good wood, but behind the Poplar was a bunch of straight as an arrow White Oak. So I bucked that and rolled it up my ramp. Then he started crying again because I flopped a big forked piece out of the way. That's good White Oak, don't leave it! Mike, I'm 60 years old, I can't roll it, and it won't stack, leave it for the next scrounger. In the end we filled both trucks and both trailers with straight White Oak. I don't feel like a Wood Snob. I feel if I'm the first on the scene, I have the choice of Cherry picking. Mentioning Cherry, if there had of been any Cherry in the pile I would have taken it. I love the smell of Cherry burning. With the 4X4 Dodge, I hooked a chain to the Poplars and drug them out from in front of the Oak. I feel a did a good deed for the next scrounger that might not have had the tools to get those logs in the open. I also left the wood the average homeowner had the tools to work up, and took the bigger stuff I prefer. If you were the first on a scrounge, would you take the lesser wood, just because it was in front. I don't feel like a Wood Snob.

My wood shed full of Oak:



Couple piles of Oak:



Couple Oak logs:

Oak bench in front of fire pit:



Oak stump table base:



I'm not a Wood Snob, I just like Oak, Joe.

 

[olyman]

like you,,if I had access, to mucho locust,,thorns included,,id cut NOTHING else..

 

[jrider]

As the first scrounger on the scene, take whatever you like best and leave the rest. Doesn't make you a snob in my book, it makes you an opportunist. If there's white oak, I would have moved the poplar too. I would have also left the big crotch unless I was hard up for wood which I have never been. Where I would have gone different from you however is I would have taken smaller diameter "good" wood as I don't like to mess around with the bigger stuff as I find it slows my operation down and is harder on the body. I will gladly take 12" diameter oak over 30" diameter oak any day of the week because I know with my set up, I can process it faster and easier which leaves time and energy for either more firewood or some other activity.

 

[rarefish383]

I did fill the stacks with some smaller wood when it got too big to lift, noodled a bunch. Power company chipped up to about 10". I went a little over board making Mike help lift big stuff cause I was tired of listening to him cry. As it turned out he only wanted that one load so we never went back. I have harvesting places close to home. I just went down there to help my buddy out. I was just trying to teach him, take the best, leave the rest, Joe.

 

[LoveStihlQuality]

Kinda like firewood triage.

Sent from my SM-N900P using Tapatalk

 

[rarefish383]

I like that ^^^^^, Joe.

 

[olyman]

I did fill the stacks with some smaller wood when it got too big to lift, noodled a bunch. Power company chipped up to about 10". I went a little over board making Mike help lift big stuff cause I was tired of listening to him cry. As it turned out he only wanted that one load so we never went back. I have harvesting places close to home. I just went down there to help my buddy out. I was just trying to teach him, take the best, leave the rest, Joe.

chipped to 10 inch??? DAMN!!! 4 inch and down!!! pop that 10 inch right in half,,and throw in furnace..........

 

[rarefish383]

Power company doesn't care what we like. All they care about is time, dollars per hour. Some times they bring in giant whole tree, tree grinders and leave a two story pile of chips. The guy that bought my cousin out said fire wood is too labor intensive and grinds every thing to 12". Whole sales as much out by the truck load, or, if it's good, off to the mill. He hates to bring wood back to the yard. Even back in the 70-80's Dad hated to bring wood back to the yard. Only reason he did it was he let me have all the wood money, and it kept me busy in the winter, if we had bad weather. Cold we had plenty of work to keep warm. If it snowed or rained hard enough the guys couldn't work, I'd run wood. Dad guaranteed our top guys a half day pay if we didn't work, so we worked in most weather, as long as it was safe. Not many big tree companies mess with wood. Why put a crew on something that is hard to break even, when you can put them on something that makes a lot of money. There is OK money in bundled wood, but not near as much as in commercial tree care. I often cringe and have to hold my tongue when I see some trees guys here take down for free. I think, dang, I would have gotten $3000 to take that tree down and still had the wood, and he did it for free, and took him 4 weekends to clean up. If you hang out on the Pro tree care forum you will see a very different view of firewood, Joe.

 

[LondonNeil]

I'm sure, to the pro tree care guys the wood is a waste material to be got rid of as quickly and as cheaply as possible. I can't see anybody getting rich on firewood. TBH it must be very hard to just make a small profit. You need equipment to process, a LOT of space to season, delivery vehicles, its labour intensive and the end product is not high value.

 

[morewood]

First and foremost, if you are first on the scene take what you want and leave what you don't. Now, as a firewood hoarder, I take ALL of it. I cut for 3-4 households in the family, and two of us use outdoor wood boilers. I also am the only person that has everything from the saws, splitters, trailers, etc to get the job done. I generally have access to private property, but when someone in the family calls with access to a decent quantity of wood I'll make time. Now what I like to do is fill my big surplus trailers (180 cf) and let it dry there, move it when someone needs it. I can't see how anyone can make money selling firewood if they have any cost on the front end to get material.........but I wouldn't stop my son from doing it to make a few dollars and get some work experience.

Shea

 

[turnkey4099]

Wood snob: One who lives in an area rife with quality wood and sneers at someone who burns cottonwood, poplar, pine, etc because THAT TYPE WOOD IS ALL THAT IS AVAILABLE in their area.

I sometimes wish that snob, due to circumstances beyond their control was forced to move to Alaska, PNW. or similar area. Their attitude would soon change.

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

I cut several hundred cords a year, I burn junk at home!

 

[rarefish383]

Wood snob: One who lives in an area rife with quality wood and sneers at someone who burns cottonwood, poplar, pine, etc because THAT TYPE WOOD IS ALL THAT IS AVAILABLE in their area.

I sometimes wish that snob, due to circumstances beyond their control was forced to move to Alaska, PNW. or similar area. Their attitude would soon change.

Don't you have about a hundred cord of Black Locust stashed out there? I was bored, was supposed to mow two one acre lots, was starting to rain, got chilly out. So, I decided to stir up the coals and see if I could get a fire started, needed to shake off the chill, Joe.

 

[svk]

I cut a lot of aspen because there is a lot of aspen up here and it is always dying in/near my yard or falling across my driveways. If it is solid it burns good, just burns fast. My friends want it for fire pit wood too so I can always get rid of it.

If I wasn't into running saws for fun and just burned say 5-10 cords of wood per year I would limit my scrounge to hardwood. I can drive all over and find dead maple and birch in 8-14" diameter that is easy to work with.

I also use aspen for saw break in and testing. I don't feel bad turning an entire blowdown into cookies, especially if it is core rotted. And the saws don't care either.

 

[CaseyForrest]

When we were clearing early this spring, I was a gigantic wood snob. If it wasn't oak, hickory or sugar/black maple, it went into the fire.

 

[turnkey4099]

Don't you have about a hundred cord of Black Locust stashed out there? I was bored, was supposed to mow two one acre lots, was starting to rain, got chilly out. So, I decided to stir up the coals and see if I could get a fire started, needed to shake off the chill, Joe.

Around 80 cord now but that was a freak occurrence, BL is not native here, planted mostly by the settlers. The locust borer moved in back in the 90s and killed lots of it, I had a couple scores of clearcutting acres of it a couple times.

Tree service just dumped off around 2 cord of top quality BL last week.

 

[turnkey4099]

When we were clearing early this spring, I was a gigantic wood snob. If it wasn't oak, hickory or sugar/black maple, it went into the fire.

But that's not a wood snob, just good planning/operation.

 

[LondonNeil]

A wood snob is a fool that turns away a friend delivering pine/poplar being delivered to him because they've been told it is no good. A wood snobis a fool that burns propane when the hard wood is gone but softwood is plentiful

 

[rarefish383]

Since it's my family that's in the tree business, I'm the friend that gives the wood away, and I don't give friends pine. Here in Western Md our forests are mostly Oak. In my yard, a little over an acre, I have 3 White pines, 1 Tri Color Beach, 1 Ginko, and 1 Holly, planted as ornamentals. Between my neighbors back yard and mine, we have about 100 Oaks To prove I'm not a wood snob, I'd have to cut down one of my ornamentals, to keep from burning Oak. I agree with Turnkey, I might move to Montana so I can hunt Elk, Bear, build a log cabin and burn Fir. I would trade all the Oak on the East Coast to move west. But, this is where my family is, so I'm stuck here Joe.

 

[Zale]

Definitely a wood snob. Red oak, white oak, and black locust are my preferences. This season I will be burning mostly ash due to the abundance from EAB. Being a tree guy, I pick and chose what I want. I know there will always be something good around the corner. I'm fortunate to live in the area I do with such a large variety.