Black locust fair price.

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firebrick43

Life is all about big saws
Joined
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I have not cut firewood for two years due to three kids know and building a large addition (nearly triple original house).

Due to the wuhan virus panic of 2020 I might have several weeks to do things at home and thought of buying logs to cut and split to size. A good friend and coworkers son has been helping cleaning out a logged woods and it has a lot of felled and stacked logs for 3 years, all black locust.

He has a 10k trailer which I figure 2 cords on it if well loaded? I was going to offer 120$ a cord for all black locust, straight logs of 8-16” diameter. And another 20$ for fuel. Is this a fair price to him?
 
In my experience, the "fair" price of wood in various forms is very dependent on geography, desirability, time of year, distance hauled, how it might be delivered, unloaded, stacked, . . .
I'm afraid I am not familiar with pricing of wood in Indiana, so I offer no help at all, sorry. FWIW, that would be expensive here in PA, where Locust is pretty available, and would fetch about $200/cord cut, split, and delivered (though not stacked). Does this person not have a price in mind? Do you have the tractor, or other to unload at your end? You will be doing the bulk of the manual labor on your future firewood with cutting, splitting, and stacking. Just my thoughts, almost not applicable to your situation there. Stay safe!
 
In my experience, the "fair" price of wood in various forms is very dependent on geography, desirability, time of year, distance hauled, how it might be delivered, unloaded, stacked, . . .
I'm afraid I am not familiar with pricing of wood in Indiana, so I offer no help at all, sorry. FWIW, that would be expensive here in PA, where Locust is pretty available, and would fetch about $200/cord cut, split, and delivered (though not stacked). Does this person not have a price in mind? Do you have the tractor, or other to unload at your end? You will be doing the bulk of the manual labor on your future firewood with cutting, splitting, and stacking. Just my thoughts, almost not applicable to your situation there. Stay safe!
I have a tractor at my end. 660 and 361 stihl and a big custom vertical table splitter. I just have never bought wood before. Normally I clean neighbors fence rows or down neighbors trees. Just add transportation and time to clean up the brush I really don’t have right now (or past winter) and by the time it dries out the farmers will be at it.

If I could find someone that could or wood cut to a consistent 14” around here I would buy wood at 200$ a cord. They promise it does and most shows up 16-18” long and they just don’t get that it won’t fit in my stove. Although black locust or even white oak/hedge is not often available here as most sellers in this area are not professional about it and a getting their wood free and therefore it’s nearly all trash trees.

The wood is coming 45 miles and is a really good friends son, but that shouldn’t matter.

I am hoping some will be good enough for post but we will see
 
Ask your friend to talk with his son and come up with a price. If less than you thought you can always give him a tip.
 
In MD I can buy tops from logged out areas for 30 a cord and I pass on them. Right now I'm charging $250 a day to haul out mostly Red Oaks that went down in the homeowners woods. They like it to look like a park. I looked into buying a tractor trailer of split Oak, green, and it was $120 per cord. So, to me $120 a cord in log form is high. I guess if you are keeping it for yourself, it's OK. I couldn't process it and resell and make a profit.
 
20 years ago, I bought cut split semi seasoned firewood from up north for $125/cord delivered by the tractor trailer.

As mentioned, it's all about location and need for the firewood. I can sell locust and oak around here for $350/cord and it's been that way for years.

According to my online chart, a 12" diameter locust log, 16' long weighs about 900 lbs. 10,000 lb trailer brings you legally around 11 logs. That's probably only around a cord and a half or so, no? Keep it for yourself and split because of nothing else to do? Sure, $120 might be ok, but not more. Keep in mind, to cut it all to length snd then split it, probably along the lines of 3 hours a cord, no?
 
I’m barely legal with 2 cords of green oak on my 18,500lb gn dump trailer. I get $100 per cord for 12 ft lengths delivered.
 
If straight I'd take to the local mill. I took 2 loads of 8' 4s on a small trailer last Saturday and was 560.00 bucks richer.
Average dia was prolly 12in and 18 sticks of nice straight stuff. He told me he would buy as much as I could haul him.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk
 
20 years ago, I bought cut split semi seasoned firewood from up north for $125/cord delivered by the tractor trailer.

As mentioned, it's all about location and need for the firewood. I can sell locust and oak around here for $350/cord and it's been that way for years.

According to my online chart, a 12" diameter locust log, 16' long weighs about 900 lbs. 10,000 lb trailer brings you legally around 11 logs. That's probably only around a cord and a half or so, no? Keep it for yourself and split because of nothing else to do? Sure, $120 might be ok, but not more. Keep in mind, to cut it all to length snd then split it, probably along the lines of 3 hours a cord, no?

You’re forgetting the empty wt of the trailer.
 
It's $120 a logger cord for log length delivered around here.

If you could find cut, split, and delivered oak for $120 I wouldn't hustle as much as I do.
 
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