Buying Slab wood vs split wood

[Wood Doctor]

Slabs Ain't Light

The local saw mill now chips most of their slabs for landscaping, but they still have lots of them available for practically nothing (except work). Well over half is cottonwood, however. The market for pallets is coming back slowly.

Remember also that many slabs are rather heavy. To load them yourself, you might have to cut many of them in half just to get them onto a pickup truck. Best bet might be to load them onto a 16' to 20' trailer with a loader and then tie down the load. After that, two men to process them works better than one (but isn't that normally the case?)

 

[Streblerm]

Last year I got slabs delivered for $25 a bundle. Each bundle is about 2/3 of a cord give or take. I bought two tri-axle loads. I think it is a toss up whether it is more labor intensive to cut and split vs handling more pieces of slabwood. At $25 a bundle delivered you can't beat it. A bundle is about all my truck can handle. When I think back to the wood that I have scrounged, brought home, and processed, I think that I would gladly pay someone $25 a pickup load to bring it to my house.

I used to cut them in the bundle but I got tired of wasting chains. I have a sawbuck for cutting by myself. I have found the best way is to have a helper slide the slabwood over the sides of my trailer and then cut them one or two at a time letting the wood fall into the trailer. There is much less handling this way. With two people we can easily process a cord an hour and it is easy work compared to splitting and chucking big pieces.

 

[alleyyooper]

What we found here was for 3 guys to work the slabs. One person and some times two wouldf drag them off onto the table.second person worked the table while the third person wouldthrow the cut chunks in the wood shed window. Ya we had a dirt floor room just for fire wood.

Al