Connecticut State Garages wood piles

[Racerboy832]

I was going by the local (danbury) State garage over the summer with a buddy, they must of had 1000 cords of wood all stacked up like a logger would. I asked my buddy about it so he call a guy he knows inside. He said they pile it up till there is no room, then pay someone to come grind it up and take it all way. He said they can't touch it cause of the chance of someone getting hurt. What a waste of wood and tax money to collect it and pay someone to grind it up.

 

[fredmc]

Betcha some unclecousinsbrother owns the grinding company. wink, wink

 

[Racerboy832]

Prolly. I can see Grinding up all the old Cresote poles but why waste so much wood.

 

[clutch25]

That is what our local landfill does....TONS of wood just going to waste.....

 

[fredmc]

Prolly. I can see Grinding up all the old Cresote poles but why waste so much wood.

Toilet paper and paper towels, bagged mulch or a whole myriad of things...

 

[Racerboy832]

just found the Bid. 21,000 Cubic yards of wood. http://www.das.state.ct.us/rfpdoc/010_0011.pdf

 

[trimmmed]

In NY they pile it up at the garages as well, but it ends up going to auction not just getting ground up. Of course it might be cousin vinny that wins the auction, but that's the deal, at least with the state stuff.

 

[garyischofield]

not wasted

I used to grind wood /stumps with a big tub grinder .With the price of transportation for raw bark from sawmills and the reduced amount of raw bark being available because of the building slump,that wood will end up as colored mulch.There's guys buying huge nasty tree butts from a buddy of mine who owns a large tree company for $250 a trailer load picked up in his yard.Those logs get split by an excavator mounted stump shear and ground for mulch.

 

[Curlycherry1]

just found the Bid. 21,000 Cubic yards of wood.

4429 Full cords!

 

[Wood Doctor]

Waste, waste, waste

That is truly incredible. Around here, they have a different policy. The highway crews just build bonfires with the trees after they doze them up and then let them burn, sometimes for over a week.

Our governments know exactly how to waste natural resources better than any institutions in the entire world.

 

[Woodcutteranon]

My local TWP was cutting up a big tree that fell across the street I live on...about 1/4 mile from my house. I asked the worker if anyone had first dibs on the wood...he said they have to haul it back to the TWP garage and dump it in the back lot. I offered up my place to dump it and save them the extra trip. He again declined...

About two weeks later I read in the local paper that the TWP had free wood to offer, first come first serve, behind their TWP Garage. I drove out there and hauled off a full F150 load of wood. The same stuff laying on my street two weeks earlier.

 

[Curlycherry1]

My local TWP was cutting up a big tree that fell across the street I live on...about 1/4 mile from my house. I asked the worker if anyone had first dibs on the wood...he said they have to haul it back to the TWP garage and dump it in the back lot. I offered up my place to dump it and save them the extra trip. He again declined...
:

I asked some local tree services if they would dump wood in my yard and I could pay them and they all said no. Reasons were that they could get stuck in my yard and have to pay big bucks to get a wrecker to dig them out, in the process of getting out it could tear up their equipment, they could run over a septic tank or a drain field and ruin it, they could drive over a sewer drain or water main and crush it, they could ruin a driveway, or my lawn would get trashed. Basically they all said the liability was simply too much and their risk was not worth my reward. They would rather drive to Newport, MN and take it to an incinerator and pay a few $$$ to dump it on hard asphalt and be done with it.

 

[mga]

I was going by the local (danbury) State garage over the summer with a buddy, they must of had 1000 cords of wood all stacked up like a logger would. I asked my buddy about it so he call a guy he knows inside. He said they pile it up till there is no room, then pay someone to come grind it up and take it all way. He said they can't touch it cause of the chance of someone getting hurt. What a waste of wood and tax money to collect it and pay someone to grind it up.

yep...frivolous lawsuits ruin it for everyone.

all it takes is one moron thinking they can make a quick buck suing the town or city and that's the end of it.

 

[Wood Doctor]

yep...frivolous lawsuits ruin it for everyone.

all it takes is one moron thinking they can make a quick buck suing the town or city and that's the end of it.

How can that be stopped? My opinion is that it cannot be. Somehow we managed to allow the legal system to control our lives. It may take two to three generations to figure out how to rectify the situation. At this point, it's rather had to breathe without worrying about whose lawyer is going to file suit against whom.

Should I bring in some firewood for next year? Maybe, but only if I agree in writing, fill out a long application, and agree not to press charges against my church that needs some old trees removed near the building.

 

[garyischofield]

21,ooo cubic yards gone in the blink of an eye.

That 21,000 yards of wood to a mulch wholesaler isn't really that big a deal when you figure the shrinkage from logpile to mulch.I used to be in the business and to me it's good utilization when you consider the economics of trucking raw bark from Northern New England to Central Mass. to my yard .Hauling chips North to Scott Paper in Me.and backhauling bark was very expensive.Coloring has really changed the mulch business.I'm sure a wholesaler from the Danbury area scooped that contract.

 

[Racerboy832]

Sure seems to me that atleast in this area the mulch sales has dropped off a bit. Last summer I drove by 4 places on the way to work and barely ever saw a truck waiting to get loaded. Even one huge plant place in Bethel looked empty all summer and that was rare a few years ago.

 

[Curlycherry1]

Local sawmill I buy lumber from once told me that the chips they get from their debarked slabwood was more valuable than the pallet wood he used to get out of the slabs. So everything comes off the mill and if it is not a flat board it goes into a hog and is tripple sorted. #1 Big chips are premium grade, #2 were smaller chips and the sawdust was sent to heat the kilns. For some species of wood he almost made more off the chips than the lumber depending on the grade of the logs.

 

[garyischofield]

mulch/pulp chips

No doubt pulp chips have always brought a premium price.What has happened recently since the sawlog market fell in the crapper is that people are flooding the pulp markets with wood lowering the prices.I was exaggerating a bit when I said the blink of an eye.Theres no doubt the economy has negatively impacted the bark business.The deal my buddy has with the guy buying complete crap(no sawlogs,firewood)for $250 when a year ago he was having a hard time moving it for free, tells how things are changing around here.Five miles to the gallon-$3 a gallon hauling a livefloor with 100,000 lbs. makes wood fiber of any kind more valuable to local landscape markets.

 

[Dalmatian90]

I wonder now...

Over the years I've noticed a slow increase in the number of bark mulch fires in the spring. People spread fresh mulch, we have a couple warm, dry days...and we have smoke. What used to be an occasional problem I now see annually.

These aren't cigarette caused ones like I could excuse 20 years ago (and a few still today). These are spontaneous combustion.

Had two in my town last year, one of which was almost certainly spontaneous. The other may have been smoking materials given its location.

Anyway, I wonder if using ground wood fiber instead of bark, and/or the coloring used is contributing? Especially if that coloring is using certain natural oils like linseed, or synthetics like urethane?

 

[garyischofield]

hard to know

I've had several/many fires in big bark piles .I can't speak to mulch laid out 4-6 inches thick. Piles of bark, depending on a lot of variables are prone to composting and the resultant heat produced.When the bark is piled quite high ,the heat has an accumulating/perpetuating effect.The bark on the bottom heats up ,warming bark above it which is already composting.The higher the pile is the more accumulated heat.The coarseness of the bark(ring debarker or rosser head)and moisture content are huge variables.More air , more heat.My$02.