such a waste

[Addison]

ive notice time an time again all the wood that is wasted locally and on AS!! such as maple, cherry, birch, walnut,oak Even fir, cedar, spruce, alder ext.. on the firewood and heating forum, i always read about how members are using these woods in excess of 30'' diameter bucking and splitting them into firewood!!!!!! or when im just driving around town where im always too late to find these trees felled and bucked laying on the side of the road..now i love fire! who doesn't? but i use the crown of the tree or use smaller logs. now i can see maybe if you heating your house but i still cant see using hardwood logs that are soo large and fit for milling. its too bad there wasn't like some sort of recovery team that could trade or buy these logs an put them to good use! and even trade the owner firewood or money! just my humble opinion! :biggrinbounce2:

 

[woodshop]

You are not alone in your distaste for seeing 30 inch cherry saw logs worth potentially several thousand bucks cut up into btu wood. But... its simple supply and demand economics. With few exceptions, its still not worth it for lumber yards to be driving all over town picking up a stray tree or two. In this case, the ends don't always justify the means, unfortunately.

 

[Woodsrover]

Not that I have that much really large wood on my property, but there has been a time or two where I've bucked up some really nice stuff while I grit my teeth. The latest was a beautiful, clear red oak that I wacked up last weekend (see picture). I did save and slab up a large cherry burl a month ago that's drying as we speak, but for the most part, the rest gets turned into firewood.

I was talking to a logger that was at the shop just last week and she (yes, she) said that oak was in the crapper right now anyway and worth more as firewood than lumber unless it was a very nice piece for veneer.

Still, a day will come when I own a CSM and a 90cc saw and save some of this stuff. I don't even make things from wood but still, sometimes I think it's a shame to burn some of this stuff.

Jim

 

[Adkpk]

I hear ya.

 

[wdchuck]

Two years ago I bucked up a 32" cherry, straight bark and everything, thought about how nice that wood would look as something made.
Then I made the first cut, ants/punk/rot/hollow/ second cut, etc, yep, looked good on the outside, was crap in the middle, hardly made good firewood. OR inability to get the log out for cheap, big logs often have many defects(twists, large knots, poor growth pattern), yard trees often discarded due to the quantity of hazards in the log that will cause costly damage to the equipment.
Many of us think about the other uses other than a pile of ashes, but heating the house is not a frivolous activity. Cut a tree down to heat the house, plant a new one as you go, it'll be there for the grandkids to cut down and burn.

Why burn trunk wood? well, put in an arm load of 3" limbwood for the night and see how bloody cold the house is in the morning, and that you have to gather that much more wood because it burns in a shorter cycle. Trunk(stem) wood once split and seasoned well, gives much longer burn cycles, cleaner burns, and less work all around.

Now that I have a CSM and am learning how to utilize it, more good wood will live on in something built, and if I get one of those big knarly trees that don't split nice and easy, it doesn't get discarded, that's what a saw is for , it gets reduced to burnable cants that fit in the wood furnace, very little goes to waste here.

Visit a commercial sawyer and ask the grader some questions, we wood burners save a lot of trees that are taken down from going into a landfill, they can't even complete the carbon cycle when buried in garbage.

What kind of solutions have you acted upon?

 

[Husky137]

I guess you guys have never seen a whole tree chipper in action. 24" trees filling up 53' chip vans. Waste is a relative term. Economics has to play a central role in a business.

Firewood is better than the landfill.

 

[CaseyForrest]

I guess you guys have never seen a whole tree chipper in action. 24" trees filling up 53' chip vans. Waste is a relative term. Economics has to play a central role in a business.

Firewood is better than the landfill.

Yardwaste doesnt go into a landfill. If you see it happening, call your local Enviormental Quality office and report it as any yard waste entering a Subtitle D Sanitary Landfill is illegal.

The old addage "its better than ending up in a landfill" is about as wornout and ineffective as "Global Warming."

 

[wdchuck]

Yardwaste doesnt go into a landfill. If you see it happening, call your local Enviormental Quality office and report it as any yard waste entering a Subtitle D Sanitary Landfill is illegal.

Was not aware, thanks.

 

[Husky137]

splitting hairs..... it ends up in big waste piles at the landfill, not in the cells with the MSW.

 

[Addison]

to much wood to little time

wdchuck and others all make good points of course i will burn the stuff, if other wise it would end up in a landfill. and the crap thats knotted and just sucks of course its wicked fire wood. and i wasn't talking about just only burning the crown more soo anything say under 12''. or whatevers too useless to mill. after writing that post i went out in my backyard and bucked some 16'' alder straight grain and just recently some 36'' plus cedar that i thought would make a very wonderful deck but not having the proper tools to do the job made it a wonderful enjoyment fire. but soon when i get the high cc saw and the mill that stuff will no longer be ashes

 

[begleytree]

I haul in logs if it's worth my time, but I would much rather see a nice straight log go to keep a family and children warm, than just sawn into an old flat board. you have to have priorities, ya know?
-Ralph

 

[daemon2525]

ive notice time an time again all the wood that is wasted locally and on AS!! such as maple, cherry, birch, walnut,oak Even fir, cedar, spruce, alder ext.. on the firewood and heating forum, i always read about how members are using these woods in excess of 30'' diameter bucking and splitting them into firewood!!!!!! or when im just driving around town where im always too late to find these trees felled and bucked laying on the side of the road..now i love fire! who doesn't? but i use the crown of the tree or use smaller logs. now i can see maybe if you heating your house but i still cant see using hardwood logs that are soo large and fit for milling. its too bad there wasn't like some sort of recovery team that could trade or buy these logs an put them to good use! and even trade the owner firewood or money! just my humble opinion! :biggrinbounce2:

I have a big Oak tree that you can come and give me money for.
Let me know when you will be here. If you're not coming, then you'll know why I am goin to burn it. :jester: :jester:

I can't even seem to get anyone to come and cut it down for me, and I'll pay them!!! Let alone getting someone to pay me for it.

 

[Addison]

lol..if i only lived close and had the necessary equipment i soooo would! and begleytree only in rare situations i can only see that... but if you think about it you could mill that wood and sell it and buy 4-5x the amount of firewood if the wood you milled was straight and was hardwood

 

[Rick Alger]

Waste and Whole Tree Harvest

The whole tree harvest I've worked on doesn't waste anything. Logs and pulp are cut out at the landing. The tops and the rotten trees are chipped.

Chips bring only around $28 a ton delivered.

 

[dingo]

I haul in logs if it's worth my time, but I would much rather see a nice straight log go to keep a family and children warm, than just sawn into an old flat board. you have to have priorities, ya know?
-Ralph

Yep, that's the secret if it is worth your time. I have had guys that wanted me to cut what looked like good straight logs, but they were wind shaken and and weakened by insect infestation. Much better for fire keeps in a heating stove than what lumber could be taken.

 

[sawinredneck]

I have a big Oak tree that you can come and give me money for.
Let me know when you will be here. If you're not coming, then you'll know why I am goin to burn it. :jester: :jester:

I can't even seem to get anyone to come and cut it down for me, and I'll pay them!!! Let alone getting someone to pay me for it.

Figure the mileage from Wichita KS to you, figure .30 a mile and $600, room and board for a night, and have some way to dispose of it. And I am there!!

edit: I'll bring the trailer and bring the firewood size back, just need to get rid of the brush.

 

[hautions11]

Where in Indiana????????????????????

 

[Husky137]

The whole tree harvest I've worked on doesn't waste anything. Logs and pulp are cut out at the landing. The tops and the rotten trees are chipped.

Chips bring only around $28 a ton delivered.

I don't think its a waste, but in the eyes of someone who felt firewood was a waste of wood, then chips are the ultimate sin. I think whole tree operations are great as long as the residual stand can be protected from damage.

 

[curdy]

I don't think firewood is a waste, BUT, there are plenty of trees around here that have NO business being bucked and split to be burned. There was recently a guy in NJ that posted free firewood...he was standing next to a 30"+ log of walnut that he had bucked into 14-16" logs. :bang: Geez, I would have been there in a heartbeat to mill that, and I bet others would have been to if they had known.

The homeowners for the most part just want the trees gone. However, I may even be so bold to say that most of them would be happier knowing a nice log was going to be milled rather than used for firewood.

Truly, I feel it is a matter of knowledge and awareness that there are options out there to give the log away or have someone come over and mill it there. I am getting ready to get a csm and milling saw and you better believe that I'm going to network with everyone I know that has anything to do with removing trees (tree service, construction, etc.) and have them notify me when certain size and species are being taken down. At least then, I have a shot at using it...if I don't want it, or don't want to take the time to mill it, than I'm not too upset with whatever they do with it.

Its up to us to get the word out that offering the logs to be milled is an option. Let people know!

 

[Sawyer Rob]

"Waste" is in the eye of the beholder, as many folks feel it's a waste to saw "quality" cherry, oak, walnut ect. logs with a circle or CSM. When those same logs could have yielded more lumber useing a band mill, instead of turning every fith board into sawdust.

Rob