such a waste

[Dan Dill]

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 cannot stand this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Recently I saw a Bastogne walnut cut into firewood. It was 5 feet Dbh and had a clear 16 foot log to the crotch............................I admired that tree for years and had mentioned to the owner that I would buy it from him if he ever removed it. He told me his contractor said it was too much trouble so he paid a tree service to fall it and make it into firewood. Piss poor planning.

 

[olyman]

dan dill--makes you want to thump his head!!!!! guy did the same thing here--had a ash-40 in base--going 14 ft up--at 36 in top--he knocked it down--and turned it to firewood----damn----id a hauled firewwod equal to what he ruined---sheesh---

 

[aquan8tor]

dan dill--makes you want to thump his head!!!!! guy did the same thing here--had a ash-40 in base--going 14 ft up--at 36 in top--he knocked it down--and turned it to firewood----damn----id a hauled firewwod equal to what he ruined---sheesh---

NO KIDDING!!! I'd go out and buy firewood and deliver it to people, so that I could have some trees to mill like that!!!!!!

I helped my sister and brother in-law move recently; a neighbor of theirs had felled a 40"++ white oak clear and sound all the way through--no holes for about 16 feet. Apparently, the homeowner did it themselves, with a 20" bar, because the remaining trunk had been hacked up so that they could get the bar to cut the whole thing. Apparently the round was too large to move, so it just sat there in their yard, with a bunch of cuts a little less than halfway through the log. They ruined the whole damn thing, and it had obviously been sitting there for months. Not only did they waste a potentially valuable log for milling, they didn't even have the saw to cut the dam* thing up to use as firewood. They just hacked it up and left it. STUPID PEOPLE.

 

[begleytree]

jeez, where's all these people wanting logs to mill when I need to get rid of them? In my case a dozen guys want logs to mill, but when I have one comming down, they are too busy to be bothered with it.
I end up chunking them up and dumping them over the hill. I can't leave them lay there for weeks on end until someone decides to get up the gumption to come get them. then I get " you should have called me" to which I reply " I did, you were too busy, remember?" the bad part is that I know and let them know at least a week in advance when one is comming down. So much for hating to see mill logs cut up.
-Ralph

 

[Andy Harden]

jeez, where's all these people wanting logs to mill when I need to get rid of them? In my case a dozen guys want logs to mill, but when I have one comming down, they are too busy to be bothered with it.
I end up chunking them up and dumping them over the hill. I can't leave them lay there for weeks on end until someone decides to get up the gumption to come get them. then I get " you should have called me" to which I reply " I did, you were too busy, remember?" the bad part is that I know and let them know at least a week in advance when one is comming down. So much for hating to see mill logs cut up.
-Ralph

I wish you were closer! I have 15 acres to fill with logs.

 

[treemendous]

I hate thinking about how much wood I've bucked up. I have a W.M. at home but I don't have time to C.S.M. on site. So If I cant move the backyard logs due to gates, hills etc, they become firewood. I'd love to trade some logs to a C.S. miller for beer or help. (Anyone in the G.V.R.D.?)

 

[windthrown]

Burning mill quality wood

Yah, we burn big alder here, along with maple and oak and madrone. Only 2 mills out here cut madrone thay I know of. It is beautyful hard wood, and we have it in our house for flooring. But in our case, it is not feasible or practicle to haul it to a mill. Not enough to interest the mills to come get it, they want a lot of trees to make it worth the effort.

I was at a party on New Year's Eve west of Portland and these guys there have these preferct low taper Doug firs, great crowns, best trees I have seen in a while. 20-24" DBH. Maybe 50 acres of them. I asked them why they were not cutting them. They said that the price of Doug fir is so low right now that they are not cutting them for the mills. They are cutting them down five at a time and butchering them into firewood to sell in Portland by the cord instead. Better money that way. You have to go where the market will pay, regardless of quality. They do not like doing it either, but the mill is idle.

Also... if you want a shameful waste, from a milling or firewood perspective, here in the land of big timber there are slash piles all over. Some 30 ft high and 40 ft across. We have to burn slash here by law. Fire hazard. So they pile up all the cull logs and "trash trees" and burn them in the fall and spring. I have seen perfect huge cull logs, logs that are odd length, or just logs that were left over or did not fill a truck tossed into slash piles. I go through slash piles looking for firewood to salvage, and you would not believe the 'trash' trees that they hack down and burn. Madrone, oak, hemlock, maple, alder... not so much alder now as the price is pretty high for that. But still.. I am burning mill quality wood to heat this place in winter. I have cordwood of different species all racked up. Alder, oak, madrone, fir, ash, sycamore (not great, but it burns), boxelder maple... all slash, or windthrow from this property.

The mills around here are funny too. They will let you salvage stuff if it is for the garden or to burn. The minute they think that you are salvaging for milling, they will say "NO!" So I cannot really see being able to salvage this kind of slash wood for milling in any way. Its a paradigm out here really. "Trash" trees are any hardwoods like oak, madrone, birch and alders that are in the way of the clear cut of firs. Monoculture is the rule here. Doug fir and more Doug fir. The rest of it? Yawn...

 

[dingo]

waste

I understand you guys hate to see logs wasted, so do I, but any old sawyer will let you know real quick what he thinks of yard, park trees and ones that are close to a fence. I let a big ash and walnut go on the same place. I was just a little bothered they had grown in a fenced in yard by an old out building.opcorn:

 

[Finnbear]

I get almost all my logs and firewood either from a tree service who calls me when they need to get rid of some wood or from storm downed trees that I ask to remove/salvage from other people's land. What I can turn into nice boards I do and the rest makes great firewood. For those of you who want to make some boards but lack the necessary equipment or have more logs than you have time to mill, you can do what I do. Find someone with a bandmill who knows how to properly saw lumber and hire them to saw for you. It will cost you .25-.30 per board foot to have your logs sawed but you can end up with some very valuable lumber on the cheap this way. I have done 3 to 5 thousand board feet a year for a while now and more firewood than I have time to process (kids and sports-takes up a lot of time). I have been through four sawyers before I found a really good one. Anyone with a bandmill can cut up logs but not all can actually saw good lumber.
Finnbear

 

[Finnbear]

Arborist are often faced with difficult to remove trees that must be cut up just to get them safely on the ground......or bucked up to get them out of a back yard.

I recently moved some 32" dia hard maple logs out of a back yard with my log arch and a 4-wheeler. I got these from a tree service who took a little extra care taking the tree down so the butt log could come down in two 10ft sections for me to save for milling. I removed all the firewood for them in return for them being extra careful with the butt logs. There are ways to salvage urban timber with low impact forestry tools that keep landowners happy because of the minimal damage to their yards due to removal. Last spring I took a bunch of 20" to 28" cherry logs off a golf course (along a fairway) using my log arch and a Cushman Truckster and once the sawdust was raked up you couldn't even tell I'd been there.
Finnbear