Firewood

[Rally]

JonB,
Just curious about the buyer. There is a buyer somewhere west of the cities that buys oak, walnut and basswood, select buyer. The Oak goes for laminate, walnut for fixtures, and basswood to carvers. I'll ask a buddy of mine, I'll see him this week sometime, in fact his brother was here today from Nebraska. My buddy does the Basswood to carvers deal, hits the trade shows, and does some business with that buyer down there.
The smart folks here looking for cheap firewood, bring a case of beer, and cut out of the tops pile left by the loggers. You can get all the slabs from the pallet factories for free or close to it. Lots of fish houses heated with slabs.

 

[Bret4207]

For those thinking that wood is a valuable commodity of universal value, here is a picture of a pile you are free to take all of you want at zero charge. Sawdust they charge for, slab wood they will load for you if you'll just get it out of there! The pile is about 25-30 feet high.

 

[RicinYakima]

Same here if you can use less than 12" pieces of 2x4. Tree fruit is hauled wooden bins and the local bin makers have free shorts of 2x4. When I burned wood, you could stack more in a 1/2 pick-up than it could carry. Replaced both real axel bearings in my 63 Ford in one week.

 

[Rally]

Bret,
what kind of wood is that? Pallet factory?

 

[Bret4207]

Amish sawmill cutting mostly softwoods. I imagine it's predominantly White Pine. The guys with outside boilers love it. I'm rather surprised the local Big Time Operator timber company that supplies Ft Drums co-gen electrical power plants with tractor trailer loads of chipped whole trees hasn't noticed piles like this (this is one of dozens) and made arraignments to come in with a loader and chipper and some trucks. Most of this wood is cut for the pre-made Amish Shed market in Ontario. The border is closed between the US and Canada, except it isn't really closed since those sheds get moved north every single day. I'm still not sure how that works. Half the trucks I see locally are Ontario plated with "Oversize Load" banners and flat bed trailers set up to move sheds. Hard to find just plain dimensional Amish cut lumber anymore because everyone is making sheds. It makes sense, with $150.00 of logs and a mill they can saw out enough lumber for an 8'x12' foot shed with board and batten siding that they'll sell for $12-1800.00. The market is getting saturated now though. Amish guy told me there's 150 familes making nothing but sheds in a 25 mile radius of his home.

 

[CZ93X62]

Lots of wood-cutting in my younger years, and well into my LE career. It helped pay for Christmas gifts and bought several firearms for me in years I sold off the surplus fuelwood. I wouldn't call it a "necessity"--it was a lot like growing tomatoes in your back yard, and done mostly because we liked running saws and splitters. The ladies in our lives liked fireplaces burning in what passes for winter in this part of Kalifornistan. The things we'll do for love. Basically--a great excuse to hang out in the woods with friends running loud toys and doing macho stuff like packing truck beds with cut/split wood, a few rounds fired from new guns, things like that.

We loved it.

 

[L Ross]

The good deal I get from a local saw mill is a bundle of Oak slab for 25 bucks. I chain saw it into 16" lengths for the wood stove and also use a lot of it in my maple syrup arch in Spring. All bark free and dry. The thin stuff makes kindling but there are plenty of good thick pieces also.

6 miles away, pull up with the flat bed trailer and they load it with a big Hough loader. I throw a chain and binder on it and I'm good to go. I could get Maple for 20 bucks.

 

[RBHarter]

There's a mill out here that will let you haul all you want , slabs , chunks and the bottom 6-8' . Red , white , mast oak , walnut , pine , hickory , pecan , gum ........

 

[Bret4207]

We had a "handle plant" where I grew up. Oddly enough they made handles for kitchen knives and such and for cutting boards. All hard maple, all kiln dried. They gave away the cut offs which were an inch think, 6" wide and about 10 inches long. We'd haul loads of that stuff home for the summer clam bakes, back when such a thing was popular. The heat was intense and very long lasting.