Scrounger opinions needed

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Uncle

Member
Aug 8, 2011
66
Jersey Shore
I have 9 tree's that I am hiring a tree service to take down. 5 maple tree's, 3 ash, 1 pine.

I was told that I have at least 6 cords. I was also told 10 cords by someone else.


I am thinking of having the tree service leave the wood here in manageable pieces and have a scrounger come over to cut and split it ALL.

So the questions are:

Is this even worth it on my end? I'm thinking what happens if the guy gets hurt on my property? How long is this going to take? I don't want the neighbores to have to hear weeks of noise.

What would be a fair amount to give the scrounger?

Edit: I do not own a splitter or chainsaw, but I will help out as best as I can.
 
I think you have several options.

1. Find a scrounger either on Hearth.com or CL, put them in touch with the tree service and as long as the tree service is agreeable, they can haul and drop the wood at said scroungers house. If there are any charges, the scrounger could pay.

2. Have the scrounger be on site when the trees are coming down and haul the wood as its loaded in his truck/trailer while it's being cut.

3. Have the tree company put the wood on the curb and have the scrounger pick it up from there at a later time.

There are a multitude of ways that this can be done. Some may open you to liability more than others. I would think your liability would be reduced if the tree service cut the wood to manageable pieces so your scrounger is not running his saw or splitter on your property. I would think a big thing would be to find out how small a piece of firewood your scrounger is willing to take. Down to a 2 inch top vs down to a splittable round could change the math for the tree service and may save you a few bucks.

Just my opinion.
 
Around here I take half for splitting, and often half for cutting.... Or two loads for me, one for you if bucking and splitting.

The tree service I work with drops wood when it's handy for them at my nieghbor's place for nothing. It saves them fuel, and crew/truck time. They drop stuff for me if I ask them, but I've been blessed with Ash lately so I've had to pass.

All the best,
Mike
 
The way I am reading your post/question is that you want a scrounger to come and cut/split the lengths left by the tree company and you are asking that you and he split to processed wood.

Assuming thats correct .... he gets between 2/3 to 3/4 of the wood. Should vary a little based on the amount of work you put into it.
 
10 cord is a LOT of wood to process for someone with no saw nor splitter.

And 9 trees each with over a cord a piece . . . seems unlikely.

If it were me coming to help you out (you do realize who is doing whom a favor when it comes to getting rid of 10 cord of wood in log form, yes?) and you didn't want the noise etc to be on-going, I'd have to bring a couple of friends and equipment. That equipment is GOING to damage your lawn. Get over it. No one is going to muscle 10 cord of wood. Now I have to pay for the equipment and pay my assistents. Now there is 4 of us dividing up 10 cord.

At best you get two cord. If I can scoop it up and dump it someplace reasonable, I'll do that for you. But I am NOT stacking it. I am NOT splitting it for you. Think I'm unreasonable? Find out how much the tree service will charge you to haul 10 cord away. I'm saving you that money.

Or, you could always leave 10 cord of wood there on the lawn to rot as you whittle away at it slowly with a saw and splitter rented from HD :cheese:

At the same time, do NOT allow some punk to come over, cut the easy stuff and haul it away, leaving you with the back-breakers.
 
Well...it depends on the kind of wood you've got too. Pine, and you'll have a hard time. A nice hardwood, and you might find someone. (in other words, someone might not want your pine tree but want the others, cuz a lot of people still think pine causes creosote)

When we scrounge, we usually haul away whatever they've got, 100% ours-typically we're hauling already cut rounds. We've helped buck, but the guy also helped load and drop it off at our place (a pretty close by neighbor actually). We've also brought down a few trees for one guy, in fact we have to finish come spring. They didn't want any of the wood, DH cut and bucked, I helped haul the trash/branches to the curb. That wasn't typical, but they are a great older couple and were up a creek so to speak about getting these trees down and gone.

If you have someone working on your property, you are open to liability. If you don't want the wood, you'll have an easier time getting rid of it. Here anyway, services won't usually put the wood at the street, because it's like a landscape service throwing out lawn cuttings-they are responsible for disposal. If the homeowner asks for the wood to be left, it will be left on the lawn. There are services that will break that rule though-in fact, we scrounged from one that posted the wood on CL-they even bucked it into smaller chunks for us.
 
Me personally, I think you might have difficulty finding someone to do it. I know I've seen CL ads where guys say they will split and take half. Wouldn't be worth it to me. And Maple, Ash, seems easily found. Why would I split and give half when I can easily scrounge 100% from someone who doesn't want the wood.

If I was doing it, I would load my half (the prettiest of the wood) and then split onsite - your wood (the narly stuff). I wouldn't do it all on site - just yours. I'd take may share and go home with it.

Good luck.
 
Not clear on exactly what you are thinking of though some have ventured guesses? It reads like you want someone to come over and split it for you but then what? They leave it all? Take half? Or are you thinking you may be able to save some money from the tree service since they would not have to haul it away and then you could find a scrounger to haul it away free?
The latter is a great idea in some cases but maybe not if your tree service normally processes wood into firewood.. The former not so much. I'd never cut and split wood for someone else in trade for some wood. For me wood is basically worthless until its cut and split and then seasoned. The labor adds the value and by the time I'm done hauling, splitting, cutting, stacking if I ad up my time and expenses its about the same as if I bought the wood already split and delivered. I scrounge because I like it and I have way more time than money these days:) .
See this article I wrote on the subject of what trees are worth to wood burners. http://allaboutnhre.com/trees.pdf .
I guess it may depend on wood prices and availability in your area also . If its pricey and scrounges are hard to come by you might get a taker but here in NH there's too much free wood to scrounge/cut/haul/split for a deal like this to fly.
Anywho- that's my 2 cents. Good luck with your clearing and enjoy you new open space:)
 
ruserious2008 said:
Not clear on exactly what you are thinking of though some have ventured guesses? It reads like you want someone to come over and split it for you but then what? They leave it all? Take half? Or are you thinking you may be able to save some money from the tree service since they would not have to haul it away and then you could find a scrounger to haul it away free?
The latter is a great idea in some cases but maybe not if your tree service normally processes wood into firewood.. The former not so much. I'd never cut and split wood for someone else in trade for some wood. For me wood is basically worthless until its cut and split and then seasoned. The labor adds the value and by the time I'm done hauling, splitting, cutting, stacking if I ad up my time and expenses its about the same as if I bought the wood already split and delivered. I scrounge because I like it and I have way more time than money these days:) .
See this article I wrote on the subject of what trees are worth to wood burners. http://allaboutnhre.com/trees.pdf .
I guess it may depend on wood prices and availability in your area also . If its pricey and scrounges are hard to come by you might get a taker but here in NH there's too much free wood to scrounge/cut/haul/split for a deal like this to fly.
Anywho- that's my 2 cents. Good luck with your clearing and enjoy you new open space:)

R.U.. Good writeup. One discrepancy is that you said that pine has 50-75% less "heat per pound". Should be 50-75% less heat per volume (split, round, truckload, cord or otherwise) You've given me insight as to how I can get rid of some pine logs that my logger left on the landing two years ago because it was only a half load of pulp and not worth driving all the way down to 01368 and hauling it back to NH.. Again, good write-up. Too bad all CL posters aren't required to read it..

It looks like I may have miss understood the OP's intent. I just assumed that ANY scrounger would be taking ALL of the burnable wood (minus brush) and he was wondering if he should pay him some cash for hauling it away.. My bad.
 
Unless you have a decent amount of land 10 or even 6 cord is a big mess. I'd have the tree guys chip the small stuff and buck everything. Then, you have options, limited mess and you have no liability of someone running a saw on your property. You might convince someone to split some for you in exchange for the rest of it if it is already in rounds. However, I think you would be better off renting a splitter and selling whatever you don't want for yourself.
 
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