Made friends with a Tree Service man... would you pay $30 for this load of white oak?

Time and money are the two most precious commodities in life. One must usually exchange one for the other. I think you did good here.

I'd say its a cord.

Woody Stover said:

What about $40?

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Yeah, I was wondering about that, but wasn't going to dwell on it. Thread title says $30, first post says $40. All I can say is it's worth roughly $100/cord in rounds, around here.

Looks like a half cord. I've been hand-splitting all week, My eye is on.

Good purchase.

Joful said:

If your time is worth nothing, then scrounging might be for you.

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Now that depends......

My time is worth something, but I haven't been snowed in like you. But if I was struggling to find good free wood, and thought I could buy wood and at the same time get in good with a tree service guy, in a heart beat.

Now, I'll bet you are willing to agree with me that buying wood isn't your first choice.

My big thing is that I can't pay more for wood than burning it will save me in heating. As long as I am breaking even, I am happy (cause I love my wood heat).

That's a great deal . Clean wood. Manageable size. At your doorstep to handle as time permits. You can't beat that and white oak to boot
I'd guess around a cord also.

Looks like maybe a half cord, you done all right. Let him know you will do him a favor and take some of his " junk" loads like pine so he don't have to pay to dump it. Course those junk loads are free to you. Junk wood like pine or poplar make good shoulder season wood and reduce your average cost per cord from $80 where it is now, to say $60 or so.

My eyeballs say 1/3 cord, but this probably opened up the door for you in the near future, i bet a bigger load will be on its way, keep us posted on that.....

Nice score! Good to keep it out of the dump too.

In a more perfect world I would scrounge all my wood. But---I have no truck, no wood yard and have a honey-do list a mile long like most of us. Plus I'm not as young as I once was and I have some medical issues.

I burn about 3 cord a year here in NJ. This past winter I burned nearly 4 cord. I have two years of wood ready now. Last year I bought 6 cord, delivered and stacked on pallets.

I just ordered another 7 cord from the same guy to be delivered and stacked on pallets. It will be mostly oak with some hickory, ash and maple mixed in. It is being split this coming week and will be stove length. This wood will be for winter 2016 and 2017. And will be seasoned in stacks for at least 3 years. Cost to me is $130 per cord.

He has a garden center and takes logs from tree service companies who would otherwise have to pay to dump it. He then wholesales the split wood to firewood resellers. He gives me the wholesale price due to the quantity I buy.
Works for me since I only have to split what I want to be smaller pieces and some kindling. No cutting, dragging, trimming, bucking and hauling to my house.

It's not worth anything until it's cut up , split and stacked .
Looks like a half cord to me. $40 worth of going and getting done by someone else.

No free wood around here unless you want white pine.

I can't get a perspective on how long those bolts are. At 4' long I would guess you have about 1/2 cord.

As far as what you paid; The top end in any market seems to be about $100/cord log length. In other places some of us get all the wood we wan't delivered for free by tree guys. At $40 for a 1/2 cord you paid a good dollar. If is 1/3 cord you overpaid.

I count something like 18 pieces, making 108 running feet total. At a foot in diameter average it would be just under a cord. You did good.

paul bunion said:

As far as what you paid; The top end in any market seems to be about $100/cord log length. In other places some of us get all the wood we wan't delivered for free by tree guys. At $40 for a 1/2 cord you paid a good dollar. If is 1/3 cord you overpaid.

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Around here the top end of the market seems to be $120/cord log length. The best deal on a grapple load that I've been able to find is $950 and I've been told that is roughly 8 cord. I guess it depends and if I get closer to 9 cord then I'm at $105/cord.

Note: if anyone has leads to cheaper grapple loads from reliable sellers in South Eastern NH (near Dover/Rochester) then please message me!

Looks like half a cord maybe a little more.So for white oak.. You did good.

I put $40 in the gas tank yesterday to drive my truck out to the farm and cut/split/stack maybe a face cord for the time and money. I'd pay $40 to have that much oak dropped on my yard because there's no oak anywhere in my woods.

Very nice Last year I paid $100/cord for juniper rounds. At least with Juniper, getting it into rounds is at least 3/4ths of the work, let alone driving 45 minutes there and back. Splitting is the easy part. So yes, to me, rounds have a big value.

RockyFordOak78 said:

Now if somebody can just tell me how to get this stuff seasoned in a year, that'd be great... LOL I'm kidding.. I know it's not going to happen.

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Solar kiln

Hoozie said:

Solar kiln

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Elevated temp is how to do it. And it happens fast.

That's alot more wood than the first pic but it looks great, you did well.....