I Pay For Most Scores

[BoiledOver]

I see many postings about "my score" and would like to hear your theory on getting firewood.

I like to have a known (quantity, quality and species of firewood) and achieve that by purchasing log lengths of oak delivered. With this I blend whatever I choose to drop here, birch, cherry and poplar.

I have in passed years gone offsite to drop and load firewood. Lotta work but for a young man I was up for it. Maybe I have grown too lazy to search for scores and worry about all the crotches and gnarls to deal with. The log length stuff is pretty easy to work with a saw and fiskars, in my opinion, so I am ok with spending for the bulk deliveries.


$300-$400 in wood per season is way better than $1600-$1900 for propane.

How do you see your procedure?

 

[Ram 1500 with an axe...]

Everything that I have was free and 80% was bucked up to various usable sizes! I've had a few big scores found and scrounged, several small loads scrounged and even a big load delivered and stacked in my driveway.....
You need to keep on the lookout and talk to others about how you need and want more wood......
That's how I got 4 plus years ahead sooo fast.....

 

[Paulywalnut]

In the last three years I have really been fortunate with free scores. I'm four years ahead also and I think I would still pay for all oak logs delivered for me to process. I could let that all sit three years and have a boatload of oak. After all it is a lot of work scrounging here and there for 12 cords.

 

[claydogg84]

I work for a county highway department so I'm fairly lucky with free wood. The tree crew cuts trees on the side of the county roads daily and leaves them in 6 foot lengths for me. If they buck them up any smaller, people will take the wood before I can get to it after work. People also get a hold of me if they have a downed tree they want removed because they know I burn. I think eventually I will be less inclined to scrounge off the side of the road, but right now I'm ok with it. Hell, today a friend and I bucked and loaded a fairly large oak (about 30" diameter) right alongside the road. I would say those base rounds were every bit of 300 lbs. I was turning down free hardwood all summer and giving it to friends. Once my stacks are full, around 13 cord - I'm done.

 

[Mag Craft]

I get all my wood for free but it is usually the wood no one else wanted to deal with. Like a 40" round 6' long. So when some of the places I know gets wood like that they always call me because they know I will come with the big saws and cut it up into manageable pieces and haul it away.

 

[Poindexter]

For me it pays to not be picky, but to be selective. I call everyone back promptly and go look if I am curious.

I don't drop diseased trees next to buildings in exchange for "free wood", I am not trained, not insured, not a professional and not an idiot. hose I do politely offer to cut up and haul off whatever wood the insured pro leaves behind after he drops the tree.

My best score was a co -worker and her husband bought a 3 acre wooded lot, cut in a driveway and cleared a piece in the middle to build a new house on. The husband did all the site work with chainsaw and bobcat. He had piles of logs all over the place. The deal was I could have everything I wanted that was already cut, but I had to get it gone by such and such a date. Whatever DDay was he already had a burn permit and the fire department was coming to watch and so on. Three miles from my house. Mostly really nice small birch with very little center rot in it, a bit of spruce and a few poplar. Dropped onto snow in mid to late April, very little mud on it.

I got four cords out of there in about three weeks without having to take a day off work.

 

[drz1050]

Just found a score tonight.. wasn't sure what kind it was, but it was heavy, so I thought that was good. Big bumpy bark. Leaf looked kinda like beech, but broader. Loaded it up in the pickup.. sitting at work now, looks like I got a load of cottonwood.

Oh well, it was free so I'm not complaining. Got a few cherry logs as well, gonna go back in a couple days when this snow is gone to see if I can find some more of them.

 

[D8Chumley]

I have a fair amount of standing dead and blowdowns around my and the adjoining woods, but I scrounge all I can from job sites I am on. Guys tease me that the first question I ask when they send me to a new job is "Any firewood here?" I've been pretty fortunate and with being laid off for ~7 weeks last winter I'm all but 3 years ahead

 

[Mag Craft]

Just found a score tonight.. wasn't sure what kind it was, but it was heavy, so I thought that was good. Big bumpy bark. Leaf looked kinda like beech, but broader. Loaded it up in the pickup.. sitting at work now, looks like I got a load of cottonwood.

Oh well, it was free so I'm not complaining. Got a few cherry logs as well, gonna go back in a couple days when this snow is gone to see if I can find some more of them.

Cottonwood is what I have been burning this year for the most part. I do not knock it because it keeps the house warm and there is not a lot of good wood around here to be found. That Cottonwood is heavy now but once it dries out it gets light. You have to feed the stove more often with it and it leaves a lot of ash but it does make good coals.
I have about 3 cords of it stacked and split and plan on using it all winter. It keeps the house warm and saves on the propane.

 

[Wood Duck]

I like the idea that the wood I am burning was all felled to clear power lines, build something, cleared along roadsides, fell in a storm, etc. I enjoy the work of scrounging but I have in lean times thought about buying wood. Buying would certainly be easier and would save a lot of time. Plus scrounging isn't free if you count time, gas, wear and tear, etc.

 

[Ram 1500 with an axe...]

Cottonwood is what I have been burning this year for the most part. I do not knock it because it keeps the house warm and there is not a lot of good wood around here to be found. That Cottonwood is heavy now but once it dries out it gets light. You have to feed the stove more often with it and it leaves a lot of ash but it does make good coals.
I have about 3 cords of it stacked and split and plan on using it all winter. It keeps the house warm and saves on the propane.

Keeping the house warm for free.....priceless........

 

[drz1050]

Cottonwood is what I have been burning this year for the most part. I do not knock it because it keeps the house warm and there is not a lot of good wood around here to be found. That Cottonwood is heavy now but once it dries out it gets light. You have to feed the stove more often with it and it leaves a lot of ash but it does make good coals.
I have about 3 cords of it stacked and split and plan on using it all winter. It keeps the house warm and saves on the propane.

Oh yeah like I said, I'm not complaining. I did a little more looking about the wood, and it seems to be pretty close to the same weight/ BTUs of lodgepole pine, just a step below Doug fir. Should be just fine for the fall & spring next year.

Have you had any issues with the smell? Some things I've read about it have people complaining that it smells bad when burning.. I'm going to burn it either way, can't imagine it's THAT terrible.... If I'm annoyed by it, I'll just throw the splits in with some nice smelling cherry/ hickory/ birch to drown it out.

 

[firefighterjake]

Some folks have their own wood lot.

Some folks scrounge for free.

Some folks have a deal with an arborist to deliver wood for free.

Some folks pay for the wood to be delivered in tree length and process it.

Some folks pay for the wood to be delivered cut and split.

The way I look at it . . . no one way is better than another . . . for some folks it is a matter of access and opportunity, for other folks it is a matter of time and for other folks it is a matter of money. Fact is . . . we're all here, burning wood or wood products for a variety of reasons and how we get that wood doesn't really matter a whole lot in the grand scheme of things.

 

[Mag Craft]

Oh yeah like I said, I'm not complaining. I did a little more looking about the wood, and it seems to be pretty close to the same weight/ BTUs of lodgepole pine, just a step below Doug fir. Should be just fine for the fall & spring next year.

Have you had any issues with the smell? Some things I've read about it have people complaining that it smells bad when burning.. I'm going to burn it either way, can't imagine it's THAT terrible.... If I'm annoyed by it, I'll just throw the splits in with some nice smelling cherry/ hickory/ birch to drown it out.

I have not noticed it smelling bad. The Cottonwood I have is seasoned good and dry and measured 15% when I checked it. Burns good no smoke.

 

[bassJAM]

I haven't had to pay for wood yet. And more than half the time, I don't even have to cut anything, just show up and load it in my truck and trailer. Even when I do need to buck up a tree, somebody is around to help me. This spring a large maple fell in a buddy's grandma's yard. Both he and his dad helped me cut and load the firewood. Last month a large oak was taken down in another buddy's neighborhood to make room for a new house being built. He helped me buck and load it because he doesn't get an excuse to use his saw often.

About the only time I haven't had help was when I saw a big silver maple down in a neighbors yard and asked if I could have the tree. He and his wife stood in the yard for almost 2 hours smoking cigarettes and drinking beer watching me cut it up, but disappeared as soon as I started rolling logs to the truck to load!

 

[Vikestand]

I have all the wood I'll ever need on my property. But have scored a ton of oak off my FIL property where he built his house.

 

[weatherguy]

Its been lean times for free wood around here the last year, one of my friends just bought a Huskee splitter and has a big yard, thinking towards the end of winter we'll get a load dropped off and we'll process it and split it, still beats paying what some of these guys want for a cord.

 

[MTMike]

I have several sources. My favorite source thus far for hardwood is I watch Craigslist for "free for the hauling" and look at the address. If it's in the downtown/old part of town I'll take the pickup to work that day and swing by. Chances are it's a mature Ash, an Elm or Maple that some city dweller that heats his home only with gas has cut down to deforest their yard and just wants rid of it. I get 2 to 4 pickup loads of that per year when I have time/energy.

Then my friend has a cabin in his family on 40 acres along a river where a wildfire about 8 years ago killed hundreds of Poplar trees. They are dead standing and mostly good and not rotten. The family is thrilled for me to take the trees down and clean the place up, and I'm thrilled for years and years of free heat. Thus far I've hauled probably 8-10 cords out of there in 3 trips since 2010. We'll make a weekend family trip out of it, spend half a day cutting trees and throwing them on the trailer and the rest of the weekend fishing, drinking beer and playing with the kiddos. I can usually haul 2-3 cords on my trailer in whole or half trees in a single trip..... this was the haul from my trip this past spring after about 5 hours of cutting & loading with me and 1 other guy.

I've also had people ask me to come out and help them clear trees in exchange for the wood and will usually oblige, but it's mostly pine and I'd much rather burn other wood if I can, or at least "dilute" the pine with other wood, so I accept those invitations sparingly.

We save about 1200/yr by heating with free wood over running the furnace all winter. And we keep the house 5-7 degrees warmer because I'm not worried about the cost The only downside, is good quality wood is hard to find in the plains of Eastern MT. Options are: You've got pine in the dry hills, poplar/cottonwood along rivers & irrigation ditches, or you've got misc. hardwood if you're lucky enough to find it in town. That's about it. I miss growing up in Western MT and having all the Larch & Douglas Fir you could ever need in close proximity.

 

[Andy S.]

I turned the lot behind my business into a wood processing and storage plant and have been quite lucky reaching out to tree companies doing work in the area and happy to drop it here rather than take it to the dump. So far this year I've had truckloads of Oak rounds, Pine rounds, a couple of loads mixed with Beech, Black Walnut, Elm and Poplar, one load of Ash logs and one load of Maple logs. My days of scouring CL are over.

 

[lostDuck]

In CT I pay to have it delivered by a tree guy..$80 cord of logs is cheaper than my time + gas+ don't have a pickup truck or trailer.

 

[7acres]

I like the idea that the wood I am burning was all felled to clear power lines, build something, cleared along roadsides, fell in a storm, etc. I enjoy the work of scrounging but I have in lean times thought about buying wood. Buying would certainly be easier and would save a lot of time. Plus scrounging isn't free if you count time, gas, wear and tear, etc.

I was thinking just yesterday about the household projects I've neglected recently because I'm out in the woods processing firewood. Free wood and free heat is a blessing. But free time is also worth a lot.

 

[Holzstapel]

I have had my eye on a pile of large oak and maple logs that have been piled up since Sandy hit. The house is in my community and I just snail mailed them a letter asking if I could come take it all. I think the people are elderly and it's clear that no one has any interest in removing the logs. I have my fingers crossed that I will hear from them.

 

[Lumber-Jack]

I was thinking just yesterday about the household projects I've neglected recently because I'm out in the woods processing firewood. Free wood and free heat is a blessing. But free time is also worth a lot.

I've been thinking along similar lines, except I've been able to put a price tag on the time spent getting a load of wood. Normally we get our firewood as a family and make a day of it, packing a lunch and spending the day in the bush falling trees, bucking and loading, and unloading when we get home and sometimes splitting as well. The process of getting a full truckload ( about a cord) takes the better part of a day, so we have a pretty good idea of the time involved, and we know that on average a cord will heat our house for about a month. Well because my wife and I both work, and my two sons also work part time, we have a pretty good idea of what that day of labor is worth to us if we were all to choose to go to work instead of getting that cord of wood, and if I sit down and do the math I realize that we could easily heat the house for a month with our electric heat pump with our combined income from a days work at our day jobs, and still have more then enough money left over to go out for a really nice meal.
I'm not saying I want to do it that way, but it does make you think????
We only usually spend about 4 days a year getting wood and enjoy the family time together in the bush, and we all like the heat from the wood stove, and of course we don't work everyday and only go get wood on days we aren't working, but still, it makes you think.

 

[MTMike]

But free time is also worth a lot.

Very true, good sir. I find that in my line of work (IT), occasional firewood work on a weekend is just the primal, "disconnected" sort of thing I need to do to decompress from daily life dealing with technology.

 

[drz1050]

Very true, good sir. I find that in my line of work (IT), occasional firewood work on a weekend is just the primal, "disconnected" sort of thing I need to do to decompress from daily life dealing with technology.

I work in semiconductors.. we share the same sentiments