Would you keep it & burn it?

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CountryBoy19

Minister of Fire
Hearth Supporter
Jul 29, 2010
962
Southern IN
A guy I know needs a couple willow trees taken care of at his uncle's place. His uncle got a quote to have them removed and it was pretty high. According to the guy I know there is nothing in the way (no nearby homes/buildings etc) so we are going to tackle the tree removal together.

The wood is all available to me if I want it.

My problem is that I have about a 6 year supply of good wood (~25 cords of oak, ash, hickory, hedge, maple) and don't necessarily need anymore or really even have a good place to put it...

My buddy is willing to haul the wood away and dump it so I told him I'm not interested in the wood but the wood "scrounger" in me is saying that maybe I should consider it...

If you were in my situation what would you do?

If it were good wood I wouldn't be able to turn it down, but considering that it's not the greatest wood I'm having a hard time justifying it's place in my wood stacks...

Edit: I forgot to mention, he's paying me a pretty healthy sum for what he estimates to be "one evenings worth of work". I have no skin in keeping or ditching the wood, it's just available if I want it...
 
Hmmm...would you rather burn oak,ash,hickory,hedge and maple during the shoulder season...or willow? Maybe save a couple of cords just for that??
 
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Leave it.
 
Yeah, I would pass on it too.....
 
sell it on craigslist? As above, not useless for shoulder season.

I wouldn't spend a lot of time on it, but hard to let go of being thrifty.
 
Pass on it.
 
If I were you I would take a few straight sections out of it and leave the rest. Maybe mix it on for shoulder season. Any kind of hard effort and it's immediately not worth it.
 
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I'm a happy peasant scrounging/burning poplar and willow, but I wouldn't work real hard for it, especially with you sitting on tons of good wood already.
 
The first thing that comes to mind for me is to put it on CL for free. I know I've scored several truck loads of wood that way and it's been very much appreciated. I started in May of this year and have been able to scrounge about two cord of Ash, HL, Elm, Maple, Pine and a little bit of mixed other stuff. Willow may not be very high on the BTU scale but for someone like me that doesn't have a huge supply of hardwoods, it is greatly appreciated when I can scrounge some to burn in place of that hardwood.
 
If its easy I say take it and sell it on CL, depending on your campfire wood market of course. I can make $85 on a tossed 6.5 ft box load a little mounded. From cut to split to stacked its roughly 3 hrs work. I have made over $700 (payed for my splitter) on "junk wood". Not bad for playing with saw and splitter which I enjoy.
 
The selling market is WAY low here... lots of poverty in my area and plenty of wood to be cut/sold. I can buy "ricks" of good wood for $45 delivered. I doubt I'd ever be able to sell it and even make minimum wage on the cutting/splitting effort.

Thanks for all the responses, I think most have reaffirmed my initial gut reaction: just pass it on... I am going to go cut it though, can't beat what he's offered to pay me for my help.
 
If I had your wood stock I'd probably pass.

Jags makes a good point about shoulder season wood and, if I didn't have much laid in I'd keep some of it. Otherwise, it's time, transport and effort vested in low output fuel wood.
 
There are times that I actually prefer to burn lesser BTU fuel, just like shoulder seasons. There are other plus sides to lesser BTU stuff...things like burning down a deep coal bed or carrying the fire for just an hour or two before a full overnight reload, etc. I actually miss not having the stuff around. I don't want my stacks to be loaded with it, but at 10-15% of my fuel - you betcha.
 
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