My local dump has an area for brush and wood. I've found myself always bringing home a little bit of hardwood from it and adding it to my wood pile that still needs to be dried ( next years wood). Even though I can cut all the wood I need on property that belings to my faimly I have a hard time passing up free hard wood. Do most dumps have free hardwood?
Dump picker
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I went to the "recycle center" a lot last year to get rid of brush. I wasn't into burning wood at the time. But I did notice a lot of larger rounds there. This struck me as odd, because they have signs all over the place saying nothing bigger than 4" in diameter. I've been tempted to go back there and grab some of the rounds that are laying around.
Back when I was young, I could have taken all the wood I wanted off my father's quarter section but it was easier to back my truck up to the scrap wood pile at the Birch plywood plant in town. I wouldn't make a special trip for the wood but would make it a point to not come home empty if I was already in town.
Skier76 said:
Mine enforces that 4" diameter rule and isn't a good source for cordwood. People do dump off a lot of scrap lumber
which I've been taking advantage of for my kindling supply.
I get my kindling from the dump also but not from the same area. There is another wood pile where all the scrap building wood goes. I get scrap 2 by 4 ends and other non treated dry softwood.
I have a friend who still works in the woods (skidder) and always brings home wood. He surely does not need it as he has a big woodlot plus he has enough on hand for his big outdoor woodburner to last him about 10 years. He sometimes even brings wood for me and I certainly don't need it. But free is hard to turn down.
I have a wood dump for the local munincipalities, power companies, and tree trimmers to dump there logs and chips. I have a grapple on my loader that I use to sift out the chips and place the logs and/or rounds into my dads shed near his OWB. What ever is left in the spring gets ground into mulch. FREE wood is great especially when it is delivered to your doorstep.
I just put new sides on my trailer. I need to take a ride to the "recycle center" and see what's laying around. I do have a few branches I can toss in the back...so it looks like I have a reason to be there in the first place. :lol:
We have a compost site. One side is for lawn clippings and garden debris, the other is for branches. They usually just push the lawn clippings to the back and burn the branches once a year. I have 15 acres of forestland plus the neighbors full of dead trees and trees that could be culled. I have been retrieving about a pickup load of wood from the compost site every week. I guess i feel i can burn it cleaner in my stove than they can in their brush-pile, I can back right up to it, it is a way to divide the work up over the year, it gives me a chance to burn some species we do not have on the property, and it saves the trees on our land for wildlife and such. sometimes i get lucky and get a load of hardwood logs and rounds, other times I have to look pretty hard and only get a half load of 2-4" branches. It is a mile out of my way but i always seem to find something to bring home. My best find was a load and a half of apple-wood, about half of which was already cut to stove length!
Thsi was a great source for me for a couple of yearsburning at my house and my fathers, until it sold to a private company and the first thing that they did was stand up fences and put up sign to keep people out. When i asked they immediatley sya it's a liability issue and it's for my own safety. On one hand i can certainly understand their point of view but it was a good source of wood.
"Liability issue" Yes, exactly. Our local dump has such a policy. Dump stuff, yes, but don't take any. It all gets ground up into wood chips for mulch. Which they give away for free.
Whatever...
Whatever...
We have a commercial site that takes basically anything organic and grinds it up for mulch which they sell. On Saturdays you can dodge the normal tipping fee if you bring some non-perishable food for a local food bank, so homeowners usually wait for the weekend to drop stuff off. I was there one Saturday with my brush and grass clippings and the guy next to me pulls up with a trailer full of stove length, well aged pine rounds. I asked if they guy was dumping the wood and when he replied "yes", I asked if I could help him unload his trailer onto mine. I had about half a cord loaded when an employee drove up and asked me if I had a ticket to buy firewood. "No",sez I, and all those beautiful rounds went off my trailer and into the brush pile. The wood becomes their property once it is inside their fence. I have thought about sitting outside the fence and down the road a bit with an empty trailer and sign that says "will work for firewood".
Chris Fallis said:
I believe that to be true, and stupid myself. I had free tickets to a concert and was standing at the gate trying to hand out the free ones I had. Got harassed by a cop for "soliciting". Sometimes its a shame that good deeds are no longer rewarded, and sometimes persecuted for.
like the guy on the way to my town dump that has the trailer with the sign that says "scrap metal", he takes a load or two over to the scrap dealers often enough that he uses a made up name for taxes or some other reason.
I just signed up and am a rookie with my insert on the way.........my dump has brush area with lots of potential free wood - I am fired up for some free wood and am planning to bring the trailer down there this weekend. Lots of snobby folks in my town so am sure I will get the hairy eyeball from a few but who cares! How much dump wood can I mix in with the good stuff in a new non-cat insert - 30%? 50%?
I do the same thing every little bit counts.......... The other day I was driving down a back road and spotted 6 pieces of firewood cut already in the rd must of fell off a truck making a delivery so stopped and got them ash ... Ill take it ....
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