Get Wood for Free

[brhorgan]

I am new to the world of heating my house with wood and do not have some of the glorious woodpiles I've seen on this site. I am looking to get started on putting wood away for this coming winter. I just moved to Southwest Virginia and I am renting a house on less than an acre of land so harvesting the wood on my own property isn't really an option.

Does anyone have suggestions and tips on how I can go about collecting wood on the cheap?

 

[Jan Pijpelink]

Getting wood ready now for the coming winter won't be easy. Most hardwoods need 18 to 30 months to season before it is ready to burn.
Suggestions: check Craigslist; call your township and utility company and ask if any trees have been cut in your area of which you can take the wood. Some tree service companies have more wood than they can store and they can drop it off.

But again, most of this wood will probably be freshly cut, so much too wet to be dry enough this coming burning season.

You can buy reasonable seasoned wood at an "off season" price now. Depending on the region this can be at 50% of the price charged in the burning season. But even then I expect you need more time to have it seasoned ready for your stove/insert/fireplace. When you get wood, invest $20 or so to get a moisture meter to check the moisture content of a fresh split and make sure it is below 20% before burning it.

 

[Applesister]

Locate foresters in your area, NY has volunteer foresters to help landowners. Ask for a list of loggers, tree service people...they are professionals that are generally registered to do buiness with forest projects.
Dont mess with Craigslist, its mostly BS on there. Unless you have homeowners offering for you to clean up their yards.
Mostly scams, you need a good professional supplier who can supply you with steady sources of wood.
Scrounging is okay once youve got a serious supply of wood drying somewhere. They you can play with collecting free stuff.
Theres no shortcuts to drying. The lesser woods are 9 months to a year, medium woods are 1-2 years. And the really dense heavy kick ash stuff takes 2-3 yrs.
Go by weight, in guessing heat output, but remember its mostly water at first. Weight is relative to dryness and density.
It all helps if youre a pyromaniac.

 

[Scooter422]

Keep an eye out on craigslist. You'll get a few hits. You could post an ad on facebook garage sale sites in your area saying your looking for free wood or downed trees that you would clean up for free. A lot of people have wood lots that don't want to clean up and some of the wood will season quicker. Just remember to say you will not clean up brush or they will want you to do too much. My girlfriend posted an ad for me on facebook and I received 5 calls within an hour. Had to take the ad off cause I got so many calls saying they had trees they wanted gone!! That's my go to for easy free wood Good luck! Persistence pays off!

 

[drz1050]

Any local lumber mills? They might give away their slab wood for free. Pallets are also free & dry, but kinda a pain to bust up.

 

[ccmac]

Yep Craigslist. Also try the local tree service folks, they may sell cheap or offer for free in some cases. The Facebook is a new one for me, I like it and can see how that would be very fertile ground. Split small so your wood will season quicker. Gonna be tough to season it perfectly but many of us have been there and managed just fine.

 

[notshubby]

Locate foresters in your area, NY has volunteer foresters to help landowners. Ask for a list of loggers, tree service people...they are professionals that are generally registered to do buiness with forest projects.
Dont mess with Craigslist, its mostly BS on there. Unless you have homeowners offering for you to clean up their yards.
Mostly scams, you need a good professional supplier who can supply you with steady sources of wood.
Scrounging is okay once youve got a serious supply of wood drying somewhere. They you can play with collecting free stuff.
Theres no shortcuts to drying. The lesser woods are 9 months to a year, medium woods are 1-2 years. And the really dense heavy kick ash stuff takes 2-3 yrs.
Go by weight, in guessing heat output, but remember its mostly water at first. Weight is relative to dryness and density.
It all helps if youre a pyromaniac.

ive scored about 4 full cord (12 face cord) from 2 adds free off craigslist this season 95 percent maple with a cpl cherry so why exactly is craigslist bs? sure its all green and needed to be cut and split but I didn't drop any of it. it was already on the ground.

 

[EJP1234]

I say look around when driving. I have probably 20 cords worth of wood... some from my own land, but maybe 1 cord or so... all others have been blow downs I asked to cut up... or power line right away maintenance.. or when I seen a tree company hacking a tree in someones yard stopping and asking the tree company or the home owner... It's a constant process, but it gets it done.

I'm good for a few years, but I am constantly looking for that free score..

Oh, another good spot, rawland home builds... GC is getting paid to remove those trees they knock over with dozer... but if someone is willing to come and take them, extra $$ for the gc, trust me.

 

[EJP1234]

And one last thing... you'll see on here posters snubbing maples... they season really quickly, way quicker than hardwoods like oak or hickory. Though they don't have the burn times as those hardwoods, they put out heat and season quickly, so in your position, soft maples are the perfect wood. If you got maple CSS right now, it wouldn't be ideal for this winter but it would work, much more so then a true hardwood.

 

[kennyp2339]

If maple was the only wood I could get for the rest of my life, it honestly wouldn't bother me.

 

[brhorgan]

Thank you all for your responses I am going to look into some of the tree companies around the area and Appalachian Power to see if they have anything.

If I do end up having to buy partially seasoned wood, what do y'all think is a reasonable price?

 

[drz1050]

If I do end up having to buy partially seasoned wood, what do y'all think is a reasonable price?

This has a large range depending on where you are, but you should be able to find a cord for no more than $250ish. Maybe under 200 if you're lucky.

 

[HisTreeNut]

Around WNC, the going Craigslist rate varies $150.00 - $200.00 per cord. $200.00 per cord seems to be the norm in the local newspapers.

 

[bob95065]

I heated my house for 15 years for free. I scrounge up wood from friends, craigslist, arborists I made friends with and I pick up what Caltrans leaves on the highway. Everyone at our church knows I'll take unwanted firewood. I made friends with a couple of arborists through craigslist. They pay to dump wood from tree removals. They give me hardwood when they take it down.

I am not afraid to hoard firewood. It's feast or famine - take it when it comes.

 

[heavy hammer]

Talk to city workers road department guys last couple of years have gotten fifteen loads of locust from these guys they have to remove trees but it helps them out to go clean it up less work for them same with electric utilities I'm a lineman and the trees on the rights ways are always being cut and they never want to deal with it once it is down was able to take home ten plus loads last summer of big black locust that these guys were just planning on putting in dumpsters and taking to dump if you are willing to work a little especially when it's is eighty plus degrees because very few people care about firewood in the summer you should be able to heat you home easily for free for many years trust me like bob95065 said if you ask enough you will find it

 

[ironpony]

No such thing as free......

 

[Grisu]

No such thing as free......

Of course there is, it is called "interest".

 

[Oldman47]

Even interest has an "opportunity cost".

 

[planner steve]

Craigslist is great here. And the wood is not all green. I've seen at least 4 ads in the last month where people are moving and have seasoned wood that you can haul for free. Also make sure your friends and family know you are a free wood hunter. I've had friends call and inform me when a tree is cut in their neighborhood. The tree removal services here will put you on their list, but I find that I would quickly get too much green wood.

 

[notshubby]

Craigslist is great here. And the wood is not all green. I've seen at least 4 ads in the last month where people are moving and have seasoned wood that you can haul for free. Also make sure your friends and family know you are a free wood hunter. I've had friends call and inform me when a tree is cut in their neighborhood. The tree removal services here will put you on their list, but I find that I would quickly get too much green wood.

is there such a thing as too much wood?

 

[Grisu]

is there such a thing as too much wood?

No. Only too small of a yard.

 

[Grisu]

Even interest has an "opportunity cost".

Even when you believe in standard economics: Holding money has an "opportunity cost". Lending it and receiving interest payments is exactly there to make up for those cost.

However, opportunity cost is "The cost of an alternative that must be forgone in order to pursue a certain action." and relies on the fact that you have limited resources and have to make sometimes suboptimal or risky choices. In case of interest, it is implied that capital is a limited resource. Thus, in order to borrow it someone needs to receive interest to make up for the "opportunity cost" of the foregone spending. Banks, however, create deposits "out of thin air" by expanding their balance sheets. (see e. g.: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1057521914001070 and (broken link removed to http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/quarterlybulletin/2014/qb14q1prereleasemoneycreation.pdf)) It follows that they don't have opportunity cost because there is no alternative to chose from and neither is there any foregone spending due to lending out that money. Hence, for banks receiving interest cannot be an opportunity cost.

As to "receiving interest is like getting something for free": Once your real return (after inflation) is above zero you get back more than you actually saved. It is like giving away one apple and then getting two back some time later. If the second apple is not free for you what is it then?

 

[BrotherBart]

The opportunity cost of not having enough wood is getting cold. The opportunity cost of having too much wood is nothing if you don't ignore the family processing it.

 

[Oldman47]

In the case of "free wood" I see the opportunity cost as the cost of losing what else I might be doing with my time instead of processing that wood. I may have lost the time I needed to insulate my home, for instance.

 

[Woody Stover]

I scrounge up wood from friends....Everyone at our church knows I'll take unwanted firewood.

Yep, that's what I would do if I was against the wall for dry firewood. Talk to friends and co-workers and find someone with a woodlot where you can go and get small, dead trees with the bark fallen off. That stuff is usually ready to burn, or very close. That's really your only hope unless you can find a source of dry wood, which is hard to do.