Neighbor wants my wood

[Diabel]

Had three hemlocks taken down couple of weeks ago. Was going to process them for firewood. My neighbor wants to mill them for a shed boards. In the picture is some of the logs cut to 10’ lengths. There are 9 of them (excluding the gray one) averaging 24” diam. What is not in the picture are two more tree sections same diam. but uncut and about 30’ each. The net was not too helpful with figuring out the cordage nor board feet amount. I admit, did not spend too much time trying to figure it out. Neighbor wants to replenish the wood amount with beech that he has plenty of on his wood lot. Any idea how much wood i have here?

 

[moresnow]

Had three hemlocks taken down couple of weeks ago. Was going to process them for firewood. My neighbor wants to mill them for a shed boards. In the picture is some of the logs cut to 10’ lengths. There are 9 of them (excluding the gray one) averaging 24” diam. What is not in the picture are two more tree sections same diam. but uncut and about 30’ each. The net was not too helpful with figuring out the cordage nor board feet amount. I admit, did not spend too much time trying to figure it out. Neighbor wants to replenish the wood amount with beech that he has plenty of on his wood lot. Any idea how much wood i have here?View attachment 266382

When he brings over the equal amount of Beech and stages it nicely as you have done, he can haul away your Hemlock.. Deal?

If the Beech is equal to, or better quality firewood? That I do not know.

 

[brenndatomu]

Neighbor wants to replenish the wood amount with beech that he has plenty of on his wood lot.

I was just gonna ask if the neighbor was a he or she...with the title, it makes a difference...

 

[Diabel]

He is a super nice guy. I would not feel right to ask for equal amont of much superior (btu) fire wood. After all that is a huge crapload amount of hemlock.

 

[Highbeam]

Good neighbor wants to trade (replenish) your hemlock for his beech. He has a mill so he knows how to measure. I would say “happy to help”. As I recall, you don’t live here full time so a good neighbor is more valuable than that load of lower quality firewood.

A full dump truck of 14’ logs only gets you 4-5 cords. I don’t see enough to fill a dump truck there.

 

[SidecarFlip]

The neighbor gal seems to want my wood but at my age I don't believe my wood is capable..... Just say'in... Besides, I'd be living in the garage if my wife got wind of it...

 

[moresnow]

He is a super nice guy. I would not feel right to ask for equal amont of much superior (btu) fire wood. After all that is a huge crapload amount of hemlock.

There you have it. Sounds like you have it figured out fairly. Take some pics of his milling. Always interesting.

 

[Woodsplitter67]

If it were me.. I would not try to figure out how much I have in hemlock. I would just give it to him and walk his lot and have him go with me and tag trees that he feels is an Acceptable amount for me to take in trade. To me it would not matter to much..its all free wood anyway.. its not.like you have any time and effort into cutting rounds splitting stacking. its just log lenth at this point

 

[Diabel]

If it were me.. I would not try to figure out how much I have in hemlock. I would just give it to him and walk his lot and have him go with me and tag trees that he feels is an Acceptable amount for me to take in trade. To me it would not matter to much..its all free wood anyway.. its not.like you have any time and effort into cutting rounds splitting stacking. its just log lenth at this point

Very well said. Thank you

 

[Diabel]

You guys have me convinced. I will just ask him to take it away. I dont really need anymore firewood. I have enough css wood for 3-4 yrs ahead. Soon i will be downsizing to one stove as well.
Just looking at these logs my back hurts.

 

[NickW]

Agree for some of that beech whenever it's convenient. It's great firewood. Seasons well, burns hot, coals like oak. Saving my beech for the super cold overnight fires...

 

[kennyp2339]

Take the deal and run, hemlock it ok to burn, but beech is awesome when comparing the two, thats being neighborly.

 

[SpaceBus]

Sounds like an extremely fair deal, I don't think either party is getting a short end.

 

[johneh]

If you both get what you want then it is a good deal
You benefit from some good hardwood to burn
He gets logs to make into lumber for his project
To me that just works

 

[Nealm66]

Just my experience in my area but, I like hemlock because it takes a stain really good and has a lot of character in the wood grain but I don’t think it makes a very good outside structure type lumber as it sucks up moisture and goes bad. It also gets pretty hard for soft wood after it dries, just about have to use a nail gun to get through it. I made a really nice live edge kitchen island out of it on a flip house with a black walnut stain though. Sorry, just rambling while watching my local football team getting a beat down ha ha

 

[Poindexter]

Hemlock was popular in timber framing days for the ground levels of barns because horses won't chew on it. Now that we have veterinarians, keeping a cribber, a horse that cribs (a horse that chews on wood) out of surgery is still a worthy pursuit.

North American Beech I have discovered this very weekend is an excellent smoking wood for the BBQ pit. I used to like smoldering chunks of hickory and apple on charcoal, but eventually found it too smoky and have been cooking glowing red hot coals of the common cooking woods for a while now.

Beech is a lot like maple without the sweetness, so not a lot left, but so so good. In an open cooker beech is too expensive for me to use it regularly, but in a closed cooker (with a lid, like a Weber kettle) I really really like it on several sausages and I did two salmon filets today. OMG. I texted my daughter to bring a couple forks down to the garage so I could start hitting that salmon before it was done resting in the cambro.

I would give my neighbor all the hemlock and let him bring me whatever he feels is right in exchange.

 

[firefighterjake]

Around here the hemlock we see is perhaps the wood of choice for folks using rough cut lumber to build a shed, woodshed, etc. When it is still green or semi-green it is relatively easy to work with and pound a nail or drive a screw through . .. after it dries though it becomes pretty tough. My woodshed and three other sheds are all built out of hemlock.

Our ATV Club and the local snowmobile club also tend to use hemlock for our bridges as it holds up pretty well despite being in contact with the ground.

I would say a trade of any sort of hemlock for beech would be a win for both you and your neighbor.

 

[Diabel]

Around here the hemlock we see is perhaps the wood of choice for folks using rough cut lumber to build a shed, woodshed, etc. When it is still green or semi-green it is relatively easy to work with and pound a nail or drive a screw through . .. after it dries though it becomes pretty tough. My woodshed and three other sheds are all built out of hemlock.

Our ATV Club and the local snowmobile club also tend to use hemlock for our bridges as it holds up pretty well despite being in contact with the ground.

I would say a trade of any sort of hemlock for beech would be a win for both you and your neighbor.

That is exactly what he wants it for, couple of sheds and gap bridges. We had dinner with them last night and i told him take all the hemlock. I did not mention the beech. He is a standup individual, i am sure at one point there will be a surprise pile of wood (beech) on my driveway.

 

[Nealm66]

The smaller knotty top makes nice mantles

 

[Nealm66]

I think the problem around here with hemlock outside is it’s just so dang wet, fir holds up better. I will say I noticed a difference between the quality of hemlock near the coast vs inland. But a few year old blow down hemlock is pretty well shot vs a fir. Second growth cedar doesn’t really hold up to well either really, nothing like old growth.

 

[peakbagger]

Years ago I helped a friend erect a roughly 30 by 50 timber frame barn. He had designed it the winter before and made wrap around full size templates for all the joints. He then hired his teenage son to work on the timbers instead of a regular summer job plus he obviously worked on them weekends and when he got home. By September he had a pile of timbers all precut and a concrete foundation cut into the side of the hill. We had big crew but not a lot of timber framers. All the joints were precut, all we had to do was chisel in pockets for braces. He used wet hemlock that was sawn up especially for the project. Even after 3 or four months when it was cut with a chisel it was damp and weighed a lot. We erected it over three weekends by hand using blocks and tackles (no crane). The claim was that by using wet hemlock, the barn would dry out and twist slightly locking the joints together. Its been around 30 years since we built it and its still solid. He did have a deal with the sawmill that if they saw any evidence of grain "shake" they would set it aside. It was quite popular locally for camps and barns. The problem is that it is rarely is grade stamped so it can not be used on a building that needs to be inspected and its nasty stuff to work with when dry. Its gets hard and also tends to split when nailed and is fairly well known for nasty splinters.

 

[Nealm66]

Home Depot sells it here stamped and it’s ok to use for new construction. When it first came about they called it hemfir and it works fine in a dry atmosphere. It became about the time of the spotted owl that drove the export fir market up

 

[SpaceBus]

Years ago I helped a friend erect a roughly 30 by 50 timber frame barn. He had designed it the winter before and made wrap around full size templates for all the joints. He then hired his teenage son to work on the timbers instead of a regular summer job plus he obviously worked on them weekends and when he got home. By September he had a pile of timbers all precut and a concrete foundation cut into the side of the hill. We had big crew but not a lot of timber framers. All the joints were precut, all we had to do was chisel in pockets for braces. He used wet hemlock that was sawn up especially for the project. Even after 3 or four months when it was cut with a chisel it was damp and weighed a lot. We erected it over three weekends by hand using blocks and tackles (no crane). The claim was that by using wet hemlock, the barn would dry out and twist slightly locking the joints together. Its been around 30 years since we built it and its still solid. He did have a deal with the sawmill that if they saw any evidence of grain "shake" they would set it aside. It was quite popular locally for camps and barns. The problem is that it is rarely is grade stamped so it can not be used on a building that needs to be inspected and its nasty stuff to work with when dry. Its gets hard and also tends to split when nailed and is fairly well known for nasty splinters.

I built a chicken coop with mostly spruce and fir fresh off the mill or maybe sitting in a stack for a month or two. This very dry summer made the lumber dry and the boards I milled back in June were cracking and splitting in some spots as I nailed it up. The green boards fresh from the mill gave me far less problems, but it wasn't fun to carry.

 

[Nealm66]

That’s really cool about the timer framing, I’ve never heard that before about the drying and twisting

 

[peakbagger]

About 35 years ago when the spotted owl crisis hit the Northwest logging industry there were a lot of Western Hemlock logs heading to China that stopped being available. The Chinese were desperate so they started looking for another source. Eastern Hemlock is not the same size and quality as western hemlock and its regarded as a low commercial value tree in the region. Long ago the bark was used to tan leather and trees were cut,stripped for bark and the underlying wood was left in the woods. https://northernwoodlands.org/articles/article/hemlock-and-hide-the-tanbark-industry-in-old-new-york . That market was long gone so Hemlock was cheap. The Chinese buyers were not aware of the difference in Western Hemlock compared to Eastern Hemlock so they signed a big contracts with a pulp and paper company in Maine (SD Warren). They bought a lot and SD Warren started piling it up by the truck load along an unused section of the Portland Maine harbor. They ended up with a stack about 1/3rd of mile long by 20 to 30 feet high 12 foot logs about 4 rows deep. The Chinese hauled one small load back to China and realized the difference and canceled the rest of the deal despite signing a contract to buy it all. The stack sat for a couple of years until SD Warren finally hauled it off and I think chipped it up to feed their biomass boiler.