Slab wood 40$ a pickup load
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I'm thinking that might not be such a good deal, depending on local wood prices of course. $40 a trailer load I might jump on though.
Several of the local small contract sawmills charge more to have wood sawn if the client doesnt take the slabs. To most small mills its a waste product that they have no use for. If the mill owner has some enterprising teenagers, they can cut it up and bundle it for campfire wood, but unless the labor is cheap its usually a break even deal at best. Generally the bark to wood ratio is high making it low density wood and there frequently is a lot of dirt, so you end up having to stoke the stove more often and end up with a lot more ash. Generally slabs are wet wood as the logs are kept wet or are green before sawing so you are getting high moisture content. If you weight it all out, I expect that you are paying quite a bit compared to buying green cordwood thats been sitting for a few months.
My brother in law buys slab wood from a local Amish farm several times a year for about this price. Primarily he uses it for kindling or shoulder season burning. For him it's a no brainer since he drives right by the place about once a week. If I had to drive too far to get it, I'd pass....
Around here you can buy slab from an Amish saw mill at 15 bucks a truck load.
They take the bark off it too.
They take the bark off it too.
84Buckeye said:
Wish we had some Amish saw mills around here! Wouldn't mind being able to buy furniture direct from local Amish craftsmen, either.
Peace,
- Sequoia
Same deal here. Burned 10 "cords" (bundles) of it last year. Could get two on a 20' trailer. Cost to the Amish mill guy was $10 a bundle. We spent $15 or $20 a bundle in gas though. The bundles were roughly 4 or 5' by 3 or 4' by 10' long. Rough cord, but probably on the short side if you cut it up and stacked it. I spent many an hour ripping through those bundles with the saw. Cheap, and it did its job, but man. What a pain in the but. Never again, unless I have to.
There is a guy selling slab for $15 a bundle in my area and $25 for a pick-up load. Odd dimensions and length make it difficult to handle at times but that is the way of wood until it is cut to what is preferred. With slab though the pieces can get intertwined and hard to unload.
That was probably my main gripe with the slabwood. Crazy odd sizes of wood. I had everything from 10x10x10 foot piece to veneer thin. It worked, but man what a pain. Everything from loading to unloading to cutting, stacking, loading in the stove, etc. Just a pain. That said, it sure was cheap!
In mid MO slabwood is $10 a bundle and mostly oak as we make a lot of pallets. They are banded and the mill will load onto your trailer. For me they've worked out to be about 2/3 of a cord once cut and stacked. A bundle is usually 8'-10' long and 5' in dia. I can get 2 "whole" bundles on my trailer if the guy loads carefully. With fuel for my truck and saw I figure $30/cord. This will be my 1st season burning full time and I figured they'd season quicker and get me through the first few months. A semi-seasoned CSD cord is $150+ around my area.
You can process them a few ways. The first time I went through the hassle of dragging them off the trailer and dropping the individual slabs into a jig I'd made out of t-posts. Set the posts a little closer than the length of your bar, stack her full, and start slicing. That worked OK, but was too much handling. Now I leave them in the bundle on the trailer and cut sections off. I pull trailer up RIGHT NEXT TO the wood pile so stackign is easier. Then the bottom pieces get stacked into the jig for processing. Much less handling, just watch the trailer floor when cutting.
- JP
You can process them a few ways. The first time I went through the hassle of dragging them off the trailer and dropping the individual slabs into a jig I'd made out of t-posts. Set the posts a little closer than the length of your bar, stack her full, and start slicing. That worked OK, but was too much handling. Now I leave them in the bundle on the trailer and cut sections off. I pull trailer up RIGHT NEXT TO the wood pile so stackign is easier. Then the bottom pieces get stacked into the jig for processing. Much less handling, just watch the trailer floor when cutting.
- JP
JPinnell said:
I'm in SW MI, and this mirrors my experience exactly. Same price, size, they load it onto the trailer, etc. Pretty similar price for CSD, too.
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