Our immediate area has been hit with 3 major windstorms, and torrential downpours just this year. My immediate neighbor had a 400+yr old oak tree fall on his property. Cost to cut and remove was $3,500, plus there was damage to his property. Overall, our area has experience 3 major wind and rain storms this Spring, and it has caused a huge problem. So, all my sympathies go out to all those other folks who have experienced the same. Going back in Time we have lost so many large trees that we are nearly treeless these days. But we still have some very old large trees left. My solution is to see if those standing trees can be sold for their lumber value before another windstorm takes them down.
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Wow, 400 year old oak could be worth way more than 3.5k in lumber!
Old growth dense grain woods are good for making furniture with, if you know any furniture shops near you Iâd try calling them about those trees.
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You are mostly correct, but if the lumber market is now âfloodedâ with hundreds of thousands of those downed trees over a wide swath of land - think of how many states have lately been hit by major storms over the past few months - then all, and I mean ALL, sawmills are at or beyond capacity already. The problem then becomes, if a resource is scarce the âpriceâ of it rises, but when the resource is not scarce, but is abundant it becomes almost âworthlessâ. We already have enough lumber to construct many houses. Now, if the resource was gold, then it would be different.
Well you can buy your own portable sawmill for less than $3,000, but the problem with the market is what people are willing to pay for something so gold may be more stable than lumber with that.
The U.S. dollar was only established 231 years ago so 400 year old lumber I would hope could sell for a lot probably best to mill that in slabs for dining room tables could sell for about $1,000 each at least I would hope.
Have you ever operated a sawmill? No, I thought not. As with everything, it is far more complex than almost anyone imagines. Consider the âyardâ where the piles of logs are stored. Now, letâs consider a Law of Physics that must be observed. Let us presume you âpileâ up a huge inventory of logs to be cut into saleable lumber. Once that is done the logs âmustâ be kept wet, because otherwise the logs will spontaneously combust and create a huge bonfire.
Question, how could that be prevented? Answer that.
is it a who does it, or a with what does it, or you have to get permit problem?
if i could i would hop over the ocean - never been to the States before, and now we still have to jab ourselves to go(!)- with âOur Boys of the Gardenâ and make it go away in an hour. you would be amazed what these pair of brothers (2+2) is capable of.
again sorry if i was too blunt. peace
If youâre talking about large scale industrial mill operations, that is a lot different than the portable mills Iâve seen which are basically just a giant band saw on a little rail track.
Never heard of logs spontaneously combusting before, are you being serious about that?
Sawdust or woodchips maybe, but not logs unless theyâre in a giant pile with no air circulation buried under sawdust and people smoke and spill gas a lot at the mill.
Or if youâre in a desert, but if there is rain or you just put the logs in a river like in this picture then they wonât burn while they are underwater.
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Yes, logs are stacked in large piles. The logs near the bottom of the pile can combust and start a fire from the weight. Lumber yards keep the logs wet by spraying water over the pile using a large sprinkler system. Also, logs are best sawn when they are âwetâ, and not all dried out.
Most of the small operations usually never have a huge number of logs on hand, but I have seen a couple of big operations in Montana and Idaho that had huge log yards.
what kind of working morale is that? i mean, surely, they smoke, outside. but spilling gas? that fascinates me.
Would be bad, was just saying that as possible reason why logs would combust in accident. Hadnât heard of just weight of logs in pile causing spontaneous combustion, donât know how that works.
Too funny!!! Typical of YOUR humorâŚLove it!! 
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Another huge problem with a portable sawmill is the enormous weight of these very large oak trees. The ones in question are about 4â in diameter. So, first one would need a large chain saw to cut the trunk into pieces. Them either a huge log truck with a way to lift it onto the truck to get it to the sawmill or set up the portable sawmill on-site. Still, you need to lift the log onto the track, and have a large bandsaw capable of cutting the log into lumber. Very expensive and specialized equipment is needed, and it must be maintained. Sure, if one had the money to get all that accomplished then you would need to be doing it full-time.
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Iâve learned a lot about logging from you guys that I didnât know from a combined decade or so being in the woods assisting with cutting,loading,stacking firewood for heating my various abodes.
I would not like to do that now, being a geezer an all, but this past winter I was doing the equivalent of.
Just when you think youâre finished with hard laborâŚ
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About 2 weeks ago another member and I noticed some posts disappeared with no trace left at all. Doesnât it usually say âpost deletedâ and their name?
If posts were deleted by an administrator than they would disappear right away. Seems like there is a delay of about a day if a user deletes a post before it vanishes.
- Before enlightenment:
Chop wood, carry water.
; - After enlightenment:
Chop wood, carry water.
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donât forget the third imperative!
âeat drink!â
after you chopped wood and carried water. it is hard to find. the water. water is good.
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or waiter. i always mix these things up.
your darkness is shining! the best giveaway i heard!
water is good.
Itâs a good one, thanks. Someone, you?, posted this the other day as a video with him walking on a beach. I have not seen the movie.
A good friend of mine said he had an intuition a few years back, that the pure water element most specifically represents God.
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