Cheap to Free Gasser Wood Supply

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jebatty

jebatty

Minister of Fire
Hearth Supporter
Jan 1, 2008
5,796
Northern MN
The recent post of Gasser Wood Size brought to mind an idea for gasification boiler users to obtain cheap to free wood. Talk to area loggers about buying thinnings, which often are otherwise unmerchantable. This is stock too small to use in available markets, and is likely to range 2-8" or so. You may be able to get this quite cheap, as many foresters want this removed rather than burned on site or take up space in slash piles. This small stock often can be just cut and no splitting is needed.

Another idea is again to talk to area loggers about getting a load of biomass (logging leftovers = tops, branches, unmerchantable cuts, etc.). Around here the logger pays about $1/ton for this material or gets it without additional payment; and at $1/ton, that is about $3-5/cord. You may end up with a quantity of really small leftovers, which could be a disadvantage, unless you have a way to chip it for mulch, which then you also might be able to sell to local homeowners, etc.

Or, where loggers are cutting in your area, talk to the landowner about scavenging the leftover slash. You may be able to get this for free, as it mostly will be branches, small stock, etc., which is ideal for the gasser.
 
This used to be a good way to get cheap wood here, but now all of these off-cuts and biomass are chipped on-site in the woods and blown into big box trailers. The wood fibres are used by area plants to make medium-density fibreboard (MDF) and hardboard. It has become difficult to get tops and other wood scraps because the harvester gets more money for the chips than they would get for the firewood. I have seen some really nice 4-8" red oak, too twisted for the hardwood mill, get chipped instead. It broke my heart to see that beautiful firewood go into the chipper.
 
The loggers are going down to 4" here as well. However, they are more than happy to give you the cutoffs that were too short for the semi yet bigger than they like to run through their chippers.
 
it's much harder in Maine to get free gasser wood as most is chipped and blown into a tractor trailer, hauled to a local paper mill, or trucked to Eastport and shipped over to a paper mill in Finland. This state has several 25 megawatt bioboilers that burn chipped up biomass for electricity. these boiler house's were built 15 years ago to burn large pile of slash left in the woods. sweetheat
 
The loggers are going down to 4” here as well.
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Whole tree harvest operations are going down to the leaves and needles. They bring out the entire tree, cut and sort out different lumber products and wind the rest through the chipper and into the trailer vans. All that's left at the site are a few piles of wood chips that escaped. Good mulch.
 
sweetheat said:
it's much harder in Maine to get free gasser wood as most is chipped and blown into a tractor trailer, hauled to a local paper mill, or trucked to Eastport and shipped over to a paper mill in Finland. This state has several 25 megawatt bioboilers that burn chipped up biomass for electricity. these boiler house's were built 15 years ago to burn large pile of slash left in the woods. sweetheat
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It's also hard, in maine, to get permission to do the scrounging. Liability problems, plus not worth the land mangers' time to issue permits for this. Can't blame them, they're facing cutbacks in help, just like the rest of us. This state has CLP or CPL, can't remember how it goes. Certified Professional Loggers' certification. Certification, plus a healthy dose of insurance to boot, the only way to cut wood. The old days of scrounging are over. Plus, as noted above, all leftovers getting chip/grinded for some sort of biomass. Looks good after a few years. Also the new type of procesors are cutting, limbing, sizing, and topping off right off the stump.
 
I was on a job site last fall and there were two pile of tree length hard and soft wood 30 ft tall 60 ft long and I started crying as the chipper arrived and they started blowing chips into the trailers. The logger said he made better money in chips sold to the power plants than selling cordwood and chasing his money for the 2 cords he cut, split,and delivered to some joe blow. When they were done chipping you could not of built a campfire with the wood left.
 
NYC is trimming all the street side trees. Its mostly Oak and Maple. They probably chip about a cord per block. ouch
 
Contractors that trim for utility pole lines may be a source- they seem to leave large amounts of wood of all sizes in utility rights-of-way; you may need to get permission from the individual landowner to go in and take out the wood, though
 
Another idea, for those who live in snowmobile country-

Trails end up being trimmed, and the wood is really smaller than what most people would think of as firewood size, so it ends up along the trailside. I allow a snowmobile trail to cross my place (even though I do not own a snow machine) and I'm now suddenly looking at the piles of trimmings, which would never have been worth the bother with my old wood furnace, as great snacks for my gasifier once I cut them to length. I suspect that at least in areas where people get along well, both snowmobile clubs and landowners might be delighted at the prospect of someone coming in to cut up and take out all of that stuff- as long as you do it well and don't leave a mess.
 
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