Tree Felling

[EbS-P]

No worries here, that neighbor is flag-lotted behind me, no one can see him from the road. You can only see the trees from his house or mine.

Be careful with how friendly you get with a tree guy. Next thing you know, he'll be calling on a regular basis, asking to dump firewood in your yard. Great if you're hard up for it, but it's rarely primo or the desired lengths, so really more of a nuisance for anyone with perpetual piles of nice straight logs awaiting processing.

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This. Last free wood I got was already bucked. To short or two long and just awful to split. But the price was right. It’s split and stacked now but I think I’ll be a bit more picky about the next load.

 

[Riverbanks]

Nobody here gives away free wood, except for garbage, when the mortgage on the equipment doesn't stop in the winter, you find ways to pay the bill, firewood is a nice little paycheck

 

[EbS-P]

Nobody here gives away free wood, except for garbage, when the mortgage on the equipment doesn't stop in the winter, you find ways to pay the bill, firewood is a nice little paycheck

Here they pay extra to dump anything bigger than 6”. Last he said it cost him 75$ To dump his single axel utility trailer with bigger pieces on it.

 

[Riverbanks]

Ain't it wild? It's regional, we have a lot of outside wood boilers, everything has a value

 

[bholler]

Leave half of the branches intact, so the tree will grow back its lost branches in the following year. If a tree could gain 20% biomass each year, it's obviously better to sustainably harvest large trees than planting new trees.

If you cut half the branches the vast majority of trees are going to die. Try again

 

[stoveliker]

Tree pruning is precisely that. It inevitably results in a dead tree, and the years before it actually is completely dead, half rotten branches come down.

I've seen this happen numerous times.

Cut half off any living thing off and it won't thrive and likely die.

 

[Ashful]

Nobody here gives away free wood, except for garbage, when the mortgage on the equipment doesn't stop in the winter, you find ways to pay the bill, firewood is a nice little paycheck

Maybe not right in the city of Glens Falls, but the rural areas surrounding the Hudson River corridor would almost certainly have tree companies happy to unload for free, same as here in the semi-rural 'burbs north of Philly. Firewood doesn't really turn any profit, unless you're processing straight logs with automated equipment, when you have to pay a person to handle wood, chainsaws, and a splitter. I know this from two friends in the business.

They will sometimes use a little firewood to burn down time, if they want to keep seasonal staff occupied, and if there's no more profitable work to do. But because this is a task of last resort, it never comes close to consuming the amount of material they generate in taking down trees.

The tree guys I know always try to sell their dump loads of wood, un-split. When they're unable to do that, they call friends and acquaintances like me, whoever is closest to the work site. They'll try to convince you to give them some money for it, and when you say you don't really need it, then they always offer to dump for free. Anything to avoid a trip to the mulching plant, and any costs associated with that, it would seem.

 

[bholler]

Maybe not right in the city of Glens Falls, but the rural areas surrounding the Hudson River corridor would almost certainly have tree companies happy to unload for free, same as here in the semi-rural 'burbs north of Philly. Firewood doesn't really turn any profit, unless you're processing straight logs with automated equipment, when you have to pay a person to handle wood, chainsaws, and a splitter. I know this from two friends in the business.

They will sometimes use a little firewood to burn down time, if they want to keep seasonal staff occupied, and if there's no more profitable work to do. But because this is a task of last resort, it never comes close to consuming the amount of material they generate in taking down trees.

The tree guys I know always try to sell their dump loads of wood, un-split. When they're unable to do that, they call friends and acquaintances like me, whoever is closest to the work site. They'll try to convince you to give them some money for it, and when you say you don't really need it, then they always offer to dump for free. Anything to avoid a trip to the mulching plant, and any costs associated with that, it would seem.

Few people give good wood away here either. Atleast not delivered there is free for the taking all the time

 

[Riverbanks]

You said it "seasonal staff" if you want them next year, keep them employed, you could call Sears, they are a large tree service in the falls area, 10 bucks says you ain't getting squat for free ,lol

 

[Nealm66]

A neighbor's ash trees have been wiped out, he is not as religious about treating them as me. About a dozen of them were very large (eg. 80 - 100 feet tall), and overhanging his house. My certainty on safely dropping them is about 99.9%, but since there's always that 0.1% uncertainty, and because I'm an un-insured amateur, I told him he'd better get a tree crew in to handle the ones close to the house.

In any case, the tree crew came in, and did exactly that. They dropped the tops, ground everything wiggly into woodchips, and left everything that was straight stacked around the property for me to collect. Then they left the bare trunks standing maybe 40 feet tall all over the property, I believe they called them "hobs"? Looks like a depressing stick forest.

I'll probably drop them all this winter, as soon as I free up more space for stacking logs, preferring to get them on the ground sooner than later.

There’s 2 classifications for liability insurance. One for tree work/pruning/surgeon and a loggers broad form/lumbering. The tree service one doesn’t cover felling unless you have a rider and those are very tough to get so tree services will only piece trees down a lot of times because no coverage. The loggers broad highly frowns upon resi work. I have the logger/lumbering with a tree service rider which is extremely difficult to get without previous history but this allows me to fall trees in resi surroundings and even harvest/log. We definitely have hardwood stands here in the west and some of them are on very steep ground and yes they keep your adrenaline flowing. Smaller second growth fir can be very forgiving but any of the easy ground is usually gobbled up by the mechanized logging so everything left can be challenging. I didn’t watch the videos but I hope they’re helpful

 

[Ashful]

you could call Sears, they are a large tree service in the falls area, 10 bucks says you ain't getting squat for free ,lol

You're skipping over some pretty critical points in my post, in forming that response. I wouldn't get it free here either, if I called them!

I was pretty clear that they only call me on occasions they don't have an easy local buyer. And I thought I was also clear that they try to sell it to me first. It only becomes free when I say "no thanks", and they realize they're going to have to pay a driver to take it to the mulching site.

I'm not trying to be a jerk, or get wood for free. I turn it down because I truly would rather not have their wood, taking their odd bits it is not helping me any, but I occasionally acquiesce to help them save a trip across town in the middle of a job.

I'm also not pretending they're calling me every week, but it happens a few times each year, enough to be a regular pattern.

 

[Nealm66]

I’m not sure but we call them stobs( the 40’ stumps) so maybe instead of hobs, they too were calling them stobs

 

[Ashful]

I’m not sure but we call them stobs( the 40’ stumps) so maybe instead of hobs, they too were calling them stobs

That was it. My poor memory, interfering again.

 

[Jags]

That roughly agrees with my memory, but nothing comes up when I search the archive for that name.

Not surprising. It goes back a long ways and may not have made it through one of the several site upgrades. I may also be misspelling the name. But it's something like that.