A friend of mine is looking into having a tree removed from his front yard. He says its an oak tree 9-10 feet in diameter and of unknown height. I am trying to get pictures, I don't live in the Atlanta area.
They are quoting him $1200-$1500 to chop down, remove the tree and grind the stump. I have tried to get him to look into talking to someone who is interested in the lumber to either handle the removal themselves, or to at least help defray the cost.
This is very routine in Wisconsin, but I don't know the Atlanta market.
So far, he's not willing to look into other options. He talked with his agent (I would have placed an anonymous phone call to the insurance company instead), and he scared the bejeezus out of him. Claims he won't have coverage if it falls on his house.
On 12 May 2004 11:55:35 -0700, snipped-for-privacy@execpc.com (BIG JOE) wrote:
It depends on how much "sweat equity" he wants to put into it. Taking down a LARGE tree like that is a challenging propostion, and the problems go up the closer it is to the house, or other buildings that could be damaged. Frankly, that does not seem like an out of line amount. Of COURSE the insurance agent put the fear of God into him. It is there job to suck as much money out of our pocket, while paying out as little as possible. That became a problem when the insurance industry became a "for profit" industry. How about this. Make a deal with the arborist to take down the tree, and chop up everything smaller than, say, 5" in diameter, making it into mulch. Might be able to get a better price for that job. Then...He could have the trunk and larger branches sawn up into lumber for fairly small amounts (there are, I am sure, a number of small sawmill owners in the area that would be happy to do it for $0.25/board foot or less). He could then sell the lumber for $0.75/board foot or so. He could cut some of the medium sized limbs (say, 12" diameter or less) into short lengths and sell them as bowl blanks for woodturners at $1.00 or $2.00 each. Note that the cut ends need to be sealed with wax, or latex paint or something, to keep them from from checking. now...all this requires a certian amount of effort on his part. However, I suspect that a posting to THIS news group would bring a LOT of woodworkers out of the woodwork (as it were) with interest in good lumber at a bargain price. Alternatively, he might contact some of the sawyers and see if they would be interested in taking it on commission...say a 60%/40% split. One thing that is VERY important to do is to run over it ALL with a metal detector,a nd, use bright red spray paint to mark ANY metal in the wood. There is nothing that makes a sawyer grumpier than having to resharpen or replace a blade that has tried to cut a tire iron that some idiot left in the crotch of a tree 30 years ago. Luckily, bullets are fair game, as they are so soft that they don't bother the blade. As a matter of fact, a friend of mine and I were sawing up a trunk for bowl blanks a bit ago, and, cut through what looked like about a .45 cal slug embedded DEEP in a tree. It COULD have been Civil War vintage, although I suspect that it is more likely to have been from the 20s or so. Alas, it was on the part of the trunk that was going away when it gets turned, so, there was no way to incorporate it into the design. Regards Dave Mundt
Dave, some great ideas. At last check, he was able to find a couple guys who saw some value in the tree itself, and quoted him substantially less. He is still paying, though, and I can't get him to sub out the work as you suggest and sell the lumber.
Please please post the pictures! A nine foot diameter oak is bigger than any that I've ever seen. I'm not even sure where you'd get a saw with a blade that long. Pacific northwest? But something that large would usually be mounted on a tracked vehicle.
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