Need sources for free or VERY cheap wood

[Montyhp]

I have never paid more than $1/bf for wood from downed trees. Look for building sites and talk to the foreman. Ask if they can leave the logs in

8' lengths. Get to know a local sawyer. Got some poplar and some very highly figured QS white oak.

[Charley]

Heavy machine movers (riggers) are quite frequently taking large machine crates and good lumber to the dumps. They usually let the crate sections pile up in their warehouse or yard until they have a full truckload and then haul it away.

The local rigger that I know gets crates made out of all kinds of wood that are sometimes as large as about 8' x 8' x 30'. Quite often last year he seemed to have extremely large crates that were made from whole sheets of

3/4 AC plywood (real nice stuff). The last one that I got from him had been assembled with drywall screws (lucky me). After about an hour with my reversible drill I had 12 near perfect whole sheets of 3/4 AC plywood and a couple of half sheets, about 200 lineal ft of 1x4 pine, 23 - 2x4's 8-12 foot long, about 5 lbs of drywall screws in assorted lengths, and some broken stuff. (I left all the broken stuff in his pile). The skid under this crate had been made from three 6 x 10 pine runners with 3 x 10 rough sawn pine decking, but he said he was keeping the it to move another machine.

He also quite frequently has heavy timber 6 X 12's about 6' long which are usually pine, but sometimes red oak and hickory. Anytime I ask him for wood he gladly gives me all that I want, and then some. He tried to give me about

1/2 semi load of the stuff the last time that I asked him for some. If I don't take it, he says he has to pay the dump to take it and he has to haul it to them, so he's very cooperative and eager for me to take as much as I'm willing to. He told me that another guy had been taking wood from him back in 2001, but when he finished building a 2 car garage from it, he stopped coming by.

Look in the yellow pages for these guys. I'm sure that most of them would gladly give you all of the wood that you can use. Make good friends with them, respect their property while you are getting the wood, and ALWAYS clean up the mess before you leave and you may never have to buy another piece of common lumber.

Charley

[George Devine]

If you have an archetectral wood shop in your area, check with them about scrap wood they are throwing out. I've gotten pieces of cherry, maple and mahogany at a shop near me. George

[Biff Steele]

Well of all the wood stashed in my barn, the cheapest came from auctions. And to further qualify that, the cheapest of the cheapest came from auctions on cold/rainy days when the wood was back behind a barn or something which of course, requires a little extra work. My non-scientific observation is that if it's cold and rainy, you'll pay a lot less than if it's a nice cool, dry fall day.

I once bought a pile of what looked like crap-wood but the bottom 15 boards were birdseye like I had never seen. Paid a whopping $3 for the pile and turned around and gave the crapwood to a guy for helping me load the other stuff. Laughed all the way home.

I've got a lot of nice wood by hooking up with people who burn wood. I help a guy once a year. He burns about 10 cords a year. I help him split and stack. In return I take a pickup load for my meager needs and get to scrounge for burls and crotches. Got a lot of fiddle-back maple one year from it and many burls. Again - work required.

Pallets are a good source but getting rid of the nails and such can be a pain. It's near impossible to pull nails from most pallets since their driven into the wood green (around here it's oak). By the time you get them the wood has a pretty good hold on'em. Plus if I were going to use this as a source, I'd sure invest in a metal detector.

That's my .02 worth, ymmv. Remember, noth>I am looking for sources of free or VERY cheap wood in the York PA area, Any

[Rich]

WENT dumpster diving today, Got LOTS of useable wood

Thanks for all the great Ideas

Rich