Is $38/ton for pulp? Chipping saw? Saw Timber?
You've got some big trees, and you should be getting premium $$ for the big ones...
$38 is for saw timber. The guy at the scales comes out and looks it over carefully before writing up the ticket. I would imagine it would be lot less than $38/ton for pulp, but I'm not 100%.
I'm overseeing the building of a house on this lot for my mother. It has to be ready for her to move into on May 1st, so the trees needs to get cleared asap. I'm meeting with the builder, his chief machine operator (who was a logger for 20 years), and another logger, all tomorrow morning to figure out who will be doing what in about a 1 acre rectangle where the house, driveway, yard and drain field will be located. They need to break ground 1st week of January to make the May 1st date, so hopefully we can work something out where all the trees within the rectangle gets cut and moved to the side in such a way that I can get to them and haul them off to the mill. In a perfect world they would already be topped and limbed, but that's probably wishful thinking...
The builder owns all his own equipment, including a 24"
chipper. What they normally do, is to use their excavator with a thumb to feed each tree whole into the
chipper and its gone. And they charge $60/hour for the
chipper and $90/hour for the excavator, plus $12/hour for the helper cutting down the trees. So instead of making a little money off the trees, I'd end up paying to have them removed. Of course they would get it done in a day or two instead of the several weeks it would take me to do it by myself.
Should be in interesting meeting....
I use Mid-Atlantic Tree Harvester's for my logging. They are a good bunch, clean and pay well and timely. Ask for Frankie Johnson... He is my guy, PM me and I'll give you his cell number...
Thanks David. I'll keep that in mind if things don't work out in the morning. I might be slightly outside their service area, but maybe not.
Peter