Cutting wood on shares, what's the breakdown?

[motownbrowne]

I'm scaling up my wood cutting this year in preparation for increasing my maple syrup production next season. I'm figuring I'd better get about 10 cords ready by this fall. More would be even better.

A guy about a mile away, who I've met a few times had some logging done this winter. Mostly red oak as far as I know. I called and said I'd be interested in cutting some wood on shares. I have good wood cutting equipment: my Kubota with a Farmi winch, a few good saws, good cant hooks, trailers, safety equipment, etc. I proposed that i could skid tops out from the logged area and we could split what i bring out. He says he's interested in having me work there, so I'm wondering what you guys would think is fair.

I don't know if he's planning on working with me or not. He burns wood and cuts for himself. It's always safer having two people in the woods. If we're working together, I'd think my share would go down a little to account for increased production from his labor.

I'm not quite sure what we'll end up doing, me skidding and stacking his share, or bucking it also. I figure if I just skid and stack, my share should be somewhere in the ballpark of 1/3. Half or a little more if I'm bucking it also. Does this seem fair? I'm only interested in pursuing this if it works for both the landowner and myself.

Also, how would you recommend judging quantities of logs like this. Two skids for you, one for me, eyeballing the piles at the end of the day, cutting and stacking and comparing numbers once we've got it in a pile?

Also, I don't think any money needs to change hands, but just for the sake of academia, what do you think you'd pay for red oak tops laying on the ground. Assuming easy access from a skidding trail, and a place to cut and load trucks on the property, would you pay $20/cord, $40? Seasoned oak firewood seems to go for about 20-$250/cord plus delivery around here.

Thanks for all your input.

 

[2458n]

A guy in this area wants you to clear his fence rows and do a 50-50 split. He must not have much luck as the Ad is in the weekly paper all winter. Get any gray areas nailed down. Take your wood home on a daily basis-- that way it will not all come up missing during the week when you are not around. Lesson learned when I was 16 years old.

 

[motownbrowne]

A guy in this area wants you to clear his fence rows and do a 50-50 split. He must not have much luck as the Ad is in the weekly paper all winter. Get any gray areas nailed down. Take your wood home on a daily basis-- that way it will not all come up missing during the week when you are not around. Lesson learned when I was 16 years old.

I suppose passers by could steal wood, but I'm not concerned about my portion getting absorbed into the property owner's pile. We have a pretty close neighborhood here, and stuff like that is very uncommon.

I agree about nailing things down before starting. That's why I'm hoping for some input on what shares seem fair to both parties.

 

[CalG]

You know, without a guess as to how long it will take to pull 30 chord out of his woods, there is no way to know what would be fair.

Figure your time, and equipment time, at $200 per, split and piled. What are you willing to work for?

 

[newbury]

I'm scaling up my wood cutting this year in preparation for increasing my maple syrup production next season. I'm figuring I'd better get about 10 cords ready by this fall. More would be even better.

Do you have plans for other years?

A guy about a mile away, who I've met a few times had some logging done this winter. Mostly red oak as far as I know. I called and said I'd be interested in cutting some wood on shares. I have good wood cutting equipment: my Kubota with a Farmi winch, a few good saws, good cant hooks, trailers, safety equipment, etc. I proposed that i could skid tops out from the logged area and we could split what i bring out. He says he's interested in having me work there, so I'm wondering what you guys would think is fair.

Are you looking for a long term relationship, will he have more logging done? How much of your 10 cords would you plan on getting from him?

Does the etc. include a good splitter? Was there any splitting mentioned?

Do you know what his plans are for the land? Does he want it "cleaned up" or does he view the logging remains as rabbit habitat for hunting?

I don't know if he's planning on working with me or not. He burns wood and cuts for himself. It's always safer having two people in the woods. If we're working together, I'd think my share would go down a little to account for increased production from his labor.

I'm not quite sure what we'll end up doing, me skidding and stacking his share, or bucking it also. I figure if I just skid and stack, my share should be somewhere in the ballpark of 1/3. Half or a little more if I'm bucking it also. Does this seem fair? I'm only interested in pursuing this if it works for both the landowner and myself.

Also, how would you recommend judging quantities of logs like this. Two skids for you, one for me, eyeballing the piles at the end of the day, cutting and stacking and comparing numbers once we've got it in a pile?

Reads like a good opportunity for both of you. Do you know how much wood he burns? Does he need 20 cords to get by ? Or 1 cord and sell the rest? Or does he just want enough for his own burning?

Also, I don't think any money needs to change hands, but just for the sake of academia, what do you think you'd pay for red oak tops laying on the ground. Assuming easy access from a skidding trail, and a place to cut and load trucks on the property, would you pay $20/cord, $40? Seasoned oak firewood seems to go for about 20-$250/cord plus delivery around here.

Thanks for all your input.

Did you mean $200-$250/cord?
For the sake of academia even if I lived on my land in Vermont $40/ cord for wood that needed skidding, stacking, bucking, splitting, delivery would be a bit much. But I've got about 40 acres to log.

I'd think for your investment in equipment, if you do the skidding, bucking and stacking a half share would be fair.

 

[turnkey4099]

Long time wood cutter. In general wood laying on the ground to be cut isn't worth very much. the value in firewood is the time, money and equipment put into it. I have done 50/50 split but that is way overboard if you do all the work. If he two of you work together, then I wouild try to negotiate a cash deal of so much per load...again not very much.
Harry K

 

[motownbrowne]

Good questions here, Newbury, I'll see if I can answer them.

Do you have plans for other years? No, I don't have plans yet. If I can get 10-12 cords cut this summer I'll have probably 13-15 ready to go for next year (already have some inventory). It's possible I'd burn 10 in a season, but 8 is more likely. I'm making a substantial investment in scaling up for next year. After I upgrade evaporators and get the new tubing system installed, I'll probably be out $4-5k this year. In future years I may just buy a truckload of logs (10 cords of hardwood runs $1000 delivered), but this year, I'd like to incur as little additional cost as possible. Really, if the expansion goes as planned, it'll be fine to spend $750-1000 on fuel annually. I would still like to find places in the neighborhood to cut, though to keep the cost of fuel down.

Are you looking for a long term relationship, will he have more logging done? How much of your 10 cords would you plan on getting from him?

I don't quite know how much is currently available. I think he has something to the tune of 40-60 acres selectively cut. I think I'm a handy guy to have around when cutting wood. I'm a safe operator of saws and equipment, so I'd like to develop a long term relationship with a few people to help cut wood. I'd like to think that the convenience I can offer to any local property owner with the winch, plus the safety benefit of having a second person would be worth giving up a 1/3-1/2 share of what's cut. As far as I know the logging is completed at his location, for now anyway. It was a scheduled cut as outlined in a timber management plan.

Does the etc. include a good splitter? Was there any splitting mentioned?

No splitting involved in the deal. I think bucking is the furthest I'd want to go in processing his share. I suppose if he wanted to pay me to help out running his splitter, I'd consider it. I split everything with either my Gransfors Bruks splitting maul or my Fiskars X27. I do occasionally (every 2-3 years) rent a splitter from another neighbor. Red oak splits very well, and I very much enjoy splitting by hand. One huge benefit to the new larger evaporator that I'm installing is that it'll burn larger pieces of wood. My current model (a 2'x10') prefers wood to be cut about 18-20" long and split to the size of your wrist. The new one (a 4'x14') doesn't mind pieces up to 48" long and 6" in diameter. This will definitely reduce the number of swings with the maul per cord of wood.

Do you know what his plans are for the land? Does he want it "cleaned up" or does he view the logging remains as rabbit habitat for hunting?

Honestly, I don't know. He mentioned cleaning some of it up, but I can't imagine he wants the whole thing to look like a park. I'll report back once we meet in person

Reads like a good opportunity for both of you. Do you know how much wood he burns? Does he need 20 cords to get by ? Or 1 cord and sell the rest? Or does he just want enough for his own burning?

I'm thinking he burns quite a bit. They just built a new home on an adjacent lot to their original one. I think they've got one OWB at each location (they're selling the original home soon), depending on how long they're heating both homes, it might be 10-20 full cords/year.

Did you mean $200-$250/cord?
For the sake of academia even if I lived on my land in Vermont $40/ cord for wood that needed skidding, stacking, bucking, splitting, delivery would be a bit much. But I've got about 40 acres to log.

Yes, I did mean $200-$250. I agree that $40 sounds high, especially when I can get it delivered to my door with no wear and tear on my equipment for $100/cord. What about $20-25, though? I think that might make it more reasonable for this year at least, while I'm trying to keep what money there is left in the syrup budget in the bank.

I'd think for your investment in equipment, if you do the skidding, bucking and stacking a half share would be fair.

That's good to hear. I probably wouldn't want to do it for much less. Maybe 1/3 if I don't buck his share, only skid and stack logs. If he says he wants to give me much less than a third, I'll probably bite the bullet and get a load delivered.

 

[LD1]

Interesting topic, and there really is no right answer here. It all depends on your availability of wood by other means.

We cut on shares about 10 years ago when the guy whos woods, just a ~1/2 mile ride back the field, was logged. The wood was plentiful and easy cutting. Something like 200+ trees taken from 30-40 acres. No other good sources for cutting wood at the time. We agreed on a 1/3 share, we do the bucking, but no splitting. Haul it just a few hundred yards from the woods to his pile. Two of us could go back there, fill both trailers with rounds (about 1-1/2 cord by the time it would be split), and haul to his pile. Then load up again and haul home, return to woods and haul our 2nd round home, and be done by 2 in the afternoon. So ~3 cords of rounds to us, done by 2 in the afternoon.

Even though we were giving up 1/3 of the wood, No where else we had opportunity to cut at would yield 3 cord hauled home by early afternoon. So it was a good gig.

Right now, the woods next to that has been logged out. Bout 30 acres owned by one sister and 90 trees. Connected to ~10 acres with 20-30 trees taken. The 30 acres is owned by the sister that dont burn wood. Keep all we cut. The other section, she wants 1/2 of the wood and wants us to split it. Guess where we arent cutting. Even once the 30 acres gets cleaned up, we have endless fencerows to clear, so her wood can rot for all I care. Wanna get greedy.....get nothing.

Back to your situation.....giving up 2/3rds seems a bit much. As does $1000 for 10 cord of logs. I just saw an ad around here for 5-6 cord apprx logs for $350, and qty discounts offered. But cords of split wood only sell for $150-$180 around here as well.

But look at it like this, if you give up 2/3, that means you have to skid out 30 cords of logs just to get yourself 10. Then have to buck and haul the mile home. Is skidding 30 cords worth $1000 to you? If on a 1/2 share, is skidding 20 cord worth it? And sawing is the fun part....would going on 1/3 shares if you buck it for him worth it to you?

And all of that has to compare to what other sources of wood you have access to. If going a mile down the road makes you give up 2/3rs of your skidded logs, and going 2 miles the other direction and you dont have to give up anything.......Why would you even consider it?

As to what he had logged.....was it all red oak? 99% of what gets logged around here is one of 3 species....maple, red oak, ash. And from experience, get the maple first. After a year, the tops arent really worth cutting. Get the red oak second as it seems to last 2-3 years before it starts to rot. Save the ash for last as it tends to last 3-4 years.

Good luck and let us know how this turns out.

 

[EarPlug]

I would also think about getting a Release of Liability signed. You will be working on someone else's property. Working with someone with unknown skill level. The type of work has a higher probability of accidents.

 

[mbohuntr]

Not directly related, but something to think about... after my father passed, I went to one of his former friends, and Woodlot owner and asked to cut wood on shares. We agreed on a 2 to 1 split with me stacking his shares as proof of quantity.

So... after having cut myself 20 face cord at 14", I called him and asked what length he wanted his 10 cord? He replied 24"....

Well... a deal is a deal, and I filled my end of the bargain, but learned a valuable lesson....