Large Red Oak Tree

[fishheadbob]

A lot of good points in this thread.
I would leave it up for a while and see how it does. If it does need removal, like someone already said, make very sure of the insurance. Any sawyer who takes on a yard tree is new at the game since yard trees pick up a little hardware, also known as shrapnel, over the years. Old nails don't just wreck saw blades, they take eyes pretty easily. Most sawyers will give a quote and add something like a " any replacement blades" due to nails, hooks, and whatever.

 

[mcfarmall]

I had a huge hard maple sawn up into boards on-site by a local guy with a portable Wood Mizer band mill. Charged $45/hr with a 2 hour minimum and even brought a skid steer to load the logs onto the mill. $20 charge to change a band due to hardware. My maple had a small piece of barbed wire in it so I got charged for one blade but that was it. Most times if you hit some metal you can surgically remove it with a chainsaw as well. I excised my piece of barbed wire with a small chunk of wood and made a cool paperweight out of it.

Cut it down and buck it into 9 foot logs. Examine the butt ends for rot and make the call at that time. If you decide to saw them up, make sure you grab some old latex paint from the basement and paint the ends of the logs with several coats of paint to reduce end checking before and after sawing.

There's a product called Anchorseal that is made especially for this purpose and it dries to a waxy coating...works great but for the casual user probably not worth sourcing and purchasing a 5 gallon bucket of the stuff.

 

[rd_macgregor]

If it were just a matter of getting rid of a felled tree, local woodturners would probably cart off all the bigger chunks and other folks would take much of the rest for firewood...assuming you didn't try to mill into boards, of course.

 

[randy41]

how much is it to mill if you haul it to the miller?

 

[ddbackhoe]

how much is it to mill if you haul it to the miller?

One 30" x 9 foot log would be ~ 2511 lbs. The portable sawmill guys we use charge $60.00/hr and that would be about 7 hours worth ( assuming they cut 4x, 2x, 1x). The local sawmill charges $0.30 /bd. ft. @ ~ 1065 bd.ft. = ~$319.50 For the 100 difference, how many trips would it take to drop off and pick-up?

 

[bigtiller]

I hired a sawyer once for a black walnut tree. The price..... I had to take it to him, he cut it and took first pick of half the lumber.

 

[rScotty]

We had a huge cottonwood that was old and rotten and leaning over the house. It was a danger, but loved that tree....so I had the trimmers come and reduce it to a twelve foot stump with some shortened side branches. The shortened main trunk regenerated with lots of wild growth all up and down the side and top. Now where we used to have a big tree we have a short tree with a big trunk and a bushy topknot. No danger to the house and the birds like it. Sort of like a big bush. Cottonwood will sometimes do that - don't know about other types of trees though. I know it can't last too much longer, but it's been about 5 years now & we like it. Only cost a few hundred bucks to try it.
rScotty

 

[/pine]

One 30" x 9 foot log would be ~ 2511 lbs. The portable sawmill guys we use charge $60.00/hr and that would be about 7 hours worth ( assuming they cut 4x, 2x, 1x)....

Say what?...talk about milking a job...!...No reason that log should take more than an hour and a half to saw once it was on the mill...

 

[randy41]

One 30" x 9 foot log would be ~ 2511 lbs. The portable sawmill guys we use charge $60.00/hr and that would be about 7 hours worth ( assuming they cut 4x, 2x, 1x). The local sawmill charges $0.30 /bd. ft. @ ~ 1065 bd.ft. = ~$319.50 For the 100 difference, how many trips would it take to drop off and pick-up?

i dont think the op will haul it to your sawyer.....do the math with his prices.

 

[ddbackhoe]

Say what?...talk about milking a job...!...No reason that log should take more than an hour and a half to saw once it was on the mill...

I was guesstimating for the whole tree, not one log. I used one length for weight only. If it was 25 feet x 30 inches, that would be two logs @ 9' + a 6' + whatever else could be salvaged. A 30" log is a horse on most of the portable mills. If the log is worth cutting into boards, what do you want cut? setup and takedown time are not free either.