Thinking about going bigger..

[tonyoz]

If you are wanting to grind heaps that have been pushed up then a grinder is the way to go. Around here companies with chippers won't even look at them as there is to much dirt in the heaps and it wrecks the knives and they can't do anything with the stumps. If the heaps are mostly away from roads, buildings etc then a tub grinder is probably better cause they don't have have the electronics that consistently fail and are far more reliable. An older style tub grinder in good order could possibly be good buying if it is not going to be working full time.
Running a mulcher through heaps can be time consuming and I can't guarantee to get all the timber without the help of another machine to pull the heaps out which means the job runs into the cost of running a grinder anyway, and if there is any big timber burried in the heaps it can blow the budget big time if you are working on contract. :2cents:
Good luck with which ever way you go

 

[tift104]

Yellowdog, We have been considering this ourselves. I would think being able to fall in behind a logging crew and chipping the tops off of the loading deck would keep you busy. Are you able to market your chips to the lumber mill, sell them for mulch or do you have a pellet or Bio Diesel plant close by? From a land owner point of view this would be appealing leaving a clean deck with no piles to burn. Do you charge the landowner for the clean up or just keep the money made from the chips?

 

[yellowdogsvc]

No logging around here. What we do have is cedar choppers who clear for the wood but leave the tops and big stumps sticking up. This is done on tracts from 10-100 acres and up. The cedar choppers have a very bad reputation around here and often have been accused of using illegal labor. That's how they offer "free clearing."
I've tried getting clean up work but the typical landowner that hires those "gypsies" isn't interested in spending money. He just wants the cedar gone.

I make more chipping than I would harvesting logs but there isn't a huge market for wood chips here. No biomass. One company tried to start up and went bankrupt. Energy is fairly cheap in Texas.

I charge for everything from clearing to clean-up to loading, hauling, and delivering wood chips. A few years ago I gave them away but realized I worked to hard to deliver a load of chips to someone who asked. I still donate some on occasion but my time and fuel is worth more and more these days so I turn a lot of freebie stuff down. I get a lot of calls to donate this and that and quickly realized that a lot of people want something for nothing but when they want something that costs money, they plop it down.

 

[tift104]

Correct me if I'm wrong. I was told that there are two different typed of chips. Clean chips which comes from the saw mill and is used as boiler fuel and Dirty chips which comes straight out of the woods. It is my understanding that the clean chips are the most marketable for the lumber mills. The Dirty chips,I'm assuming, is sold as mulch for gadening, playgrounds and flower beds. We do have a pellet factory located about 60 miles from us and a Bio Diesel plant about the same distance. What type of chips do they require? I'm trying to pencil out the numbers to see if this venture would be worth getting into.
The way I'm looking at it is there is a possability of having 2 separate customers. The pellit company and Bio Diesel plant to sell the chips to and the landowner who wants the area cleared. My question is once you factor in your trucking rates to get the chips to where ever they go, equipment payment, and fuel cost would there be ant NET profit left?