Cutting down trees: Worth it to have them milled?

I have a couple HUGE trees on our property that need to be cut down. It’s a shame, as they’re probably THE prettiest trees on the property. One is, for sure, sycamore, the other I’m not sure on, but it’s well over 100’ tall.

In the interest of:

A. Recouping some of the cost of cutting them down, and

B: Maybe getting some cool wood for maybe table-tops? Cabinets? As well as just not turning this beautiful wood into firewood

...would it be wise to talk to the folks at the local sawmill and see if they could/would do anything with it?

Anyone have any experience with this?

By the time you pay for the trucking, you are not gonna make any money. 

By the time the lumber dries sufficiently to be used for furniture (several years) you are gonna be really tired of having it stacked in your shop and totally in the way. 

I know. I’m a pessimist....

If you can find someone with a portable mill to come to you it MIGHT be a reasonable price to mill, but it’s still not gonna make money. 

If it was me, I’d plan on paying the man to cut up and haul the entire job and let the chips fall where they may. 

I’d keep one log and have it milled. 

Warning though- the weight of a 12’ long log from a tree that big will far exceed anything you can move with a small tractor or haul on a car hauler style trailer.

No real help, except my neighbor had some Black Locusts cut down; free removal in exchange for the guy milling them into boards on site. 

I've had the idea of buying a portable mills to serve people with that idea.  I know nothing about forestry, but it really does seem wasteful to see that lumber chipped. I have to think there are niche furniture makers who would buy some of the product, and some homeowners that would keep it, but its very doubtful I could charge enough to make it profitable, so the dream of "The Urban Sawmill" stays a dream.

In reply to Streetwiseguy :

I considered it too. 

The problem is that niche furniture makers (who pay the premiums) want special wood. Wood with nice burls, figured, etc. That wood doesn’t grow in fields. It grows on the side of cliffs. 

Then they want it seasoned. Several years worth of air drying. 

Its a big investment for a small guy. 

The Woodmizer website (they make portable sawmills) has a feature where you can search for sawyers in your area who may be interested in the trees.  https://woodmizer.com/us/Services/Find-a-Local-Sawyer

Good family friend is a moodmizer dealer here in north carolina. We nay be able to find a guy for you.

As far as wether or not the trees are useful for furniture wood, the sawyer can tell you.

Wood turners (like me) love the burls, crotches, etc. So theres a way to not waste them, as my understanding is that you cant use those parts for lumber.

In reply to poopshovel again :

For two trees Stuart has it right. Check the wood mizer website. 

Here are some warnings.  

Yard trees tend to get metal in them. It might be nails or lag bolts. Property markers or various hooks and screws.  You will be responsible for any blade damage when the sawyer hits them. If you’re lucky it’s just the time it takes to resharpen the blade.  Big sawmills with circular blades have replaceable teeth and you may only need to replace a few. The rest can be resharpened. But replacing the whole blade on a Woodmizer is expensive.  

Metal detectors will help but really slow down the sawing process, you’ll have to pay for that!  

The process is they will saw anything you pay for but you pay for any wood they saw.  There is a lot of waste in a tree. Mother Nature makes trees round and wood workers like flat straight boards. That means you’ll have slab wood.  Nice to burn but that really seems a waste.  In addition wood is graded according to how knot and defect free it is. In other,  words, you get what is grown.  It’s called mill run.  

Good sawyers mill trees either for yield.  ( most knot free boards ) or for figure. ( most interesting wood ) Trouble is one mans trash is another’s treasure. One see’s crotch wood as beautiful and valuable and another see’s it as a defect downgrading it’s value. 

Deciding how to mill is another issue.  Some woods have beautiful and valuable wood when they are quarter sawn while others  look best plain sawn. And it varies from tree to tree. The Judgement on how to best saw a tree only comes from decades of millions of board feet sawn. 

The worst guy to have your trees sawn is also going to be the cheapest or a hobbiest  who saws a few  trees a year.  

You aren’t just paying for the use of the woodmizer you’re paying for the skid steer or whatever that moves the log around. And yes that will tear up your yard plus leave a mess that needs to be cleaned up afterwards. 

There is more and I’ll be glad to go further into it if you’d like the information. Stacking, drying, edging, trimming, jointing, planing,  all need to be discussed.  

My background, I turned 55,000 board feet of hardwood into my home.  These were trees I selected from a farmers woodlot.  In doing so I’ve spent over 31,000 manhours learning and doing it.  I still have about 12,000 board feet of wood to use up 

To put that into proper perspective a normal house takes 2500-3000 man hours to build from start to finish  

You could get a mill setup like this http://www.leevalley.com/us/wood/page.aspx?p=20127&cat=1,41131 

Peel the bark and the rounded lumber could be used in fencing, or for a small structure.

In reply to Rons :

Chainsaw mill probably won’t work for a tree that big.  They go up to about 20”.  A 100’ tall tree is probably bigger.

And it would be about a week of chainsaw work. 

I love the idea of a chainsaw mill. Here's one that works up to 84".

https://granberg.com/product/g778-84-alaskan-mk-iv-chainsaw-mill/

In reply to SVreX :

Would the 48" model be big enough to handle that?

Thanks for all the input! I hate to see it go to waste, more than anything, but it seems like “pay someone to cut em down & haul em off” is the ticket. I’ll get a pic of the BIG BIG boy & post it.

It’s a shame. It’s the most beautiful tree on the property. But I knew it needed to go, and after I found a branch that easily weighs a couple hundred pounds under it a few weeks ago, the thought of the thing KILLING someone has me anxious to get it gone.

*also: GDOT gets to handle the Sycamore. They payed for it. They can do whatever the berkeley they want with it :/

SVreX said:

By the time you pay for the trucking, you are not gonna make any money. 

By the time the lumber dries sufficiently to be used for furniture (several years) you are gonna be really tired of having it stacked in your shop and totally in the way. 

I know. I’m a pessimist....

You failed to finish it.  No matter how ambitious you are and how much wood working you do, the chance of actually using every expensive,  hard fought board is practically non-existent.   

Big trees might produce a couple of hundred board feet. While that might be enough to do a set of kitchen cabinets or some other project you will still have the odd board or two left over( or short ) 

Not only that but what about all the wood working tools  and machinery you’ll need to turn rough sawn boards into furniture.  That’s 10’s of thousands of dollars if bought new or countless hours of shopping and thousands of dollars if bought used.  Not to mention the work to bring a used piece back to new performance.  

Not adding much, but I always have a high wow factor when someone tells me they milled the wood they used to build something. 

Rons said:

In reply to SVreX :

Would the 48" model be big enough to handle that?

Ever run a 48” chainsaw?

Those chainsaw mills DO NOT include the chainsaw. 

A chainsaw with a 48” bar is like a $2000 saw. I can’t imagine the value of an 84” chainsaw. 

A woodmizer would be a lot cheaper. 

Nothing much to add other than I think that any lumber being used in an inspected structure has to be graded and have a grade stamp.

A friend of mine milled a bunch of spruce to build a home on his property and was told in no uncertain by terms by the borough that it had to be graded.  Said he could use it for non-structural stuff - decks not attached to the home, sheds, etc. - only.

I know the guy who built this home.  http://www.hartfordbusiness.com/article/20150224/NEWS01/150229967/glastonbury-home-wins-zero-energy-challenge bear with me.. 

They bought the land and had the oak trees white and red oak on site harvested for flooring and trim.  I remember it was a bit of a pain for him to find a mill that did this and then had to wait 18 months to have the wood air dry before it could be milled.  luckily they were in no rush to build the home...  It took them like 4-5 years to finish it.  Anyways.. My impression was that it was such a pain of a process (and 5x the price of store bought wood) that unless the trees were high value(Walnut/cherry etc..)  Or I wanted a project for fun...  It was just better to let the pros take the trees for the cost of the removal.. Make sure you get stump grinding thrown in and maybe you can get some fire wood out of the deal.

When I was little my dad built a lake cabin in northern MN.  One of my uncles moved his sawmill rig to the lot and they were able to mill most of the lumber required to frame it from the trees they cut down to clear the building site.    That was 60 years ago, so grade stamps weren't an issue.

There was a case here in Minneapolis a few years ago where some developer was building an apartment, and the inspector discovered the lumber they were using wasn't marked with grade stamps.  They actually had to tear it down and start over.

CJ said:

Nothing much to add other than I think that any lumber being used in an inspected structure has to be graded and have a grade stamp.

A friend of mine milled a bunch of spruce to build a home on his property and was told in no uncertain by terms by the borough that it had to be graded.  Said he could use it for non-structural stuff - decks not attached to the home, sheds, etc. - only.

The building code has a provision for self milled/wood. I live in an extremely restricted city and was frequently told about the need for grade stamps.  It’s not true but you have to read through the whole building code to find that provision.  Once I found that provision the building inspector became very friendly and easy to get along with  

stuart in mn said:

When I was little my dad built a lake cabin in northern MN.  One of my uncles moved his sawmill rig to the lot and they were able to mill most of the lumber required to frame it from the trees they cut down to clear the building site.    That was 60 years ago, so grade stamps weren't an issue.

There was a case here in Minneapolis a few years ago where some developer was building an apartment, and the inspector discovered the lumber they were using wasn't marked with grade stamps.  They actually had to tear it down and start over.

That is true but only because the building was considered commercial and not private residential. 

The rules are different between residential and commercial. It’s how log homes and timberframes like mine are built. While alternative construction is only used on 2% of homes that 2% tends to be used on very high end homes. 

The University of Wisconsin is the standard you can use to determine the strengths of different wood types. For example a 6 inch by 6 inch white oak timber has something like a 10 ton rating compared to pine which has something like  a 2 ton rating. 

In reply to frenchyd :

That’s incorrect on the grade stamps.

The IBC Building Code does not permit ungraded wood for any structural component of a wood structure, whether it is residential or commercial.  Some communities enforce it more strictly than others. 

It does not apply to timber framing and log homes. Those frequently require an engineer’s stamp.