Do you sell your wood? If so, to who?

[alefland]

Hello everyone! I work for a nonprofit in the Greater Boston area which focuses on forestry, farming and education. Our forestry program has mainly comprised of cutting firewood, producing firewood, and selling christmas trees. All of this is done on town conservation land; we have a very good relationship with the town and have been cutting firewood for over 30 years in this wood as a form of stand improvement.

Recently we have been thinking about producing lumber. We have made some calls to portable sawmill operators and it seems like we could cut the logs, stack them, and have someone else come and saw the logs for us. We could definitely use some of that lumber for our own projects, but would really like to create a market for our locally sourced, sustainably harvested timber.

So the questions are:
1) If you saw your own wood, do you sell any of it?
2) If you do sell your wood, who usually buys it? How much are they buying?
3) What products are people looking for? We have a ton of white pine and a fair amount of straight red oak which could be milled (as a result of cutting the gnarly ones for firewood).

There is no way we can produce lumber and be able to compete with hardware stores or lumber yards, so it seems like specialty or niche items are the way to go (i.e. maybe quarter sawn lumber, large dimensions, hardwood products, etc.). We are also not really in a position to have a kiln, so that could play into what we are producing.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[drobertson]

alefland, it sounds like you guys are moving in the right direction, and to answer your question, as clearly as I can, I would say you will need to advertise.  Most of what I sell is in the form of 2x's and 1x siding. An occasional order for beams up.  It seems like you would need quite a bit of storage area for this type of project.  For your pricing concerns, you will need someone from up there to help out with this, no way for me to know what would be too high or too low,    hope it all works out for you,    david

[dboyt]

Since you are having local sawmills mill the lumber (which is great), why not consider outsourcing kiln drying and surfacing, as well.  Every secondary process roughly doubles the value of the wood, and increases your market.  For example, contractors that work with LEED certified building get special credit for using local materials.  If you could work with area mills to provide local flooring, trim, paneling and cabinet wood, you will be using local products and stimulating the local economy.  A local retail shop for area woodworkers would provide additional revenue, as well as a means to get a premium for some of the more unique woods.

The Vashon Forest Stewards are doing similar work, but they run their own sawmill and kiln.  Here's a link: http://vashonforeststewards.org/

Good luck, and keep us posted.  What you do may serve as a model for others.

[losttheplot]

Hi,
I don't know all your details but,
Have you thought about having the logs milled then building value added products, picnic tables, wood sheds, chicken coop's etc..
Or perhaps assembling a tool shed, picnic table, chicken coop "kit" containing everything needed to build the item.
Might be easier then storing lumber and trying to have the sizes that customers want.

LTP.