Help with walnut trees!

[xvirgilx]

Hello,

My name is Jesse (zip 60090) and I really want, no more like need to sell these walnut trees or just give them away. We have our first new born coming in a few months and I really need to take these walnut trees down so i can make a shed for everything to fit in our home.

Plus I am so tired of dealing with these walnuts every year coming down our home making all that noise, as well as hitting on our guests and me included, and I am sure that will wake the baby up. I can not have a nice lawn in the back yard cause of the nuts that keep fulling down and squirrels that keep eating them.

Tree 1 nice and straight is 74 inches around split happens 12 feet from the ground.
Tree 2 nice and straight is 104 inches around and branches about out at 7,9,14, and split is about 21 feet from the ground.

Can someone please help me want them gone in the next few weeks please help...

[Jeff]

You need to find a tree service in your area to come and remove the trees, and you will need to pay them to do it. These are yard trees, and if they are dropping nuts on your home, that means your home would be endangered when they are taken down. You will need a professional to remove the trees and it won't be cheap. You might be able to sell the logs once they are on the ground, but odds are, these trees, being so close to a dwelling have some sort of hardware embedded in them. Walnut trees growing in the middle of the woods can be quite valuable. Walnut trees from a yard, not so much. Odds are it is firewood.

[SawyerBrown]

Jesse, first of all, welcome to the Forestry Forum!

I agree with Jeff that you'll need a professional to take them down.  Removing the tree from your house later will cost even more money ... ;D

I also agree with Jeff that the logs probably aren't worth much, since bigger mills won't touch yard trees because of the potential to hit "hardware" and ruin a big expensive blade.  Another option for you, though, is to have the logs milled on-site (assuming you have room to do so) and then selling the lumber to recover some of the cost of bringing them down.  Depending on several factors, you could end up with many-hundred board-feet of lumber.  To do that, you'll need to find a portable sawmill using less-expensive bandsaw blades that are more expendable.  Most sawyers, I believe, will charge you roughly the cost of a blade each time they hit something (because the blade is then ruined and cannot be re-sharpened), so there is some risk of the cost taking off if there's lots of non-wood in the wood.  The other risk, of course, is being able to find someone interested in "green" (not dried) walnut boards.  I suspect if you price it right (i.e., don't get too greedy) you'll be able to find a buyer on Craigslist or by listing in a local paper, but in the meantime you'll need someplace to stack and sticker it so it doesn't start to distort as it's drying.

It's actually in my "mission statement" -- to save nice urban or "yard" hardwood trees from being ground up into mulch or cut into firewood, acknowledging that I'm going to ruin some blades in the process.  So I do mostly yard trees, actually.

Let us know if you're interested in that option, there are ways to find local sawyers.  I'm down in the middle of the state, but do make it up into the Chicago area on occasion.

Good luck!

[Wellmud]

As I recall, I thought Jeff was an expert at getting trees down around buildings ;D

[Magicman]

Hello xvirgilx, and Welcome to the Forestry Forum.  How about posting some pictures of your home and the Walnut trees.  Wheeling, Il looks mighty urbanized and you might not even be allowed to diy.

[SwampDonkey]

It's fine to mention about sawing these up in your yard, but then what? That costs more money. If your not going to use the lumber, then you have to deal with another issue. Being a lumber salesman. If it all lays in the yard for months and spoils, then it has to be burnt or disposed of.

The way I see it, you want these gone and done with. Not more work and expense.