Pine Shingles - Price per Bundle

[DanielW]

Hi folks,

I've cut a fair number of shingles over the years for my own projects, but very little for other folks. I've done a lot of pine at my father's place with the smaller/slower of my two shingle mills: He has a load of white pine that needs to come out. I've used it primarily for siding: Lots of pine shingles were used for siding & roofing back in the day - it might not last quite as long as cedar, but it still lasts 50+ years on siding and looks great. Probably will last a lot longer if stained.

Someone saw one of my siding jobs the other day and wants to buy some pine shingles to do two sides of their cottage. I drove by his place and very roughly approximated 1000 square feet total. My shingle bundler puts together bundles that cover between 20 and 30 square feet with a 6" reveal on 18" shingles (what I typically do for siding), so he probably needs at least 50-60 bundles once he includes waste.

What do you think I should be charging per bundle? The common red cedar shingles have gone up in price a little in recent years. Easter white cedar shingles have gone up astronomically in my area, because people are realizing they look/weather a lot nicer than red. Pine is obviously worth less than either type of cedar, but I'm not sure how much less. It's still the same amount of effort to mill. I try to have no (or very, very few) knots in my shingles: There's usually about 18" between branches on my pines, so I can usually get knot-free bolts to saw from. They're also pretty much all heartwood: When using my smaller shingle mill (which I will be) I square up three sides of the logs on a sawmill first to get rid of the sapwood and save time whittling down to the heart on the shingle mill. That usually means all my shingles are about the same width too, because I'll work right across the bolt without turning it.

Any thoughts/guesstimates of what I should charge per bundle are much appreciated.

[DanielW]

Ooops, meant to post this in the Sawmills and Milling discussion...

[PoginyHill]

Nothing on price, but a question: Do you have to air dry the pine before you bundle? I understand cedar does not need to be dried, but bundled green is fine. Double whammy if you can't get as much for pine but costs more to produce.

[DanielW]

Nothing on price, but a question: Do you have to air dry the pine before you bundle? I understand cedar does not need to be dried, but bundled green is fine. Double whammy if you can't get as much for pine but costs more to produce.

A very good question. For all the pine I've done, I've bundled green but installed it shortly thereafter (within a few weeks). I've built my bundler to make 24" long bundles, and with a decently thick butt this means 6" at the ends of each course will have a slight gap between layers (except the very end where the butts touch) and allows some airflow. But I'm not sure about the centre 12" in the bundles where it's strapped tight. Thus far I've always avoided staining, but I also don't pretend to be an expert in pine shingles, and I'm not sure I can guarantee they'll be ok if bundled green and allowed to sit for an extended period. I suspect the pine shingles that were used back in the day were nailed up green. He's in no rush for them, so I'm going to mill/bundle some in the next few days, let it sit a couple of weeks and break the bundles to see what's happening with it.

[711ac]

Sometimes a situation like this just calls for a little humility on your part. Explain what you know and what you're not sure about and what you're price to produce them is (selling price)
If you're guy's decision is based on the idea of saving money or is he wild about local home grown materials or the looks...
His motives will quickly come to light and making a deal (or not) should be easy for both of you. 

[tomfranken]

How much does one bundle cover?  I see prices in bundles and "squares".  Maybe $500 per 100 sq feet of coverage?

Keep in mind, the cost of your production has nothing to do with what someone else will pay for your product.  Basically for us private millers, it comes down to what we make per hour.  If you sell a load for $1200, you probably don't have $200 in fuel, depreciation, and a blade or set of teeth.  If you can do it in 50 hours, $20/hour; 25 hours gets you $40/hr.  I can mill $100 worth of wood an hour but it seems like I have 10 hours of moving wood around.

On that thought, you would be best getting the shingles to the customer as fast as possible.  I wouldn't leave stacked green wood around.  At least make sure it doesn't get rained on.  It would dry in a simple solar kiln in a week, but now you're back to hours of stacking wood to dry it, then restacking it to ship.

[rusticretreater]

Shingles dry out quickly as they are relatively thin and since they are cut at a taper, the grain has been opened up.  They are usually bundled immediately after cutting as that holds their shape.  You just don't want to cut really fresh wood high in moisture and then pack that.

For some preservation work, handmade shingles usually arrive in a crate fairly tightly packed instead of bundled.

[DanielW]

Thanks to everyone for the replies.

I'll do some figuring and come up with a price. It takes me about 15 minutes to mill and pack an average bundle (640 running inches of shingle - a little over 25 square feet at 6" reveal), but by the time I skid/buck the logs and handle everything, it's probably safe to conservatively assume nearly an hour per bundle when calculating operating costs.

Thanks again,

Daniel

[WV Sawmiller]

   I'd suggest just using your cost of production from start to finish and use the hourly wage and any nuisance factors involved (I.e. - Maybe you just hate to saw shingles so you should get paid more for doing something you don't like to do) to determine a fair, for you, price. It does not matter what other people sell them for. They may produce and sell them cheaper than you can so don't lose your shirt trying to compete with them. And if you are the only guy in town who has them sell them for what your conscience will let you sleep with at night. Good luck.