Looking for a status from the veteran urban log recovery folks

[Marc Thornton]

Hi.  I have been lurking for some time.  I have been considering opening an urban log recovery business attempting to recycle the logs of trees into the highest use possible, hopefully lumber in most cases.  In addition, I see myself taking the opportunity to dry and mill some product into finished products like flooring, etc. 

I have read every thread on the urban forum and it has been some time since the regulars have checked in.  I was wondering how things are in the industry for you and if it is doing better or worse based on the way the economy has been.  I think my biggest concern would be acquiring the logs.  I was thinking that it is a good time to be doing this with local government as they are getting squeezed more and more.  An urban logger would really be of service to them. 

Anyway, hi and thanks for any update you provide. 

[woodmills1]

economy is bad you need sawmill, log pick up, and fire wood to be urban log go to guy


bills paid but no vacay this year



ifin taxes paid in december then all is well

[beenthere]

Welcome to the forum.
From what you have said, there are two important parts of this equation that you have little or no experience. That would appear to be acquiring the trees and peddling the product. Or did I misread something into this?

[Marc Thornton]

Welcome to the forum.
From what you have said, there are two important parts of this equation that you have little or no experience. That would appear to be acquiring the trees and peddling the product. Or did I misread something into this?

That is correct.  I have no experience acquiring trees, just some preliminary conversations with tree services.  There are a few municipal bodies around here as well that could be productive, shade tree committees, etc. 

On the peddling product I am a little less concerned, maybe foolishly.  I have good marketing background so it should not be much trouble on that end. 

[Ironwood]

This "industry" is a LONG way from ANY major profitability. I do it, mostly local, as there is no economy in driving any distance for single (even multiples) logs. I mix it in with several other pursuits and it balances out. If some regulatory state or municiple (sic) body were to put "green waste" regs in place it could help (although I hate the thought of ANY regs) If you cannot use the trucks, cranes, mills for other pursuits it has no economy. The other supply side pressures are bio-mass and firewood. Then there is the "battle" of networking and "helping" some fella/gal with a chainsaw and a truck (fly by night tree service) to understand what is reasonable to ask for a log he/she would otherwise turn into firewood. A log is not worth firewood price because it takes value added to make it into firewood. There is also the trips to see "I have this great log" and drive out and find out it is worthless or NOT even the type tree he though it was. I could go on and on ( I have LOTS of stories). Enough said, for the most part it is cheaper to buy off the landing in a commercial timber job than to invest your time and energy into urban salvage. I could write an article about this (actually had the editor from Woodlot Mag. interested, just too many irons in the fire!!) If you own a tree service and use the approach of "efficiency" of your site crews as the arguement for the little 50-60K grapple truck and a staging yard then the math is a little more clear (you gotta have multiple crews working in the general area). One local service does this and has 3-5 jobs going any given day within 20 miles of each other. One guy in the F-550 runs around grabbing the logs to remove them from the yards.

Not trying to be a wet blanket, but seriously if it aint close, real close and free or almost free it (free is never free when you invest your time/equipment) it is really not worth it. I have been at every side of wood, logs, timber, milling, drying, storing (there is a cost to carrying inventory), and retailing things made from these logs. There is little economy to it. Looks/ sounds great in theory but there is just not a whole lot of margin in it. Profitability and steady somewhat predicable margins are what make for good business plans, in this pursuit everything is a "one off". Businesses thrive on scales of economy, networks of known people, dependability, and consistent flows of goods and services.

I have a saying that sums up most situations like this, "even a blind squirrel finds a nut on occasion", we all hear about one or a few instances where someone hit a "home run" on an urban log, but the reality is you gotta go thru a TON of junk to get that one. FYI, you asked : Sorry

         Ironwood

[zopi]

Isn't the lehigh valley basically surrounded by giant decduous forests, and most of pennsylvania covered in oak, cherry, maple, and walnut?  Target rich environment, but fishing them out of tree service waste is a quicker way to starve to death than farming...Believe me, I own a tree service, and we do not bring in many pretty logs...buttload of firewood, though..
If you have some money loose, pick yourself up a sawmill, and play with it, make some lumber and dry it...then see if you can find a niche market, if nothing else, you have a great hobby that is better than going to a gym to work out...maybe you do alot of business maybe not, but in this economy, I would not put all my eggs in that basket...

[Marc Thornton]

I definitely want the truth.  Keep it coming, please.  What I don't lack is passion for not having this wood go to firewood or mulch unless it is the last resort.  I'm intested in the history of the trees, being more green, keeping things local, and producing pieces of furniture, art and other items that will be lasting memories. 

What I am hearing you say is that it is going to take time to develop, maybe more time than I could possibly think it will take.  My business plan had 6 months to a year to do that and what I am hearing you and thinking that maybe it is more like 18-24 months depending on how hard charging I can be and how quickly I build support for the movement.  I have a lot of faith in the ability to build momentum behind the movement by using marketing and public relations to support it. 

It seems there are a few dozen of these businesses that have managed to be very successful and then hundreds of folks who pursue it more as a hobby.

I do feel that the local area is a prime area and if I can make a good and lasting connection with the local governments and the good arborists in the area that it can be a viable, just maybe a longer ramp up than I expected. 

[zopi]

Oh, I applaud your aims, but urban timber alone is a tough row to hoe...you will definitely need to be more diverse than just lumber...we do not add to the three or four billion bdft of lumber rotting in landfills...have saved fifty to a hundred tons this year...it either becomes mulch, firewood or lumber...very often, one tree becomes all three....
There is a good bit of niche lumber to be taken out of urban forestry...I just hauled in a few tons of spalted norway maple, and while there is no recoverable lumber in it, I can certainly chainsaw turning blocks out of it and stash them to dry...especially as I just stopped at woodcrafters for some anchorseal and had a giggle fit over lumber prices...a block of spalted soft maple for seventy bucks... lol
I don't want to discourage you, but as a startup, one product or service alone is not going to generate much cash flow...A swing mill with a slabber and a little box trailer and an old toyota pickup truck would be a nice setup for recovering urban timber...especially the monster trunks no one can deal with...you might get set up, work a deal with some tree services, build a couple of small kilns (talking a couple hundred bdft) to dry specialty stuff, and start making rustic and art furniture, and selling it as you do sawmill demos, which are killer advertising for a sawmill service, work and build some capital and add a mobile hydraulic bandsaw to the works, and go from there....maybe some bundled firewood on the side.(didja know burning firewood is carbon neutral? Not many people do...recover the brush for mulch, the firewood for heat, and saw what lumber you can, and the tree will have processed CO2 in excess of its expenditure by burning during its lifecycle...)
A nice adverising thing to to is to keep a supply of dry hardwood slabs and whack them off in a random fashion shape, sand, coat with mineral oil, making a bread or cheese board, and give them to customers as gifts...it is really cool when it came from their trees...

[beenthere]

marc
Keep thinking of this as a hobby plan, and a distant possibility of a business plan. You will be less disappointed. ;)

[zopi]

Less disappointed...I like that...
There are a bunch of folks out there making a living sawing, who started out as hobbyists...but they started as hobbyists...and from what I can see, not all that many are competing on the open market, but doing specialty amd custom work.

[Marc Thornton]

I totally agree that it is more than one product and that I want to get as far down the value chain as possible with as much product as I can.  I have a woodworking background and plan to make benches, furniture, and other retail end products as well. 

Really 5-7 sources of revenue:
green lumber and turning stock
firewood(I hope not too much)
mulch
sawdust
air and kiln dried lumber (and kiln drying as a service if there is value in it)
milled lumber (stair treads, flooring, paneling, mouldings, etc)
finished furniture


I would like to do full circle kind of stuff where the trees that come off a site become lumber and are some re-utilized at the finished site.  I could also see this evolving into some salvaged lumber and architectural salvage possibly as well. 

I get your point about less disappointment.  I have a lot of passion for this it has been kicking around with me for years in my melon.  I get the reservation and that is one of the reasons I am posting here to hear more.

I am wondering from the tree service folks here about what they do with the logs.  Is firewood just an effort to recoup some revenue out of the larger part of the tree and the labor involved.  If a service would pick up the logs in a timely fashion with little or no damage to the property is that a savings that you can pass along some of to the end customer and save some for yourself? 

My plan is to have a truck with crane or knuckle boom and also to have a log arch that I can pull with some blocking and a winch if needed for hard to reach areas.  I would also have a drop yard and am considering working with local municipalities yard waste recycling centers. 

[zopi]

From the tree service perspective...yeah, alot of firewood becomes a profit center, or at least a way to keep employees busy when things are slow...and to many, it is just waste..not economical to separate sort and sell...maybe if I were a little bigger, I could sell some stuff off as biomass fuel...

[Ax- man]

I have to agree with replies posted here . I am also on the tree service side in regards to this urban log recovery . We very seldom get anything that is worth milling into lumber. Tree services for the most part deal in the removal of poorly structured, weak wooded trees that are unsuitable for lumber  or ones that are diseased or are very rotted with hollowed out main stems. If that isn't enough you have to deal with tramp metal buried inside the wood. Tree service = removal of unwanted undesirable trees.

If we do get our hands on some prime wood like Oak and Cherry it will still be turned into firewood that can be sold for top dollar for firewood. We don't get much money for a good saw log from a sawyer. For us it is better to turn it into firewood because the turn around is quicker than trying to make lumber and then drying that lumber and trying to sell it.

I have been playing around and the numbers don't really add up. It seems the average price for rough sawn common tree species hardwood lumber is 2.50 to $3 per board foot from a real production mill. That just just doesn't seem like enough money to run big trucks to pick up logs and then mill those logs with a small portable mill and then  dry those logs.  A guy would have to do a fantastic amount of volume to make a small operation pay for itself. If you had to buy, cut and haul standing timber looks like you would be in the hole and just couldn't make any money.

There is an outfit here that will pick -up semi loads of urban wood for free or give a token payment for good stuff . I think they are in the pallet business and I imagine the margins are very slim in that business.

Like I said I am in the tree service biz. So if anything I have stated is incorrect please correct me. I have just been dabbling on the forestry side of urban logging. I have tried to sell mulch with no luck . Making lumber without buying trees would be unprofitable for us. Firewood pays better over the long haul. Making log or rustic furniture and chainsaw carving seems to have some potential  for me anyway. To me doing our tree trimming is more profitable than taking down and removing trees.

[DR Buck]

There is almost no market for green or air dried lumber regardless of the species.   If you plan on marketing any lumber you will need a kiln.  If you want to make money off of dried lumber a solar kiln will not turn product quick enough to make a profit.  You will need to invest in at least a dehydrator type kiln.

You'll bust your a$$ trying to market firewood.  Around here buyers want it seasoned, split, delivered and stacked.  Thats a lot of work just to bring in $125 TO $200 a cord.  Something I'm not willing to do.

Without a full production shop you may find it hard to compete with the box stores for stair treads and flooring.

As already stated, recovery of urban logs is not an easy task. YOU WILL NEED EQUIPMENT!.  

• Trailer with a method to load,  efficiency of a knuckle boom & grapple can't be beat.
• Log Arch
• some sort of winch
• all of the assorted blocks, pulleys, ropes, etc...

Oh yea, woodworkers  are cheap.  You have to have real special products to turn high dollar.

I do ok in the lumber sales, but even with a dehydrator kiln small niche markets are all your likely to find.  Fortunately I live in an area far less effected by the current economic situation and make a fair amount of cash with my custom saw milling and selling lumber from recovered urban trees.  However, I still have my day job and would not be able to make a full time living at it.

[Marc Thornton]

I definitely appreciate everyone's input here.  I feel like I am not looking to turn firewood into lumber, I'm more looking to prevent lumber from turning into firewood.  I see your point that 90% of the tree service trees are not lumber material, maybe 85% if you consider turning material as well.  That just means I need to convince more services, municipalities, home owners of the value. 

  If a service did not have to spend the time to cut the logs into firewood size on the customers site, they would be saving an hour of the teams time in cutting, man handling, and cleanup per tree.  Obviously this all gets charged to the customer today.  Eliminating this would mean one of two things, a lower bill for the customer or more profit for the tree service, or a little of both.

I feel like firewood is just a way to recoup some $$$ out of the material.  If you look at the numbers, here is what I figure.  Note, this is the 10% or less of lumber worthy logs to firewood.

A cord is 4'x4'x8' = 128 cubic feet of wood, bark, and air.    Sold for $200 after being seasoned for 6-12 months and delivered. 

128 cu ft * 12 board ft in a cubic foot = 1536 board ft - 30% for bark and air.

30% = 462 bd ft of bark and air = 1074 bd ft. of good wood remaining.

So to get the same value per cord you need to charge $.20 per board foot gross. 

I'm sure that it takes more labor to make the boards, maybe 3 to 4 times as much labor depending on the comparison of the equipment utilized. 

Just talking things out a bit.  Thoughts?
 

[T Welsh]

I have been watching this thread for a week. while I like what you want to do, there are a lot of things that would not work. I also own a tree service and its in your area Coatesville PA. 35 miles west of Philly.
1 If I am going to give you my wood,YOU are going to have to Give me something of equal value! all of our (waste) is recycled. chips,firewood,logs
2. As Ironwood said, the green recycling is underway,but has a long way to go before profitable.
3. What every one else said about this subject is dead on and we are IN the buss. we already have explored the greatest return for any value of any of our products.
4. I have a mill,firewood processor,log truck,bucket truck,chip truck,two dump trucks,two loaders,tools and 30  plus years in the industry. well over a 250,000 in equipment and also have employees,payroll and taxes alone over 100.000.
5. With that said, how are you going to compete with me! because that is what you are really going to be trying to do. I know that you could get some logs or firewood from the local townships or towns around you for free, but you will have to have a storage area,you will need a loader,you will have to pay taxes on land ect.

I still wish you good luck, and I would like to see people wise up and recycle everything we use. but the economics doesnt add up to be profitable. Only is the government gets involved will it become that way, and if they do LOOK OUT, they will screw it up,like they do with everything else. Good luck. Tim

[Ironwood]

T. Welsh,

DEAD on.

 You can do anything if you have deep pockets and no/little need for income. There is also opportunity cost of your time/talent. It is a zero sum game when you calculate capital cost, capital equipment, all the variable expenses, cash conversion cycle, and current goberment hassles (regs, DOT >:(, etc...)

Goberment regulation is the the only way to "drive" the economy of this on any level. As stated, that is NOT a good idea as beauracrats can screw about just about anything. :  


Ironwood

[Marc Thornton]

I have no intention to be competing with tree services.  I feel like your service with a mill is the exception, maybe 5% of tree services go that far.  For those that do not, I hope to compliment them, not compete with them. 

I feel like going to the worksite and picking up the logs takes some burden of cleanup/removal of that portion of the tree.  What would you estimate the time and effort in man hours to be in cleaning up the log portion of a tree?  I think I will need to go spend some time with a service or two to see if there is value I can add for them. 

I also see the ability to come at it from the customer side.  If the customer comes to me to ensure their tree is recycled, I can then refer them to a tree service, bringing a customer to the tree service.

I have a lot of thought into this and am glad to have you all to talk it out with.  There is a lot more thinking and planning before I would jump into this with both feet. 

Marc.

[mikeb1079]

there are some excellent posts here.  i do what you are proposing but w/o any financial incentive.  for me, it's a fun hobby.  i watch craigslist and talk to tree service folks etc...and there are some "free" logs to be had.  i say "free" because as ironwood pointed out if you're using your equipment (trucks, trailers, chainsaws) it's not free.  anyways, i enjoy milling and woodworking so for me it's worth it.  that said, most of the cheap logs are just that, cheap logs.  they're crooked, full of metal, short, rotten, or cracked.   :D :D  (wait a minute, why do i saw them?  oh yeah i love it  8))  this significantly affects yield from these logs.  for me personally it's no biggie but if i were trying to sell the lumber, no way. 

also i'd like to second the comment about the lack of market for green/air dried lumber.  in my area there's a ton of craigslist ads for air dryed lumber for dirt cheap.  fact is no one wants to buy lumber they can't use in their project right away.  if you do try to sell lumber you'll need a kiln to dry it properly.

what i'd suggest is getting started milling with a nice used mill and some free logs.  build a solar kiln if you're handy and then try to sell some lumber just to see what happens.  if you can't move any product your investment is still fairly small, i'd think around maybe 5k?  just my 02 cents

[Burlkraft]

marc
Keep thinking of this as a hobby plan, and a distant possibility of a business plan. You will be less disappointed. ;)

I find that if I have no expectations at all things seem to work out.
I have done quite a bit of sawing for others this year and I really don't know why.
I do know that if you quartersaw for one guy, the rest will follow.
I've Q S more oak this year than I have in all the others combined.

I really wish I had a hydraulic mill....

I am getting old   ;D

[DR Buck]

    I am getting old   

:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

[metalspinner]

Marc,

The last posts by mike, ironwood and twelsh are great summaries of the problem.  Without gearing up completely for every process and having the training and experience neccesary to safely complete each job, you will be just the middleman.

I am more in Mike's camp and have stacks and stacks of sawn lumber that I will never use in my lifetime  The handling of the lumber is where I get burdened down with time. I have no handling equipment, so everything gets handled off the saw, onto the trailer, into the stack.  That's three times per board.  If we saw for two days, I run out of trailers and stack on the ground. That's another handling of the board. My back is aching just thinking about it. :(

The tree services I've had the most luck with are the small pickup truck guys.  They cannot handle the big logs and appreciate me getting them out of there.  But then they see how I do it with my pickup truck, trailer and winch and set themselves up to do it.  I never hear from them again. :

Over the years I have handed out countless cards for free log removal, but rarely do I get a call back from the pros.  Most of my logs are ones I happen across driving around town and just knocking on the door. I have an army of people on the lookout, too - the mailman, UPS driver, friends, etc.

What would you estimate the time and effort in man hours to be in cleaning up the log portion of a tree?

From driving up to the log and having it on the trailer takes me about 20 minutes per log.  That assumes I can pull next to it. The length and diameter doesn't ussually matter.  If the log needs to be staged, who knows??? Too many variables.  You can look in my gallery and see plenty of different sized logs and circumstances I have been in and the way I load the trailer.  But when it's time to load - 20 minutes.  If the logs are small enough to squeeze a few on the trailer, then the time comes down just a bit because of reduced set up time. Then another 20 minutes to bind everything down and pack up the truck for the road.

Now someone like twelsh with his brigade of equipment will be totally different.

Every minute of work you do free takes a minute of payed work from the tree service.  That's why they will not call me.  It reduces the amount of money on their contract with the homeowner. If the homeowner knows he does not have to pay for full cleanup, then they will not listen to the tree service's sales pitch.

Another problem I have encountered when working with the tree service is that the log needs to be gone NOW.  If they are not payed until the log is out of the yard, they don't want to wait for you to figure out when you will be there.  And can you afford to stand around all morning or afternoon at the job sight waiting on them to complete the job?  If you are subcontracted by the tree service to remove logs they are payed to remove, how does that effect their insurance? What if you run over a sprinkler head in the yard, or roll a log into the corner of a shed, or the unthinkable happens?  Those are the things on the tree service guy's mind.

There is a place for guys like us.  It's just not on a grand scale.

Fortunately, I am not trying to make a living with it. But, I have a mountain of wood at my disposal, the neighbors have yet to complain about it, my back muscles get a nice workout several times a year, the waste gives me enough firewood to burn each year plus some to give away, and I never have to pay retail for hardwoods again. 8)

With all that said, where there's a will there's a way. I look forward to learning how you traverse through your idea and make it happen.

[mikeb1079]

a couple more thoughts on this subject and i'm compelled to comment because i thought along the same lines as you do when i first started this:

1.  working with tree services/municipalities to pick up logs from a jobsite in my experience doesn't work.  why?  because typically when they are doing a job they need the tree removed NOW, not in a couple hours when you get off work.  in your retired then maybe you could work it out but it's not as easy as it sounds.  also, many of the best trees/logs simply cannot be brought down in 8, 10, or 12' sections.  i've seen many beautiful straight trees with perfect sawlog trunks chunked up into 2' pieces because neither i nor the tree service owns a crane, and they can't be dropped on someone's lawn/driveway/etc and even if they were you can't skid em out!   :D  (and log arches ain't gonna handle a 30" by 10' chunk of white oak)

2.  perhaps rethink your attitude towards turning logs into firewood.  i thought exactly as you do now and regarded it as wasteful/foolish/etc.  in reality, there's nothing wrong with using a renewable resource to heat our homes.  in many cases considering the quality of the logs and the amount of fossil fueled effort it takes to turn them into lumber using them as fuel makes the most sense.  while i totally agree that landfilling is a shame, utilizing most logs for firewood ain't really a bad thing.

i really don't mean to be negative and hope i don't come across as such it's just that i was very much in the same boat as you a few years back and my experiences have led me make these observations.
cheers
mb

[T Welsh]

Marc, don,t get frustrated,if you have an idea that is strong enough to start asking question about it,KEEP at it and get educated before making the next step,s. What you are thinking of doing is admirable,but there is a lot of work,marketing,wasted trips to look at sites where logs are,insurances(oh yes you have to have at least a million in liability to get near a township or city jobsite),storage and work areas,at least a truck and trailer ect.metalspinner and mikeb, are right on the money and this is the real world.
There are lots of ways to recycle wood or reuse it, a lot of ways to market it too! The green buzz word,is nothing new to the people on this forum,for the most part they have been doing it for a life time. Good luck, Tim

[zopi]

In regards the firewood comment above, something we recently unearthed, is that burning firewood is nearly carbon neutral...consider how much oxygen the tree has converted during its life, and how much carbon dioxide is given off by burning the firewood out of it...
I have taken the attitude of, if it is worth sawing, saw it...if it is firewood...burn it...recover the slabs for kindling and mulch the tops..pulled some really nice wood out of a great big bradford pear tree the other day...gorgeous turning blanks..except for the one which tried to kill me when the hinge broke...I am going to enjoy splitting that one and feeding the stove with it...
Point is, you cannot make the material what it is not..physically or economically...any way you still get to keep it ou of the landfill.