Dealing with rotted wood

[tomstrees]

I have a customer that moved from Pennsylvania with her wife who had a lot of rotted logs around their property called me for an estimate for log splitting, some of the wood was burnable, a part of it had too much rot to be useful. Oak, hickory and ash, years too late frankly, they should have been split years before. So the project was to reduce the wood to split pieces so that anyone could move it and select between the too rotted and the partially rotted. 50-100#, some 200 pounders plus. As my brother said, if they're willing to pay $75 an hour for the work, do it.

The sensible professional way to handle low grade wood is to dumpster it away or haul pick up loads of junk wood and split what's left. How do you handle rotted wood?

 

[ATH]

Is there wooded property to spread it around? ...well on its way to being really good for the soil, so seems a waste to cart it away.

 

[flushcut]

View attachment IMG_4070.mov

 

[Reach]

My vote would be to spread it around in the woods if possible, make a big pile out of it if not. It will decay into compost eventually.

 

[southsoundtree]

Off to a greenwaste recycler if not manageable onsite.

Punky wood is said to clog chippers.

 

[tomstrees]

Around here with properties upwards of a million an acre in suburbia, splitting wood, even if marginal can be the least expensive way to deal with it. In this case two cords of or so of partially rotted hardwood, they have a burn pit and a fireplace.

 

[TreeCo]

You might be able to have folks pick it up for their:

How to Create a Hügelkultur Raised Garden​

 

[flushcut]

Off to a greenwaste recycler if not manageable onsite.

Punky wood is said to clog chippers.

I’ve never had the chipper clog up from punky wood but the massive mold spore filled cloud that follows the chipping is terrifying. It’s like the movie The Fog.

 

[tomstrees]

I sometimes wonder when splitting old wood with bacteria, spiders and insects of various types, whether I'm taking any real risk. I doubt there are many around here willing to do these jobs, or as a customer told me one group of workers wanted "a million pesos" to do the job. If the customer is paying and I'm not getting hurt, just a workout, I'm ok with that. Still recovery can take a while as I need to lose some weight, I donated a pint of blood in a drive yesterday, not sure if both or one of these things will help me.

 

[oldoakman]

Speaking of the mold spore cloud, I have had several instances where dusty spore filled wood caused me grief. Just this past September I spent about a month hacking my head off with no other symptoms after an afternoon of dusty chipping.

 

[oldoakman]

Million dollar an acre neighborhood??? $75 per hour seems quite a bit low to me.

 

[southsoundtree]

Respirators for the win.

 

[ATH]

Million dollar an acre neighborhood??? $75 per hour seems quite a bit low to me.

$75 an hour for splitting wood seems reasonable - at least around here. For other tree care operations (if the schedule is full), yeah, $75 doesn't pay get too far. But you don't need big machinery splitting wood, so that job shouldn't be paying for the crane.

I never price by neighborhood.

 

[flushcut]

Respirators for the win.

But not chipping that shit is even better.

 

[tomstrees]

Million dollar an acre neighborhood??? $75 per hour seems quite a bit low to me.

If you go higher then the number may sound too high for prospective customers. I had a guy over the line in NY earlier in the year respond, wanting a bunch of big pine logs split, they were large and pine and spruce can be hard to split. I used my Husky 365 chain saw to cut them in half. Many of these jobs don't run into a lot of hours.

I have been looking for a place to store the log spitter a I don't have that capability in my rental or the the parking area. I have a friend over an hour away, each way who let me put it on his farm. I checked around locally, one of the customers was willing to barter splitting for storage for a few months, but have not taken him up on it yet.

You can do the jobs with an "estimate" number, instead of by the hour.

 

[Merle Nelson]

I've cleaned up rotted logs using a stump grinder. Forestry Mulcher may be a consideration under some circumstances. I love the look of a place all cleaned up.

 

[tomstrees]

Fewer people are burning wood in the suburbs. Dumpster fees have gone up a lot, I used to get 20-30 yarders when I was close to full time with a real service back in the 90s.

 

[climbingmonkey24]

Respirators for the win.

This.

I usually wear one of those neck gators that TreeStuff sometimes sends out with an order when on a job and will pull it up over my mouth / nose when doing things that might generate minimal or moderate amounts of dust like cutting, blowing, etc. I also carry a respirator and dust masks in the truck for scenarios where I don’t think a neck gator would be sufficient.

Respiratory protection is one of the most overlooked forms of PPE in my opinion.