Pricing for timber for milling

[Big J]

Curious what you guys generally pay for decent timber for milling. Up until now, it has been in the region of £50 a tonne for not especially good stuff up to £200 a tonne for wide, straight yew. Generally it's about £100 a tonne on average.

 

I ask with specific interest to well burred Oak. We were out thinning today close to the shore on the estate where I live. All insignificant beech and sycamore generally, but I noticed towards the shore a beautiful , heavily burred Oak. DBH of about 24 inches and approximately 50% burr on the surface. 20ft straight boule, tapering to about 18 inches at the top. Branch wood above would be extracted as firewood.

 

Our estate has recently come under the management of Scottish Woodlands, and speaking the chap today, he said that there are a number of burred Oaks that he wants to parcel up. I'm not so keen on a full parcel as I don't want 150 cubic foot of oak in one go.

 

So, I suppose the secondary question to the general pricing is, what would you offer for the tree in it's current standing state? We would fell it (taking the branch wood off first to avoid splitting when the main trunk came down), mill it there and then present the branch wood for extraction. In my mind £150 seems fair, as I'm taking the risk that it's duff.

 

I ought to have taken a picture, but didn't have my camera on me.

 

Jonathan

[tommer9]

If you have to fell and extract it then dont pay a penny- you will have more than paid the woods worth. You also need to get out of buying wood by the ton- only by volume (cubic metre for softwood, cubic Hoppus foot for hardwoods).

[openboater]

What's a Hoppus foot ?

Is it like an elephant's foot but a bit smaller and usually wet ?

But seriously, why two different measures for softwood & hardwood ?

[Brushcutter]

Traditionally hardwoods have always been measured in Hoppus Feet. Just a tradition. There is about 27HF to the cubic meter (from memory). However more and more everything is just given in M3.

[Rob D]

I think fair enough don't pay for more run of the mill woods but if it's something special I reckon its worth paying for otherwise there's no incentive for the person who owns the tree in a field/wood to let you have it.

 

I did 1 and half days felling for a farmer a couple of months ago and in return asked for a burr oak on its last legs - burr all round bulging out to 3 foot. Probably around 14 foot long.

 

I also felled it and cut it up how I wanted but the farmer dropped it round to my yard. But if I'd of had to bring a trailer round I would have.

 

So effectively I paid £250-00 for it. But the way I look at it is one table of this will be worth £600+. Also I reckon I'll be able to sell a third of it when dry for £250.

 

And also with wood it depends if you have an easy way of extracting it yourself....

[tommer9]

What the person with the wood is gettibng as an incentive is your time and effort, which saves them paying somebody hundreds to do the job, regardless of the wood IMO.

 

Fair enough if you are happy with the sums you outline above Rob, but for 1.5 days felling work i would want over double that, and even though you have a burr log, which yiou can get a table wiorth £600 from, you will be only getting that money once you have sawn, stacked, stored, kilned, sanded and finished the WHOLE table, which TBH makes £600 sound VERY cheap to me.

 

So to get 850, you have probably spent near 1000....?

[Rob D]

Well the farmers a friend and so it's more of a favour than a strict by the hour rate re the felling.

 

Also maybe I wasn't clear but I'll get at least 3 to 4 large pieces of furniture out of that oak butt as well as being able to sell a bit... I'll keep tabs on how much it's cost me/how much it makes me but I can't see myself losing out. I'll put some pics up when I mill it.

 

The thing is some of the wood lying around in peoples fields their not fussed about whether it's moved or not - So if you want it you have to offer them something for it otherwise why would they bother?

 

Timber that is felled in course of tree surgery is different and I generally don't pay anything unless it's something special because the grab's expensive. And with this wood you don't really know what you're getting...

[Big J]

I'd not get the log for nothing, I can guarantee that!

 

It's currently a fairly healthy, standing tree. The only justification I can use to fell it is that it is 4 ft from a larger sycamore and technically the oak is crowding it. That said, felling the oak to make space for the sycamore is like knocking down St Paul's Cathedral for a multistory car park.....

 

It has the potential to be a very very good log. It's perhaps a little small but with around 50% burring, it's got to be worth me making an offer! It's got about 35-40 cubic foot of timber in it once milled, so a cost price of £4 a cube might even be a bit low.

 

Jonathan

[Brushcutter]

No forester is going to cut down an Oak to make space for a Sycamore especially if its a nice tree. If they're doing a lot then surely they would have a figure in mind per hoppus foot?

[Big J]

No forester is going to cut down an Oak to make space for a Sycamore especially if its a nice tree. If they're doing a lot then surely they would have a figure in mind per hoppus foot?

 

I am aware of that - it is in a compartment that is being thinned at present, and on the basis that it is myself and my colleague thinning it, I'm hoping to get it as a sort of favour. Whether it pulls off it is another question entirely!