Tips? Anyone Log/Harvest Timber on Their Property?

[ShelbyGT5HUN]

I have a 10 acre wooded lot. It was last logged 100 years ago, and the trees I have now, are prime for harvesting. I was approached, he contacted me, by a state educated Forester who did a rough walk around with me and said there's about $65,000 worth of lumber here. Main species are Red Oak, Poplar, and Beech. I can pay him to do a tree survey for $400 where he will identify and mark trees that are harvestable. That will become a firm quote at that point. No money up front, he handles the permits, crew, selling of the timber.

I am looking to build a home in the next 1-2 years there. I have it engineered out, and he said he can cut in the driveway, and clear the area around where the house will go. That's going to save me at least $20,000. The $65k is with his 10% cut taken out.

Has anybody done this? Do you have any advice or pointers I should look out for? How was your experience with the process?

Thanks!

 

[ford fanatic]

I'm on 40 acres and under the Forest Preservation and Management Program. My three year walkthrough by my forestry guy was last winter. He said at my next check in a little over 2 years he recommended I harvest if interested.

My only piece of advice from the research i've done is to not lock in your tree sale with that guy, or find another company to mark them. Get the trees marked and then shop the timber out to different companies. They throw out big numbers to make you feel all warm and fuzzy, and then pocket a lot for themselves. You'll be surprised at how much...Good luck.

 

[MDShelby]

Seems like a very narrow look at the situation.

As FF said above, shop around a bit. Are they calling it an old growth cut cut over? Thinning? Something else?

The timber company will need space to work and they can use the space you want to clear for a house, still saving that cost down the road.

Good luck!

 

[railroad]

Had some pines cut off my 10 acres prior to me building a house. I called a trusted timber cutter, who said, not enough work for his crews. He gave me some names of, 1 truck cutters, that would do it. I must have picked the worst in the world. Not enough time and space to list all the crap, but had to call their hand on grading the timber they hauled off. They tried to grade everything, chip and saw. That is the tops that are loaded with limbs and no clear lumber cuts. They were supposed to pulp wood the tops, limbs and misc pines. Naturally they cut the prime, hauled it off and never came back.
I do not know how to tell you to avoid the slim balls that do nothing but rip people off.
Oh, by the way, someone burned their log hauling truck, when they left it parked at a local BBQ shop.

 

[BLOWN PONY]

MAKE 100% SURE THEY AGREE TO CLEAN UP THE TOPS AND LIMBS!
The mess they leave if they don't is a HUGE project unless you have your own heavy equipment to fix it.

 

[tistan]

I have a 10 acre wooded lot. It was last logged 100 years ago, and the trees I have now, are prime for harvesting. I was approached, he contacted me, by a state educated Forester who did a rough walk around with me and said there's about $65,000 worth of lumber here. Main species are Red Oak, Poplar, and Beech. I can pay him to do a tree survey for $400 where he will identify and mark trees that are harvestable. That will become a firm quote at that point. No money up front, he handles the permits, crew, selling of the timber.

I am looking to build a home in the next 1-2 years there. I have it engineered out, and he said he can cut in the driveway, and clear the area around where the house will go. That's going to save me at least $20,000. The $65k is with his 10% cut taken out.

Has anybody done this? Do you have any advice or pointers I should look out for? How was your experience with the process?

Thanks!

Did it once. It was supposed to be a tax free agreement and the bastard sent me a 1099 at the end of that year. From what others have told me most of the people in that business are shady. The crew that cleared my neighbors property left it a mess where you couldn't even walk through it. At least mine was cleaned up so I could hunt on it.

 

[ShelbyGT5HUN]

Ok I went to check out a couple of previous sites he did. These were done two years ago, and they left the tops. I was completely blown away by how nice this turned out! These sites are what he called, "a 50% harvest", meaning out of all the harvestable trees 15" in diameter and up, half were harvested.

He said grinding all the tops could really become costly, and not too many people request that service. They section pieces until they reach 6 inches in diameter, then leave everything whole from 6 inches to the end. He said there would be piles randomly distributed across the property, but you would be able to walk without any problems. His plan is basically harvest anything 15" in diameter and up. I have some monster poplars that are easily 5 feet in diameter! The last pic is how big some of my poplars are.

Based on what I saw today, I'm liking how he works. I think I'm going ahead with the survey. He has two active sites nearby, that I'm going to check out this week. Thanks for the replies so far !!

 

[wizbangdoodle]

I sold the trees from where we cleared for our house. Got about $400. Of course, most of the stuff was cottonwood, so pretty useless.

I'm very fortunate to have several tree guys as friends. If I ever decide to sell timber, I know I'll be getting a fair price.

Good luck moving forward.

Move on, nothing to see here.

 

[598]

I hired a forrester to survey my 6 acres and reccomend a solid purchaser. What I got was a check fot 10K and 15K mess to clean up. The stuff they took down but left for one reason or an other was a nightmare. What if he drops 30 trees and leaves them because they werent so pretty on the inside?

 

[BLOWN PONY]

I hired a forrester to survey my 6 acres and reccomend a solid purchaser. What I got was a check fot 10K and 15K mess to clean up. The stuff they took down but left for one reason or an other was a nightmare. What if he drops 30 trees and leaves them because they werent so pretty on the inside?

That's basically what happened on our mountain land. Got 6K for the trees and then had to hire a dozer to come push the big stuff into piles and 2 years of cleaning and burning random limbs and tops. It was a complete MESS.

 

[COOL COBRA]

Nobody has mentioned a contract with the logger. A detailed contract is a must.
They’ll know your expectations up front as far as size to cut/not cut & the cleanup.
Like any contractor, there are shady loggers out there to put it mildly.
Once their done & gone, it’s your problem.

 

[Fastback]

Happened to the neighbors behind me. Had 20 acres done. Now he has a dozen piles of shit left. 20 foot tall brush, tree piles around. Guys took the logs they wanted and left the old man with the rest.

 

[railroad]

They will not sign a contract and if they do, they know you will not waste money on a lawyer.

 

[ashleyroachclip]

Things are certainly different in the land of Doug fir , oak, and madrone .
That is the majority of what we have in Oregon .

 

[lOOKnGO]

If you any Amish clans around, I would recommend at least contracting them too. They use Clydesdales around us. They cut the tops up and piled. They work totally different then regular companies.

The positive about using horse teams to drag logs out, is narrow paths. Not only that, certain trees like Oaks can take any heavy traffic inside their drip line.

Sent from my SM-S506DL using the svtperformance.com mobile app

 

[DriftwoodSVT]

We are closing on 7 acres of very heavily wood land in Arkansas on 9/3. It must have hundreds of 50-60' pine trees. We plan to have a logging company harvest 3-4 acres, as much as we need to clear to begin construction.

Our realtor said the logging company will build a rough rode in to access the property.

 

[5.0 Hatch]

We were approached around 10 years ago to cut our 20 acres of hardwoods. We said no but everyone else around us cut there's. The mess they left is horrible. Basically took the middle section of the trees and left everything else. 10 years later, it is so thick with brush that you can't even get close to it. Sad part is even though my other family member said no to cutting their 20, the company "accidently" crossed boundaries and cut at least 6 acres of theirs.

Dont do it.

 

[4sdvenom]

We were approached around 10 years ago to cut our 20 acres of hardwoods. We said no but everyone else around us cut there's. The mess they left is horrible. Basically took the middle section of the trees and left everything else. 10 years later, it is so thick with brush that you can't even get close to it. Sad part is even though my other family member said no to cutting their 20, the company "accidently" crossed boundaries and cut at least 6 acres of theirs.

Dont do it.

I hope your family member was compensated for the trees removed from their property!

 

[DSG2003Mach1]

I hope your family member was compensated for the trees removed from their property!

I doubt it the way most of them operate, not without a hell of a fight and even then they'll lie about the value of whatever they took.

A neighbor had it done and they dropped shit across our wood fence line, taking out sections of it. We finally sent the property owner a certified letter that if it wasn't repaired by X date we'd take them to court and CC'd a local attorney. Magically it got fixed. It still royally screwed up the property one side with a hill when they didn't do what they were supposed to, all that water just gushed down the hill, pond was mucked up with red clay for about a year.

 

[5.0 Hatch]

I hope your family member was compensated for the trees removed from their property!

Not for what I feel was an appropriate amount considering the 6 acres are pretty much unusable at this point.