I’ve got two trees I want to remove from my back yard. One is a huge silver maple that I know is worth nothing, but the other is a Bald Cyprus about 70 feet tall and straight as an arrow. It was struck by lightning and one side of it is dead so that is why I want it removed (it was beautiful before).
I’ve had other trees removed and from my past experiences I’d expect to pay close to $2k for the two trees to be removed based on their size and location (close to house/fence). I’m just wondering if the Cyprus would be worth anything for the lumber. It looks interesting for wood working, and I at least plan to have a round cut from the trunk that I can finish for a table top or something.
I’ll call in a few weeks, but thought I’d get your opinions to set my expectations.
Mills don’t like trees that grew in people’s yards. They might have nails in them and they need to stop milling to repair the blade, or even replace it. If you want the lumber yourself you may be able to find a sawyer with a portable mill who will come to your home and saw the trunk into boards. He’ll charge you for any damage to his blades, but the cost is a lot less than a mill is facing. You can use a metal detector to check the wood for embedded metal before sawing. Small sections might be valuable as turning blocks if you can find a way to sell them. Maybe you can sell the boards, cypress is rot resistant so it makes a good construction material. I’d guess it would be hard to recoup the cost of bringing the tree down from sale of the wood.
Bald cypress produces low-density, bland-looking softwood lumber, so it’s generally not a happening carpentry wood. Being easy on the tools, rot-resistant and taking paint and nails well, it is used in outdoor applications such as posts, framing, shingles etc. Availability is good and the prices accordingly low, so I wouldn’t expect all that much from the tree, especially with lightning damage.
If the huge silver maple tree has flame or quilt figuring in the wood, those pieces can be worth some real money. Luthiers, cabinet-makers and gun makers pay huge amounts for choice slabs of flame or quilted maple (which are found on the soft maples such as silver).
Yeah, if the maple has significant burl that would be attractive, and curly grain is attractive also. Sometimes sugar maples are mistaken for silver maple, that wood is harder and more useful even without a nice grain pattern.
If you need a fence the cypress would be good for that, you can get optimal usage of the trunk for that.
If you are near/in an urban center look through the yellowpages, google, whatever to find the local granola-based woodworkers. Most cities have urban tree based woodworkers. They are out there.
Who knows, some of them may even do the work to cut the trees down.
Yes, I know a guy who’s an ex-lumberjack who makes a little money on the doing work for homeowners around the Seattle area. If the tree fits a certain profile, he’ll do the work for free and make his money from selling the wood.