I just purchased almost 2.5ac in Belews Creek, NC and plan to build a new home and garage/workshop in 3-4 yrs. The property is fully wooded and almost all hardwoods. I've not yet taken a deep dive into identifying all of the trees of interest for future wood working projects but I know I have several really nice white oaks and maples that I'd like to secure when they have to be removed lot clearing. Maybe 5 to 15 really nice trees. Just wanting to clear where I must for the septic field and house/garage as to mitigate risk of trees falling on these structures. Much of the property will remain wooded. There is a paved easement adjacent to where most of the trees will be cleared for the septic field that a future portable saw-mill could come in to mill the logs for me.
Unfortunately I feel that the growth is too dense to go ahead and drop any of the trees this winter to set aside for future milling and of course I have no way to man handle them through the woods to a location where I could store them. Felling the trees I fear will simply result in them falling into other trees and not laying down. Even if I could I do not have a good short ravine area to use a couple of white oak logs as bridge girders across it to hold all of the other logs off the ground. I'd hate to have all of this nice timber burnt or hauled off to landfill. It's far too small of an area to have timbered as I understand (typically need at least 10ac for it to be worth timbering hardwoods).
Questions
Jeremy Finison
Unfortunately I feel that the growth is too dense to go ahead and drop any of the trees this winter to set aside for future milling and of course I have no way to man handle them through the woods to a location where I could store them. Felling the trees I fear will simply result in them falling into other trees and not laying down. Even if I could I do not have a good short ravine area to use a couple of white oak logs as bridge girders across it to hold all of the other logs off the ground. I'd hate to have all of this nice timber burnt or hauled off to landfill. It's far too small of an area to have timbered as I understand (typically need at least 10ac for it to be worth timbering hardwoods).
Questions
- Do you know anyone that could come out and take just the maybe 10-20 trees of choice for milling by felling them, cut into 9-10ft lengths & moving them into a spot for future culling for mill-work ? W/o breaking the bank...
- Do you think it's best & cheapest to maybe just work w/ builder and whoever clears & grades the lot to set aside a place for the logs and have them cut into 9-10ft lengths ? Would still need a system to store them.
- It may be years before I'd get a portable sawyer to come out and not likely to cut all at once due cost and space to air dry them. I'd need to build some kind of system to keep the logs off the ground if I go this route. Any ideas what something like this would look like ? Simple as leveled system of cinder blocks and 4x4 posts ?
Jeremy Finison