Value of walnut tree

[Dale Fitzgerald]

Not sure if this is the right place to post this so feel free to move it if necessary.

My brother has a walnut tree that he wants to cut down for fire wood. I am trying to convince him that he should sell it to someone who will cut it into lumber. The tree is about 30" in diameter at the base and is very straight with no limbs for at least the first 20 feet. Could someone give me an estimate of what this tree might be worth? He lives in the Nashville TN area if that helps.

Thanks for the help.

[Chuck Wintle]

Not sure if this is the right place to post this so feel free to move it if necessary.

My brother has a walnut tree that he wants to cut down for fire wood. I am trying to convince him that he should sell it to someone who will cut it into lumber. The tree is about 30" in diameter at the base and is very straight with no limbs for at least the first 20 feet. Could someone give me an estimate of what this tree might be worth? He lives in the Nashville TN area if that helps.

Thanks for the help.

it would be worth a lot more as lumber.

[Andrew Hughes]

Good luck trying to get someone to pay you to take out your tree.The reality is http://youtu.be/iTgQHWQoatg

[Jamie Buxton]

Convert the main trunk to lumber. There will still be lots of firewood from the upper trunk and the branches.

[Jebediah Eckert]

I assume your a woodworker being on this post? Maybe you could find a portable mill guy to come over and split the yield with you? If it's an easy drop maybe find a mill guy that can also drop it and you and your brother can provide the labor for limbing it etc. Split on the yield, if it's a nice tree, would be appealing to the mill guy maybe.

I did a basement clean out fo a family that the father had passed away. There was a nice, maybe 24"-30", walnut tree. Straight and nice. The father took care of it since planted and said in the 80's he was offered $1,000 for it standing. He refused and intended on using it for furniture himself.

They wanted me to pay at least $1,000 for it, fully cleaned up, and the stump ground. Not a chance. I said the best I could do would be to drop it, clean up, and I would make them something on the larger side, or some boxes for each of them kids (4), or something along those lines out of the lumber when it was ready. One of the kids was tough to deal with and he angrily refused when he was told of the offer. He knew everything and said it was worth about $2,0000 at least.

The moral of the story was the house was sold with the tree still standing. The kids remember their whole life the father taking care of the tree and the only thing they have of it is the memories. I was later told the best they could do, after shopping it around, was one tree guy would drop it, chip it into the yard, and leave the stump. He would keep the wood and would only charge them $250 for the job instead of the usual $500 he would price it at.

The daughters regret not taking my offer.

[Matt Day]

Is it a yard tree? If so, you'll likely find a lot of metal in it that will tear up sawmill blades. Some guys won't touch it and sole will but charge you for each ruined blade.

[Tom M King]

I don't think there would be too much trouble finding someone who would want that butt log. Post the location in the sawmill forum.

[Wade Lippman]

I have seen standing walnut trees on CL for sale. I doubted they would sell, so just for fun I posted that I had a 4' diameter tree and wanted offers. Two people offered me $500. If that was the best I could get, I doubt a 30" tree would be saleable.

But if he does try to sell it, it is prudent to make sure the buyer has proper insurance.

[Dave Zellers]

The daughters regret not taking my offer.
As well they should. You were being very generous AND trying to accommodate the sentimentality of the situation. I bet even the son now regrets not having a piece made from his fathers tree.

Such a shame when people get in their own way.

[Andrew Joiner]

Not sure if this is the right place to post this so feel free to move it if necessary.

My brother has a walnut tree that he wants to cut down for fire wood. I am trying to convince him that he should sell it to someone who will cut it into lumber. The tree is about 30" in diameter at the base and is very straight with no limbs for at least the first 20 feet. Could someone give me an estimate of what this tree might be worth? He lives in the Nashville TN area if that helps.

Thanks for the help.
My neighbor had a walnut exactly that size. He asked my opinion of what it was worth. I told him probably not much as it's a yard tree with barely any access for a loader. I suggested he get some bids. To my surprise a well known walnut dealer in Portland paid him $1,200 for it! The other bidders wanted him to pay $800 to $1500 to cut it into firewood and haul it away.

It always pays to look at all your options.

[Jebediah Eckert]

Wow, that's a score getting $1,200. You figure you may get somewhere around 600 bd foot out of the two 8' logs? Nowhere near that will anything but common grade boards unless your lucky. If I remember correctly walnut sap wood knocks it down to "common" unless it's steamed to blend the color better. With a mill, kiln, steam, and waiting customers I guess, but $1,200 doesn't leave much "meat on the bone". A few high dollar slabs would help but still.....

I bet based on the family saying he bragged about the value of the tree there are several more dozen people now that think their walnut yard tree is worth the same. These stories all seem to be walnut? My lumber yard has Cherry prices on par with Walnut, but those high priced tree buyers only seem to buy Walnut.

Around here on CL you will often see an ad for a dying Walnut tree, growing over a house, "now accepting offers".......I can't imagine any of them go for anything other then maybe a discount on the tree service fees.

Now if they are an easy drop, with easy access, it would definitely be worth having a portable mill come in and sell the boards as it comes off the mill.

[Tom M King]

Worth a look, and maybe a few phone calls: http://woodmizer.com/us/Services/Find-a-Local-Sawyer

[Dale Fitzgerald]

Thanks for all the opinions. The tree is in a field with many other trees so there is no risk of property damage and I doubt if there are any nails in it. I'll suggest the Woodmizer site and see if he can work something out.

[Danny Hamsley]

I estimated the volume at 400 BF on the international 1/4" log scale. At $2.00 per board foot international scale, I would pay you about $800 for the log if it was felled and trimmed to length.

[Cody Colston]

[QUOTE=Andrew Joiner;2529450] The other bidders wanted him to pay $800 to $1500 to cut it into firewood and haul it away.

QUOTE]

This is the more probable worth...you pay someone to remove the tree.

[Jared Sankovich]

I would pay you about $800 for the log if it was felled and trimmed to length.

I would assume that it also needs delivered to the mill for that price.

[John Schweikert]

I live in Nashville and had 2 walnut trees in our yard cut down (at my own cost) 4 years ago and then milled on my driveway (at my own cost). But the end result was over 500 bdft of nice walnut to make whatever I want. It's been stickered and air drying ever since under a tin roof with a permeable grated plastic around for air flow. We had to have the trees cut down no matter what, so the total cost to cut and mill was equal to retail at that time. Hearing that someone wants to cut up walnut just for firewood makes me want to cuss them out, just kidding, but honestly, it's one of the most desirable woods on the market for furniture, flooring, kitchen counters, cutting boards, etc. Reason why retail is now seeing $6-8.50 per bdft. Heck I can get Honduran mahogany for that.

Reading Woodshop News Nov 2015 Issue, they have an article on walnut. Slabs with the blonde sapwood is very desirable these days for the contrasting look. Here in town, I have seen many houses with huge walnut kitchen island counters.

The first 6-8 ft butt log of the trees can certainly have junk imbedded. We went through 3 blades and scrapped a nice 8ft butt log which would have been another 125 bdft alone. Screws, nails, wire, you name it gets into them over time the closer they are to residential areas.

I do have the name of a guy in Mt. Juliet with a portable mill. Let me know if you want his info.

[Rich Engelhardt]

A sales guy that used to come into one of my customer's place bragged about having 5 "big walnut" trees that he was planning on using as his retirement nest egg.
I told him, "good luck with that plan"...

[Jebediah Eckert]

This should probably be added to the list of urban legends, the "highly valuable" walnut tree.

[Scott T Smith]

The highest value black walnut logs are those which are "veneer" grade. These logs typically are perfectly round, large diameter, straight, and without any visible imperfections in the bark (ie no previous branches). They are not harvested near houses or fences, but tend to be grown in the forest. These are your true $5,000.00 black walnut logs. They also constitute about .0000000000000000000001% of the total black walnut logs!

Like Danny, I on occasion buy larger sized black walnut logs. What I'm looking for are logs greater than 30" small end diameter, and ones that were not in a fence row. I have been known to mill (but not buy) 50" black walnut "yard trees", as the cost of the metal strikes is usually overshadowed by the value of the live edge dry slabs.

Value of the log is proportional to quality, and if it's delivered. If I have to take my crew and equipment to harvest the log, odds are that I won't pay you much if anything for it. On the other hand, if you harvest and deliver the log to me, then I'll consider paying based upon quality and size. Quality includes the width of the sapwood band; logs with wide sapwood bands are usually not good candidates for live edge slabbing because the tension in the sapwood causes the slabs to split from the ends.

Logs less than 30" but greater than 20" small end diameter are probably going to sell for $1.00 - $2.00 per bd ft delivered to the mill (less if the grade is obviously poor). Logs between 14" - 20" diameter will probably sell for .50 - $1.00 per bd ft at the mill, also subject to quality.

[Art Mann]

If I were trying to tell someone the truth about the value of yard trees, I would try to find a better way of telling them than that video. At the very least, they could have employed a better text-to-speech algorithm.


Good luck trying to get someone to pay you to take out your tree.The reality is http://youtu.be/iTgQHWQoatg

[Art Mann]

I built several boxes and clock cases out of a moderate sized Walnut tree that was cut and sawn in front of my Father-in-law's house. The value of the wood was not thousands of dollars but it wasn't negligible either. The guy with the band saw mill was already there cutting up some huge black cherry trees. These trees were on a farm rather than in a suburban setting.

[Michael Sapper]

Here is a CL ad in my area where someone is asking $3,500 for each of two Walnut logs 8ft by 36". I figure that's about 500bf of lumber each log, so the uncut price is over $7 a board foot. I say good luck with that price.

http://indianapolis.craigslist.org/for/5442626030.html

Michael

[Wes Ramsey]

I recently got on the good side of a local arborist. We have a mutual friend that worked out a deal where I helped the tree guy clean up and he'd save the logs for me. I got 5 8' walnut logs and 3 BIG pine logs. A couple of the walnut logs were 18-22" and had a lot of nice lumber in them and several nice feathered crotches for turning. The tree guy said he normally just pushes everything he cuts into a big pile and burns it at his place. Never had anyone with the gear or gumption to actually haul off saw logs. My father-in-law, who owns our family mill, doesn't like to cut wood from around houses, but since it was me and looked to be nice wood we did it and only hit 1 staple. I don't have any idea what the lumber is actually worth, but I have a huge pile of it drying now and enough pine to frame a new 8x10 walk-in deer cooler.

The tree guy called me last week and asked if we'd resaw some 8x8 beams into 2x8s for a shed he's building. Another mill had cut them into beams, but didn't have time to finish them up. We did it at the mill over the weekend and even though all the bark was cut off we still hit 2 nails. I didn't charge him anything since I got some nice logs from him before, and now I have a standing order in with him for walnut, cherry, straight oak and firewood.

It doesn't really take all that much gear to move big logs - a flat bed trailer, chains, a good chainsaw and some cant hooks is all we use. I guess most tree guys don't bother messing with saw logs as there's not a lot of money in them until someone works them up into lumber and it's less costly in labor for them to load the logs onto someone else's trailer than for them to load/haul/dispose of them. If you can move the logs, get to know a local arborist and before long you may have more wood than you know what to do with.

[Dan Hintz]

Good luck trying to get someone to pay you to take out your tree.The reality is http://youtu.be/iTgQHWQoatg

The moment I saw this thread title I was going to post that movie :p

[Mel Fulks]

In VA there have been buyers who would scout and then knock on doors to buy single walnut yard trees. For veneer ,not lumber. It's been at least 20 years since I heard that. Source was owner of large architectural millwork company who had a kiln and was always trading in lumber.

[jim mills]

The city cut down a huge black walnut on the right of way in our neighborhood. We asked them to leave the trunk for us, and they gladly agreed. We paid a sawyer that we found on craigslist $300 to slab the trunk. We agreed to pay for blade damage, but there was none. He did a decent job. We got about 400bf of walnut out of that tree. It's been air drying for about 3 years now. I just used some of the wood, and it its beautiful. We may be the exception to the rule, and just got lucky, but it worked out good for us. Probably never happen again...

[Marty Tippin]

I get a kick out of the hopeful listings on Craigslist...

This guy cut down a sycamore, sliced it into round slabs and now wants $300 per slab. I wish him the best of luck with that...
http://kansascity.craigslist.org/mat/5434685708.html

[Cody Colston]

You know, in the end, something is worth whatever someone will pay for it. I wouldn't pay for a Walnut yard tree or a Sycamore round but perhaps there are folks that will. If so, more power to the seller. :cool:

[Andrew Joiner]

My neighbor had a walnut exactly that size. He asked my opinion of what it was worth. I told him probably not much as it's a yard tree with barely any access for a loader. I suggested he get some bids. To my surprise a well known walnut dealer in Portland paid him $1,200 for it! The other bidders wanted him to pay $800 to $1500 to cut it into firewood and haul it away.

It always pays to look at all your options.

I just talked to my neighbor Bill again. He forgot to tell me the walnut dealer would not cut the tree down. Bill paid a tree cutter to have the tree cut down. He did get paid $1,200 for the saw logs. The trunk was closer to 3' in diameter. When it was all cleaned up he broke even dollar wise.