We’ve bought a .35 acre lot on a corp of engineers lake and it has about 20 - 25 Loblollys about 70’ tall and 24-36 inches in diameter and about 10 short needle pines about 18-30 inches in diameter and about 50’ tall. A friend who clears land for a living looked at it to give me a price on clearing and told me it’d take about 4-6 loads to haul them and the rest of the brush off and the dumping fee in our area was running $700 or so a load. Hate to just dispose of them and really hate to pay that much to do so.

Seriously thinking about buying a basic bandsaw mill and milling them in place. I’d like to use it for siding, trim, fascia and ship lap on the inside. Maybe flooring also. Have also thought about air dying it and going through the grading process to use structurally…they’d make perfectly good studs. Is any of this practical? I know I can probably but the amount of lumber far cheaper but I hate to just throw them in a landfill. They have no commercial value in my understanding but that may be incorrect.

If I do it how long would the drying time be and is it possible to set the sap in a solar kiln or does it have to be a regular gas kiln?

I know that loblolly used to be used green to build everything in our area and some of those structures lasted 100 or more years but of course today the grade stamp is all that matters. Not sure it’d ever grade for structural use but as far as I know if you use osb for lateral support siding is not structural. Fascia isn’t and trim isn’t.

Any advice? I know it’s a pile of labor for very little reward but I hate to turn it into firewood or put it in the dump…and really hate the thought of paying to do either!