logs, logs everywhere ....

mountainmoma's picture

So, alot of trees died in the fire, and the ones closest to the roads/powerlines have been dropped. An awful lot of very large doug fir. Meanwhile, I have unmet building material needs..... so we will see. Easier said than done but if I can pull it off financially, I would like to rebuild the barn, woodroom, outbuilding and maybe the interior updates that are overdue ( florring, counter tops ? ) The only proplem is $$$. Yes, there is a local portable miller, if making 2x4's I think it is about double the cost of going to home depot and buying cheap 2x4's. If one of the builders I am going to talk to though wants to do it post and beam, well, now we're talking, it pencils out better. The flooring would be around $5/sqft ( uninstalled). A nice, big slab for the bathroom countertop, priceless. If I was stron enough and young enough to build it myself the cost difference wouldnt matter. If I do the barn out of the fir, I will have them board and batten the outside too.

This is very different from how we are REQUIRED to build a new house in this neighborhood ! All these trees down, thousands of 100 year old firs, and no one will be allowed to use any of it for the home structure or cladding. Structural wood must be graded. Cladding must be OSB board covered by cement siding ( like hardiboard) So all those industrial large players have a captive audience.

sorry there is nothing there for size reference, they are realy big. Mature 100 year old doug fir

The background of those logs is the remains of my next door neighbors house on that side. Just a low lying pile of ashes you see in the background.

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mountainmoma's picture

the same part of my front yard from across the street

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mountainmoma's picture

my neighbor posing for reference

If I can pull off the milling and rebuild a few things with it, then in 6 months or whatever I wil of course post cool photos, we will see.

If nothing else, I have 7 years or more of firewood, even if I mill I still have 7 years of firewood !

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ClareBroommaker's picture

Do I understand that photo to be showing the trunk was the width of your arms span?!

I know the whole area must smell so smoky, but if I were by those cut trees, I would want to stick my nose on the cuts to smell them. Mmmm!

Well, I don't envy you. You've got a lot of work ahead. Watch out for scammers if you don't already know local people to hire or have good references on them. I remember after hurricane Katrina, scammers poured into the area. Happened to my inlaw's part of Florida after a hurricane, too.

mountainmoma's picture

That is my neighbor posing, but yes, that fir tree was that wide at the bas, it was multi trunk too, kind of a candelabra tree.

It does not smell smoky outside, it smells smoky in my house, I still cannot go into my house, I am still in the driveway in a trailer. Now, when they were dropping trees, it would realy kick up a big cloud of ashes when they hit, not too bad at my place, but the lot across the street had more than 50 trees taken down and alot of them were dropped straight onto ashes that used to be the house, and that stuff is maybe toxic. For a few weeks my nose hurt all the time and I had a few nose bleeds, but now it is much better.

.gov has posted signs all over warning to look out for scammers. I only hire local people. Now alot of the tree crews, they are not local, those I would watch out for.

bobmcc's picture

Multiple cookie sheets with white vinegar in them will do the job of odor removal, if left for some days in a closed house. There are companies that provide the same service with more modern (and pricey) chemicals...

mountainmoma's picture

The house has already actually had a pricey air clean, which used hydrogen peroxide generation with HEPA, charcoal filtration and UV light. It does still smell like smoke, but not near as badly. It did take the rotting food smell out of the air ( 7 weeks of no power and a refrigerator that just had to sit there thru it) . SO air cleaning is all well and good, but the actual stuff has to be cleaned off of all surfaces. And it isnt just smell, the dust in the house is ash/soot residue that gets back into the air if you disturb it ( walk/sit on things coated with it) which then sets off asthma. Being someone with asthma, no, I did not have a company use some kind of chemical airfreshening smells to cover over, and actually none of the smoke remediation companies are doing that, well at least not in this area that I have heard of. I have wood interior walls in alot of the house ( not painted drywall), so I had to ask around and find the correct remediation company, so a historical B and B not far away that also had wood interior walls had good luck with this company, so I then also picked this company. They come out beginning of December, so after that I should be able to go in. They have to take everything out and wipe it off and put it back. Yes, you can do this yourself, and you can use TSP on the walls, even my wood walls. This company I am about to use is using a solution that is basically some kind of detergent and TSP. TSP does not set off my asthma/allergies as they are using a non-scented formulation. But, I am not physically up to doing the job myself. I talked to a local woman who did it, she had help, adult male family members who literally carried all the furniture outside to air out and be cleaned while they scrubbed the interior, walls, ceiling and floors with TSP. They ran HEPA air filters, etc..... took a few weeks or a month of 3 of them working on it. Then you have to send out all the clothing and linens to the cleaners. Other houses got by with heavy cleaning and air out, just depends on which neighborhood. There is alot of money being made though with companies that are billing our insurance companies for cleaning. If I were younger, I would have taken the $$ offered by the ins company to do it myself, but I cannot possibly do it by myself

mountainmoma's picture

this is a driveby of my street, then around the corner to her street ending up in her driveway where the only thing standing is her colorful garden shed. The part before turning the corner, with so so many trees down is across the street from me, to give an idea of the scale of the logging operation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQelhU9t7cA&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR...