Free wood chips!!

PCTREE

Treehouser
Joined
Nov 3, 2007
Messages
6,033
Location
Charlottesville VA
Had a job today where we were taking down 4 big poplars. Job was on the other side of town and I didnt have any dump sites close so I was faced with an hour to an hour and a half turnaround to get dumped. I put up a craigslist add for free chips but every body who responded was way to far away. So this morning we just put up a hand written sign on a piece of cardboard saying "FREE CLEAN WOODCHIPS,CALL ### ### ####"

Worked a charm, we got 2 neighbors respond so saved 2-3 hours travel time. So now Im thinking I should have some signs printed up professionally and put them out on every job.

Any body else do this????
 
That is an awesome idea!! I usually have a list of folks who have called and want to buy them when I have some available. I get $100 a load delivered. Some days I have no place to dump nearby and that would clear the truck in a heart beat!
 
Like Tucker, its a good idea, fortunately I'm usually close to the dump.

Hey Fruitb, hows the running going?
 
Trail running I presume? Nice!!

Sorry for the derail
 
The other resource we use for losing chips is the local Master Gardeners group. Good people to know when you need to drop a load near a job site. Amazing how many there are near where you are working.. :/:
Getting to know your local chapter can pay off pretty good. Both for dumping/selling chips and future tree work ;)
 
If I worked more then 10 minutes from my wood yard/dump, I would surely do it.

Same here.

And most of the time, our chips suck. We do too many palms, loquat, brazilian pepper and other trees that will seed if the chips are spread. I don't want to have to deal with that, so 95% of the time, we HAVE to pay to dump. But we do have a good network of friends that would LOVE to have good chips when we have them.

In fact, I have a guy that wanted a load of chips so when I went to the dump this afternoon I dumped the garbage we had (bunch of palm and giant birds of paradise and some euc), I bought 5 cubic yards to give (sell) to the client tomorrow.

However, firewood....whole nother story. We give away almost all our wood on craigslist. It typically is gone before we leave the jobsite!
 
That is a good idea, it's hard getting rid of them around here now.

Any firewood I don't want I put out the front when I get home and it disappear overnight luckily. Tried ebay with chips but didn't work out, only person that wanted them was miles past my drop off spot and wouldn't pay a delivery fee of $25. Well she did the first time, gave me $20 and said she'd give me the $5 next time which she forgot about and put the price down to $20 from then on.

Complained about where I tipped that last load as well.:laughing6: Well they were free.
 
Can't complain, that's for sure!!

In all fairness, it's expensive running a biz in CA, so though there is a lot coming in, there is a lot going out. I don't seem to be holding on to enough of it.

love
nick
 
Hey Nick, what's the problem with loquat?
Is the issue with brazil pepper that it has seeds mixed in, we've never had pepper chips resprout, they get chipped up all the time in nature reserves and the chips left on site...no problem, even logs. Seeds though are an entirely different matter, not to mention stumps or roots left intact!
 
A sign that says WOOD CHIPS AVAILABLE might at least get a number of lunches for the crew. It would sorta be a free lunch, instead of the chip recipient getting a free lunch.

I have only paid to get rid of holly chips once. Other than that I have only given them away for free or sold a bit. Free lunches sounds good. I might get a sign made up next time I get some more vinyl signwork done.
 
Maybe ask a nursery(s) if you can put up a sign, or somehow get connected with them about chips. Referrals and they get a piece of the action.
 
Mine gets a piece of the action, they stopped paying for it 10 years ago after a big storm. I can still tip it there for free and they sell it for $35 a cubic meter.

At least I can get rid of them, more chips than you can poke a stick at around here these days.
 
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