Massive storm clean up

[sea2summit]

Dang Hay Dude, hope you have a bunch of “groundies”. That’s gonna be a heavy job if you want to keep it clean and not do more damage.

Brushing everything where it sits is going to make a huge difference in how big of a mess you make picking it up. I would bid very high and hire 2-3 good guys to help. One running a saw and the others just building piles you can grab with a machine. I’ve done a few tree cleanups like that on my own, usually just two or so trees in a spot, never more than four at a time and usually I can get through about a 70’ tree in three hours with me, my saw, and tractor with grapple of that helps your estimate.

Here’s an example of a 3-4 hr job, that’s a single tree all by itself but after I was done you could hay right up to the stump. That’s how long it takes, if it’s tangled with another tree it will take longer, more than twice as long if they are tangled.

 

[Hay Dude]

I think they may be open to getting the worst of the cleanup done in maybe 2 weeks, to open up areas that are important.
The rest could be picked away at as time allows this fall.
I have access to my 2 Amish helpers & my son part time.

The tree guy may be able to handle the whole thing or maybe they will use him to take down the snapped-off trees and me to handle the ground work.

I have someone with a tri axle log truck who will haul away logs for $300/load. Figured thats where the pines will go.

 

[Snobdds]

First thing you do is separate the logs into a pile and the brush into a pile.

Then decide the next step with the customer.

 

[Snobdds]

How do you eat an elephant, one bite at a time.

 

[bnold]

Looks like microburst type damage.
Scary stuff

 

[dodge man]

Just my opinion but I wouldn’t worry about trying haul logs out for any useful purpose unless there are long logs without any limbs. Just getting trees untangled and limbed out is a lot of work. I also wouldn’t mess with mulching or grinding up any.

A track loader with a thumb would work well if you don’t have to track very far. One advantage of a tractor is a little bit better ground speed. The less hand work and chainsaw work the better.

When I helped with the wife’s nephews place I just drove up to a pile and dug in with the forks and hauled off what I could, and did this over and over. There was one tangled mess by a shed that required work with a chainsaw and pole saw. That was slow going and exhausting. I‘d shove everything out of the way and burn it or let it rot.

 

[bigtiller]

I see a lot of work there Hay Dude.
Those inland hurricanes are bad stuff. Little or no warning of the danger coming your way.

Your pics reminded me, my yard looked like your pics. Today is the third anniversary of the Iowa & Illinois derecho.

There was $11 billion in damage along the 770 mile path making it the costliest thunderstorm disaster in US history.

 

[texas42]

Look into renting a log skidder

 

[4570Man]

Grinders are super expensive. One of my friends was working on a site with one and he said they were billing $700 an hour for a large grinder like the ones with a conveyor that feeds into it. Chips aren’t fun to deal with either. They take forever to rot and they don’t burn good. Are they against burning it? If you had a wide open area that’s safe for burning that would be by far the fastest and cheapest plan. Trackhoes are great for stacking tall brush piles and sorting through a mess like that but they’re slow for moving brush any distance.

 

[2manyrocks]

Many here would do a burn pile, but Hay Dude already said the landowners are environmentalists.