Here's a CL ad for wood similar to what you got for free. $10/foot for beams, $30/foot for boards. See Stuckinthemuck's post below.
Link didn't work. Think you're missing the HTML. Here's another try. Reclaimed barn wood Best to take a screenshot of the site so if the poster takes it down, we have still preserved it here...
...and in a few hours, I will be on my way back up for load #7. It's just too good to leave anything up there. :stacke: At those prices, I have a lot of money sitting in my back yard.
7 loads 5.2 cords Conservative guess that 4x5 to 10x13 beams, 1,000 ft.= $10,000.00 The beams in that picture look exactly like the beams I cut up. At ~500 bd/ft per cord, small stuff I cut, maybe 300 br/ft @ $30=$9,000.00. SWAG=I have some really amazing fire wood in my back yard......for free. ...plus, there is just no telling what I'm going to find in SO many pieces of that wood. Wealth and prosperity does not always come in the form of money. I am so grateful for these blessings.
7th and final load. ....and I mean it. What an amazing ride it has been. Since I became an urban wood gatherer....AKA hoarder, I have more wood than I have ever had. I can't wait for winter.
Finally had a night cold enough to start burning some of the old oak. ....wow.....never had wood like this before. I halved one of these bad boys and threw it in at 8pm. Temp last night was 21F. Furnace never came on this am. Fan was still running w/big pile of coals when I got up at 4:30. Fan was still running when I left for work at 6. .....wow.....
Wow the checking on those beams is huge. Do you think your stove might take one of those beam cuts whole? Thats amazing!
It's kind of weird.....burning it. This wood has had a storied life. If only there was some way to extract the tales it could tell. Some of it will live on in things I will find hiding within. ....and I will have the blessing of extracting the stored energy and returning the rest back to the earth from where it came. A very unique experience, for sure.
I too have burned some barn beams, great wood, great heat, but I felt like I was burning a history book. The stories those old barns could tell, sigh.
At some point it was just a tree, and the guy who harvested it could have decided to use it as firewood then, rather than a beam. As it is, it has served its' greater purpose, and now returns to serve another.