My neighbor is looking for some beams and posts. 4-5 x 5 x 7' posts 1-5 x 12 x 17' beam 1-5 x 12 x 13' beam I calculated the board footage to just over 200 BF. The logs would be from my supply and would be White Pine. I'll be delivering them to his house. What do you guys think is a fair price?
Years ago on another forum, in another world, there was an ongoing joke about "how much..." and the answer was always a sarcastic "tree-fiddy". I think in this case $350 might not be too far off for a neighborly price.
That's a bit low sounding. You can't just go pick that up at Menards! How many hours are you talking about?
It was more or less a joke or at least a starting number. Not even in my dreams is lumber that cheep!
The 5x5x7’ posts can’t be worth too much IMO. A 6x6x8’ at Home Depot is going for roughly $36. $30/pc sounds reasonable to me there. For the 13’ and 17’ beams though, I imagine they’re worth a lot more. But… for a neighbor, how much? Would he balk at $250 and $325 for the 13/17’ respectively? How long to mill all that anyway? 3 and a half hours? That would be $100 per hour and not half bad.
If this is the same neighbor that needs you to snowplow for him, charge him $2000 in one fell swoop and call it good enough
You and I are on the same page. $100 an hour running the mill is where I’d need to be to bother doing it as a business.
At that price an 8 ft 2x4 would be about a $1.26. At $5 in the store that's a 396% mark up. 200 bf x .36= $72. X 400% = $288 If my math is right.
Take what I say with a grain of salt though. I might make a good neighbor but I’m a terrible businessman. The whole neighbor thing throws a wrench in the mix for me. I know those large beams are stupid expensive if he was to go buy them elsewhere.
There ya go!!! Sounds like a good neighbor. For what it's worth. Any job that requires more than $20k worth of equipment should be $100/hr min.
sirbuildalot I charge by the board ft for my logs white pine I currently sell for 1.75 a BDFT I also get my pine logs for no cost tree services give them away here. I do not sell much softwood mostly I am a hardwood mill white pine is not the best for beams if you have access to spruce or hemlock it would be a better choice . I have a lot of amish mills near me they are selling pine for 1.20 bdft way to cheap. One other choice is hourly rate for custom sawing is 100.00 hr on customers logs but if it works out better to just charge hourly for your time and include the wood you might work out better price wise Hope this helps JB
