Is it worth buying a sawmill to cut my own barn timbers?

Published: Wed, 05/03/17

Hi


I received a question today in an email that I think would help a lot of you who are wondering about buying a sawmill to cut timber for your own barn.  

Here is the question, and my answer is below.  

Aaron:

Do you think it's a worth while investment buying a basis Homestead sawmill? $3K

I have 40 AC. of trees, so I have the raw material...lots of white pine.

My Answer: 

Yes.. well maybe.  

You might be best served having a sawyer with a portable sawmill come out to your land and saw the timber for you. 

Lot's of guys will come out and cut on shares. 

In other words they will saw a certain amount of timber and give you an agreed upon # of board feet then take an agreed upon number of board feet for themselves. If you have 40 acres of timber there should be more than enough to be very selective in what is harvested.  

Or you could just hire them for a certain amount per board foot.  

If you want to tackle sawing the timber yourself then, you might want to buy a sawmill like you said.  You will save money that way, but it is a lot of work. 

For a sawmill in the $3k dollar range you would be looking at sawing around 2,000 bd ft per day, not counting all the logging work.  

Most of our barns range between 7,000 board feet for the 20x30 sugar shack all the way to 25,000 board feet for the 40x60 Gambrel.  

So time would be a factor as well.  

A great place to start figuring the costs to see if it is worthwhile to buy your own sawmill is with a set of barn plans from the barn plans library.

They come with materials lists so you know exactly how many timbers you need to cut and what sizes.  

That way you can compare buying the timbers from a local sawmill to the cost of purchasing a sawmill and doing the cutting yourself.  

You can get plans by joining our Barn Plans Library Membership area.  

if you can't see the link copy the link below and paste it to your address bar.  

https://shop.barngeek.com/ultimate-barn-plans-package2JXcZ0sD0

Have a great day!  

Aaron Esch 
Barn Geek 
www.barngeek.com