That's interesting, did they live in a homeowners association or something like that? Or on protected land, like in a state park?

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Yes, this is good advice as well. Generally, the most economical thing to do is to find some use for the wood. So that might be:

• Getting it milled and selling the boards yourself to recoup (some of) the cost
• Getting someone who wants to mill and sell the boards to take it off your hands
• Getting someone who wants to heat their cabin for a few years to take it off your hands

Now, there's a caveat here that the above people might not be licensed, insured arborists, so if they offer to take these trees down, you're going to assume the risk for any damage they cause on your or your neighbor's property, or any harm they may do to themselves. So it still may make sense to work with an insured arborist to have the trees taken down, and then find yourself a sawyer or off-grid lumberjack type of bloke to actually get rid of the bigger logs.

In my experience, it's hard to find someone willing to take the trees down and remove the logs in exchange for the wood, unless you have a very valuable tree - like a walnut with some burls or something that may be worth 10s of thousands of dollars. So you might be stuck with paying an arborist to take it down no matter what route you go.

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I researched that yesterday and I should be fine. Two of them are dead. And the other is too close to my home.  And in the backyard, the big one I want gone needs to be trimmed regularly due to power lines so if push came to shove, it'd be considered unsafe.
 

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The insurance aspect if they get injured is a concern. If they signed some legitimate waiver so I don't get sued, I would be fine. But one of them is really big and I'm not sure it's a one person job without a really good lift or something.



I forget what the guy said the one in the back was, but in the front they are as follows.

D: Birch
E: Ash
F: Maple


He's gonna provide me an itemized quote. At least, that is what he said.

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Earthquake mentioned a Peavy, which is the tool with a pointed tip on a hinged piece of steel that you use to roll a log. 

As to the stump grinders. The toro is OK at first, but the teeth dull way too quickly, especially if you want to go a little deep, deep being beyond about 6". You definitely would want to buy teeth when renting, and could look to see if the existing teeth haven't been fully indexed yet. I think I paid 45 bucks for 3 teeth, but that was awhile ago. The good news is that most people don't know you can index (rotate the tooth for a fresh edge) a couple of times, and you can tell by looking at them. The 339 one day rental you were quoted was for a more serious machine, probably around a 15hp bluebird, and is in line with what I have paid for that more serious grinder. I think the Toro was around 150. With that many stumps, I'd pay the difference, but that's me,, after having gone both routes. I would also explore getting the tree company to discount the grinding. It's probably the easiest part to negotiate, price wise, but don't expect a miracle there, either. 

Sorry for your troubles.  Been there, done that. Sucks.

They lived in West Allis Wisconsin.
It was years ago, and I honestly don't remember all the details.  I know part of it was the closeness of the neighbors property. 

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That close proximity to neighbors is what makes tree service around here so expensive. There is such a high rate of that issue that it is priced into all the work, regardless of whether it's an issue on your particular property. Townhomes, McMansions where the trees have matured from the scrape, fill and plant toy tree they started out with 40 yrs ago,  people with far more money than sense, etc. I'd bet that the work Kev is looking to get done would cost over twice what he is going to get quoted if it was here in Northern Virginia.

 

Forgot to mention. I think he said Tree B is Pine. He said Tree C should have never been allowed to grow that big. Apparently if it is closer to the house, it can actually cause damage to the foundation.

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I did some digging into what people are asking for slabs in the Green Bay area (you’re up in Howard, right?) and it looks like $3-6 a board foot is the going rate for kiln-dried slabs of these species, possibly up to $8 for slabs wide enough to make something like a live edge dining table (28” and wider). Slabs 8” or thinner would be closer to the $3 range. You'll get less for them if you want to sell in bulk vs selling slab by slab to hobbyist woodworkers.

If you’re not familiar with the measurement, a board foot is 12” x 12” x 1”, so if you have a slab that is 8’ x 30” x 2” thick, it would be 40 bdft and worth $120-320. There’s a nifty calculator here .

If the maple has been standing dead for a while there could be a lot of rot or there could be interesting figure or spalting. Generally, spalted maple is more valuable provided the wood is sound (not soft/rotten). If it has any curl figure (waviness in the grain from stress as the tree grows) that would increase the value too. The species of maple will determine its value as well, hard maple (rock/sugar maple) is generally more expensive while soft maple (silver maple and other species) is usually a bit cheaper, though soft maple often has curl figure.

Ash lumber used to be relatively inexpensive, but with so many of the trees dying from the emerald ash borer, the supply is down and demand is up. Still, this is probably the least valuable of the three (but not by a whole lot).

I don’t have a lot of experience with birch, but again it’s a good quality hardwood, it should be worth a little more than the other two - if it’s wide enough to bother milling.

All three of these trees could be worth having milled or at least finding someone to take the logs away for free if you don’t want the hassle of selling slabs. I would ask your arborist to leave the straight sections intact, around 8-9’ long, as long as they are over 16” wide or so. You could have them cut the narrower sections into 1-2” long rounds and someone will come and take those for firewood for sure.

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Try the electrical utility. It's their wires. They might have people who do that. 

For tall trees, I'd try to get a bucket truck, cut it from the top down in chunks. Dunno man.
 

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