I thought I’d share my technique with y’all. We don’t have a ton of space so the driveway is where most splitting is done. I have a method I have used for a long time with tarps and a fancy easy splitting pile. The idea behind the tarp pile is that I can focus on splitting and stack later. The outer walls are literally thrown in place and not very neat the inside pile keeps them upright until it’s stacked in the firewood stacks. It allows us to stack high and makes it easy to move to the actual firewood stacks. What method do you all use? The final product now that I’m catching up..
I honestly haven't figured out what works the best yet. Up until last year, I really didn't even have a permanent spot for my stacks, so I had wood spread out all over my property. So far what I have done this fall is: 1. Move all wood for 2017/2018 season to the "primary" wood shed next to the outdoor wood boiler. This holds 6 cords. 2. Clean out "secondary" wood shed and make sure pallet floor is solid. This one holds 12+ cords. 3. Go to woods, drop and buck trees, bring back rounds or noodled quarters with tractor. No cutting at the wood shed. 4. Set up splitter so that splitter tray is just inside the wood shed, split rounds or quarters right off the tractor bucket or carryall, make big pile under the shed roof. No stacking yet. 5. Repeat #4 until no more room to move. 6. Use late evenings, rainy days or when help is available, to stack what was split. This allows nice leisurely stacking and neat, solid stacks. Plus I can play some music while stacking and not have the splitter always running. 7. Loop through #3-6 until wood shed is full. 8. If time and ambition are still available, stack outside of shed on pallets for the 3-year plan (still no success getting to this point). So far I'm on #6, round one. I hope to get my wood shed full before winter sets in hard. I also have 10' of vertical clearance inside the wood shed, so I like to leave smaller rounds whole and hand-split them inside the shed during the stacking process.
I have tried many variations myself everything from bins, rows, square stacks and even built a nice wood shed. All that trial and error has led to the current method. undoubtedly it will change again when the wife or I have another brainstorm... Next year I am switching everything to round stacks because we can fit more in a smaller footprint plus people like em! We have paved bike trail that passes through behind our firewood fence and its funny how many people stop and look in amazement. Some people even take their pictures in front of the 70' long firewood fence. Im stiill a little annoyed about the picture part.
Not usually I use it to roll the rounds to me if I am setting and to roll them out of the trailer. It gets used a lot but stacking is much faster without it. If its just a slow take it easy day ill use it.
Hired help LOL. Good friend of mine's kids always need work & I'm happy to oblige. Good workers too. Looks good Pete.
It’s a similar design but a little faster with a more powerful pump. I think it’s a very nice splitter. This guy will split just about anything... It will get cleaned and the beam painted like last year for the winter storage. As for the milk crate my bad leg hurts too much when I sit and split. Part of the reason for selling the old splitter was to get a taller one so it didn’t hurt anymore this one does it’s job very well!
I was thinking that I need a place where I can split besides the drive. My drive is gravel and I made a big mess that is hard to clean up without raking gravel as well.
Tarps cost money; a place in the woods would be free. Of course it has to be within the radius of the power extension cord.
Tarp or extension cord? I have an extension cord that I use for the little SpeeCo splitter. An available tarp I don't, all the ones I have are in service covering the stacks. I am really glad it has been warm as I have not had to burn a lot yet. However, cold weather is approaching this week.
