It's not firewood till it's split. Everything must be split, but I won't take anything under 8", and then not much of that. Small stuff is just too putzy.
If we have a clean up job, we cut down small, 1-1 1/2", sometimes. We have 1 5x10x6 shed that is nothing but limb wood, up to about 4" or so. In our biggest shed, we have 1 section that is mixed wood, types and splits. It has elm, catalpa, gum, oak, maple, dogwood and hickory in it. Even have a set-up to cut it, load it on the tractor forks, use the jig and MS180 The cutoffs go in a bin with chunks and uglies. Makes great stove stuffers We sell mostly splits, if they ask for starter/kindling, we will take some dry little rounds. We use most of that ourselves.
Sometimes the driver is tops management. I pile tops I can throw. Try to throw it in a direction or a spot I won’t walk or ride in the future, like a stone wall or other. After that, I keep it all. Some of the skinny’s stay 5’ long and we use them for stakes in the garden or temp fence post. If they are cut to stove length, they go in the split pile. I’d say 90% get split and mixed in. The other 10% get tossed in the pile too unsplit and I’d say that’s because I was just done splitting for that day!
Beautiful, Dstrick . Same as I do with Doug Fir limbs to about 4". DF limbs are much denser than most of the splits. They take longer to cure and are harder to start but provide longer, steady heat than the splits. Years back we had an ice storm and I ended up cleaning up our yard and two neighbor's and down the long driveway. Ended up with close to 2 cords of limb wood. Heated the house a long time on those limbs!
Wonderful stacks of rounds Jeff! I would have split some of those but then the beautiful geometry would be interrupted!
I usually have a small stack of "skinnies" 3" or less. One customer liked some mixed in. Most of the time there are very few of them in mixed in and havent had any complaints. Sometimes ill warn "casual burners" of the hazard of round logs, but most regular burners know.
My rows have rounds mixed with splits, largest sticks at the bottom, and the smallest, kindling, on top for stability since the rows are over 6' tall. My "footing" row is large half splits, split side down on reinforced pallets. 2-3" rounds would be at the top, just below the kindling. Going down, a layer of 3-4" quarter splits mixed with 3-4" rounds follows... Six inch rounds would be near the footing row at the bottom mixed with 6-8" half splits. My sticks are larger than average since I feed a furnace but not as large as "boiler" wood.
I will cut up some fairly small stuff, down to 2-3". It all burns, and nice to have some smaller pieces, and it's less brush to pile up. It makes the brush/limbs smaller and easier to throw in the brush pile.
When cutting and splitting at the same time, it all gets mixed together. When hauling rounds to split at a later time, it all gets separated into two piles, wood that needs split and wood that doesn’t need split. When this is the case, they don’t get mixed in with the splits. I’ll cut down to 2-3”