Stacking is my least favorite too. Doing things this way also gives time for the hydraulic fluid a chance to cool down a bit seeing all of big box store splitters have under-sized tanks. Here's what I use to load, it's an old photo..actually my very first year using that trailer. I don't always load it as full, but you get the idea. I split till it's full, then I drive to where I am stacking, unload it, and then go back to the splitter to start splitting again. It takes me longer to stack it than it does to fill it up.
Picked <.25, it's not a race. Now with the totes we throw some in and stack that after a few logs. Sometimes I think I can split faster by myself as there is less chatting, but again, doing it to relax.
My wife and I do roughly a cord in an hour. At least a couple cord of rounds stacked by splitter. Push thru splitter with a big table on outfeed to catch the wood. 24 inch wood 4-5 inch splits. Gets stacked directly on trailer from splitter and moved to shed. The trailer is set up to take a full cord so I know how many I have, I’ll say it takes it but not sure how it likes it
When I help my brother we can split and load a Kubota RTV that has racks with 1/3 cord 16" boiler wood (not left in huge chunks, but not fine) in about 20 minutes. With the 2 minute drive from the woodyard to his boiler shed, we can put 2 stacked loads up in an hour.
It won’t be many more years and the tires will wear through the fenders. Paid $400 for it on a Black Friday tractor supply deal and never babied it just once. If it ever goes on the road it’s just down to my buddies house a mile away and without that load.
A buddy and I can split or shall I say, we did split and load about a half a cord an hour, but the ground was level, and conditions were at their best. However, I can hand split 1/3 of a cord per hour, on easy splitting wood like Red Oak, or even Black Locust, but might be a bit slower on Black Locust (some Locust splits easy and some don't), but I am a lot faster on Sassafras. And I am not bragging but I can probably split by hand faster then one man, using a splitter, in easy wood. But I don't pick the wood up or move it from the saw site. I split it right where it lays, but will stand up a round when needed. I never have seen the utility of loading full rounds and then hauling to a splitting site, at least not for my own use. I load my wood only once and stack it direct from the bed of the truck or side by side, or trailer into the stack for drying.
I'm more confident than ever about what I can split an hour. I timed myself filling up my ATV trailer and this one had some smaller rounds/splits too, so it's going to be on the upper end of what it takes me compared to when I'm doing mostly larger rounds/pieces (which is mostly what I do). I did it at my normal pace. It was a bit over 14 minutes to fill up the trailer. I also timed a previous load using the hour meter on my splitter...0.2 hour (12 minutes). I also started two new rows. After I did four loads I took out my tape measure and it's all of one cord for sure. So one ATV trailer full is a 1/4 of a cord, like I thought it was. A 1/4 cord every 15 minutes = 1 cord an hour. ~21" long splits. I do not understand why some here think it's impossible to do with a single wedge box store splitter, it's not like I feel like I am working at some crazy pace. It's a comfortable pace....when the beam is empty I simply grab another piece, nothing crazy going on. LOL I tried a 4 way wedge on my last splitter and I didn't like it. I like to pick my split sizes and with a 4 way that's hard to do. I think you guys stating 1/4 cord an hour have short rounds and are splitting them really small or you are under-selling your capabilities. I would have to go at an uncomfortable snails pace to only split a 1/4 cord an hour. Stacking, now that's a different story. I bet it takes me twice as long to stack, as I go piece by piece and find places for the splits. I only want to stack it one time and the stacks are going to be there 10+ years, so I don't want them to fall over and want to keep the leaning to a minimum. I make sure all rows are as straight (vertically and horizontally) as I can get them as well. Curved stacks have a tendency to topple over given enough time. Since I've been stacking by myself and paying attention to split location, I have yet to have a row fall over. Since I started stacking on double pallets the rows seem to stay more vertically straight as well, a lot less leaning over time.
I cut rounds at 16" and split pretty small to sell in bundles. I have a Black Diamond 27T splitter. Generally I split and "loosely" stack straight into IBC totes with most of one side cut out. I don't push myself too hard and tend to average about a face cord per hour. Sometimes I split into the back of my Gator CX. It takes a few trips to equal a face cord so that extends the time a bit.
Over time the single pallet seemed to sink into the ground some, this left the bottom row of wood near ground height and subjected to wetter conditions from leave buildup and also snow. I've also seen signs of the pallet sinking into the ground unevenly, causing the stack to want to lean even more. The double pallet thing seems to improve both issues. I try to overlap the joints as well to "interlock" the pallets. This could have also been from using not-so-good pallets to begin with, as early on I was scrounging for pallets and used some that were not all that great to begin with. I get all my pallets free from the family farm now, so they are all really nice ones. I'd prefer plastic ones, but those are pricey!
For low end hydraulic units with 15-20 second cycle times, I agree its very, very unlikely. However..... My single wedge Super Split has done a full cord an hour numerous times. Verified with measured stacks after the fact. There's been times I've been around 1.5 cords/hour with a helper. This is all starting from rounds. Just splitting. I don't think counting bucking the logs, or stacking into the splitting equation makes sense.
