You can feel good for trying to help out. What makes mental health so scary is they look normal on the outside, and it doesn't take much to set them off. For some reason there's a lot of mental health problems in our society.
I try to split as many 4 sided pieces as possible but I’m not crazy about it. Whatever comes of the round is fine w/ me.
Honestly though, have found ways to pack the stove for long burns, with many different shapes. I do like getting larger wood, so that I can split some, well, railroad tie size rectangular splits, but I burn what ever size splits I end up with, it all produces BTU’s, and heats the home Doug
If it's split and I can fit it in the OWB without throwing out my back, its good to get stacked, mine are all shapes and sizes... All put out heat and burn.
I try to make as many square/rectangle pieces as possible. Ive found it stacked easier, was easier to handle and load in stove. Last week my neighbor decided he liked squares better also. Lol We cut together pretty often.
I thought about this thread while splitting rounds today. Turns out I do some of each. I guess I split wood by maul for too long, even with the splitter I tend to split based on the wood, grain, knots and how I think it will split easiest. I tried intentionally splitting into rectangles but sometimes just felt wrong. Anyone else a long time maul splitter who switched to hydraulic feel like this? Brad
Well as far as size and SHAPE, I have found that most tires are ROUND and most are Black , for size I prefer smaller, they are easier to handle, and more importantly, the nylon belted are generally the smaller ones Nylon belted can be cut/chunked with a Chainsaw which is much more FUN, than using the chop saw, which you need with the steel belted tires. That and the nylon belts also Burn much better, the steel belts mean Cleaning the stove more often. But if nylon belted aren’t available, and a guy’s gotta keep the Family Warm, you do what ya gotta do, and burn steel belted and accept the extra work. It’s kinda like burning Oak or Cottonwood, both will heat your home, but would anyone Really choose Cottonwood over Oak? Doug
If it splits it fits. I wouldn’t call rhombus or rounds dysfunctional. Maybe slightly less efficient, but certainly burns better than snowballs.
Pro tip. Drop the dogs chain down the chimney when burning radials. When the wire begins taking up too much room in the firebox just wrap a loop around it and pull it up the chimney. It’s like semi automatic chimney cleaning.
