Be a good thread ! With my bad back I can split wood faster now than when I was young swinging a maul. That I can split wood, with bad back ., not sure I could split a years supply in a month. I get the splits sized & shaped just how I want them. Wife can use , G-kids like to help run the lever. Having both Vertical & horizontal modes is a good feature. Make kindling easy. Splits stuff my maul would bounce off of. Building a shed over your tool eh?
All in all we burned 10 cord of lodgepole pine last winter in two old wood stoves (we did just fine with the -29* week cold snap). We had 3 of 5 cords of last delivery left over (not quite seasoned last spring). Our home in 1800 sq ft ranch with no other heat source. Although I did run hefty e- bills from using a bunch of space heaters..... (and yes, I am a wife with cold feet lol)
Our pine he used to bring from the forest was good by 2 years, dry one year log, and another year cut/split. Though he was so far ahead we also had wood 5 years old. It did not rot. Some splits lost bark, which I always used to help start the fire but it still burned great.
nope. Such a thing does exist but its inaccessible. Beetle-Kill spoke about it. Its also the stuff that the raging wildfires start in. A tree dead from beetle kill is usually still 1/2 living, you till have to fell it, branches, etc. and then let it season. QUOTE="Beetle-Kill, post: 200541, member: 362"]Ok, my input as follows- Lack of wood- sure, but really in accessible areas only. There's thousands if not millions of acres of Beetle-Kill all over the place, ready for the harvesting. But..... You can't get to it, and bring it out unless you haul 1 round at a time, on a back pack. Sounds funny but the terrain in not exactly "level" around here. For the last few years the pro-loggers have cleared out vast areas, and that all went to mills and pellet plants. It was more cost effective for them to load trucks and drop off at a mill, than deliver to an obscure destination (my yard). The accessible areas are mostly on N.F. roads, and they clear up to about a 20 deg. angle. We get to deal with the rest. I have access to a nice bit of land around here, but it's 25-35 pitch slopes, so it ..uh..sucks to get anything out of there. If I could figure out a way to bring home the dead-standing I walk through in one day of hunting, I'd be set for life.[/QUOTE]
No need for wood to rot if it stays out in the weather. All that is needed is to keep it just a tad off the ground (we sometimes go only an inch or two and have also stacked with nothing but mother earth under the wood) and then covering only the top of the pile. Wood will keep easily 10-15 years that way.
Kenny, I can hardly believe I had missed this thread. Some good reading. Now on that splitter idea, I think it would be a good idea for you to start a new thread just on splitting wood. Many will chime in. In our case, I always used to love splitting wood by hand. That is, until the back injury. Finally broke down and got a splitter and never sorry. At the time we knew practically nothing about splitters except many home made ones that were slower than Grandma. One night we stopped into the farm store and caught the manager with nothing to do. He noticed us looking at the various splitters he had set up inside the store and came over. I told him one of my concerns was that I'd buy one and find it did not do the job we needed done. He guaranteed he'd buy it back if that was the case. On top of that, he recommended the smallest one there, a 20 ton model. I offered him less than the sale price and he took it. That thing will do all we need done. That is the one in my avatar. Here is an old picture. This is what March looks like in MI.
Maybe at your house. At mine, there's usually still snow and ice on/in the ground in March. That's a GREAT pic Dennis.
I will work on the proper wording for thread on splitters. pros and cons. owning verses renting for the day. electric verses gas, Size tonnage, Cost. and of course will need lots of pic for papadave.
I have a couple on the radar. Sometimes life happens and you have to regroup. Sometimes you feel a CAD disorder coming on. Mostly too many irons in the fire. Squirrel
That's a nice start, good, solid, white wood. I cut a lot of standing dead lodgepole here. Same deal, permits are $10/cord, 10 cord limit per household. It's a lot of work to get 10 cords home from the woods (as I'm sure you're learning). Dead lodgepole is ready to burn when it hits the ground (drier than a popcorn f*rt), it only gets wetter from there. If you're going to cut more than a year's worth, stack off the ground (i.e. on pallets) and top cover your stacks for the winter. Don't bother with the trees that are already on the ground, they will be damp and starting to rot. Even the ones that have fallen across other logs and are not on the ground will be compromised. If the wood is orange, it's starting to go off. Still produces heat, but not prime and should not be stored for next year.
As far as splitters go - swing an ax, if you can. Wifey will be much more accepting of your firewood/chainsaw hoarding when that mini keg starts turning back into a 6-pack. I hand split around 13 full cords this year, and I'm now in the best shape of my life. Plus an ax is about 100 times cheaper than a hydro splitter, which equals more money for chainsaws! It's win-win, really.
For the type of wood you are getting, I STRONGLY recommend the Homelite/Ryobi style electric splitters. I've been using mine for 7 years now. At $300, I will gladly buy another when/if mine ever quits. There are numerous variations sold under many names. They are essentially the same machine.
Had one of those elec splitters. Your set-up is very clever and definately maximizes it's possibilities... for sure...
