How long to split and stack a cord of wood?

[user 122190]

Yesterday it took me 3 hours. Mostly with a Fiskars, but a few with the 10lbs sledge and the wedges. I also had to wheel barrel the bark off twice. I feel that I'm faster with the Fiskars then were I to borrow a gas powered splitter from the neighbors. Lots of tired muscles and some joints get to feeling a bit stressed.

 

[AGoodSteward]

I split my own wood by hand for years. Up there you have so much straight grained wood. I dare you to try splitting a cord of ash. If you come down to Billings and split it by hand I'll deliver it up to you. I'll even stack it nice like.

 

[user 122190]

Straighter then most. This stuff was seasoned 3 summers, so it split rather easily, at least most of it. Still a cord is a lot of wood. I had guessed 2 hours, and was surprised that 3 had gone by.

 

[babybart]

Depends on if the Misses is helping and bartending....

 

[svk]

Sounds about right. I'm right in at 2 hours per cord just to split if I make smaller splits and take 5 minute breaks halfway through and at the end. If I'm doing boiler splits then the time is cut in half.

 

[user 122190]

My first year here, I bought 2 cords of wood. The first delivery (1 cord) the guy asked me if he wanted me to split it. Duh! I asked him how long it would take him, and he said about a half an hour. A young healthy agile guy, it was like watching lightening strikes during a powerful storm, fast and powerful. He didn't stack anything and I helped clear out the area while he was doing the splitting. Took him and hour and a half. I'm twice his age, and I feel pretty good at my rate of splitting.

 

[AGoodSteward]

My lady helps by getting me good and mad. Then I go vent on the log pile.

 

[Big_Al]

Never timed it for sure, probably 3-4 hours but I don't hurry. Gotta stop & refuel myself and the splitter every little bit.

 

[muddstopper]

How long it takes me depends on the size and quality of the wood I am splitting. I dont even own a Friskars and rarely swing a maul or axe. With decent size wood that I can just throw on the hyd splitter, I can split a cord in about 30 minutes. With bigger wood, where I have to use the crane to load the wood, it can take much longer because of waiting on the winch to pull it up, re-splitting two or three times each round, ect. It would take me about another 30 min to stack. I use a 6way wedge so the normal stuff its one pass per round and goes pretty fast. With five of use working, we once split and stacked a cord in 15 min which would work out to 1.25 man hours per cord so more people might make things seem faster but the man hours to get it done remain about the same. Last years wood we split and stacked 4 cords in 4 hours with 2 men and had it stacked in the shed, but it was hot as heck and we took several water breaks, and a lot of the wood was almost 4ft in dia. Big wood just slows you down, even with extra hands to help with the re-splits

 

[user 122190]

I use a 6way wedge so the normal stuff its one pass per round and goes pretty fast.

Now that would make a difference. My rounds are 20+ inches and I will split them sometimes into 6 or 8 or more pie slices. That's a lot of Fiskars swings.

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

I'm going to have to call "fishing story" on some of those. My best day with 3 guys was 6 cords processed and stacked in the truck in about 10hrs. That's including breaks. Now that's from ~45ft logs to firewood though.

If I have a pile of wood in the truck and just stacking, it takes me about an hour for a cord.

Figure this... avg splitter cycle is about 10- 15 secs (ie.. slow) so just in splitting with a 1 way wedge that's in the area of 2-3 hrs. (Figure around 700 pieces to a cord). Now that's figuring a split as soon as the ram is back, no time spent grabbing logs and no time spent fussing with splits.

Then add at least an hr for stacking, more if you have to cart it.

 

[svk]

You must make small splits. I'm around 300 splits per cord for fire pit/fireplace or half that for boiler wood.

 

[Dirtboy]

You all are way faster than me. But than again I'm retired and just enjoy being outside. Some days I'm quicker than others. Don't matter to me as long as the stacks are filled before the snow flies. And it helps that I'm three years ahead.

 

[muddstopper]

Valley, I hope I aint the one you say is fishing.

 

[muddstopper]

You must make small splits. I'm around 300 splits per cord for fire pit/fireplace or half that for boiler wood.

300 splits thru a 6 way wedge is about 50 strokes for my splitter. At about 12 sec per stroke, thats about 10 min to make 300 pieces

 

[CaseyForrest]

This is 1.25 hours of splitting.

sent from a field

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

You must make small splits. I'm around 300 splits per cord for fire pit/fireplace or half that for boiler wood.

Just the other day I had people arguing with me on here that my splits are way too big.

~700 splits to a cord is everything from around 1" kindling to 7-8" overnighters.

None the less, it takes me about 1-1.5 hrs to cut and split a cord. Another hr or so to stack and cleanup.

 

[muddstopper]

Valley, the question was how long to split and stack a cord. To me that suggests the wood is already bucked to length. I spend a lot of time staging my wood to be split, including bucking, and If I add that to my splitting times, well, needless to say the time to process a cord is a lot longer than the time it takes to split a cord. Also I think the question was more or less directed toward those that split by hand. I never split by hand any more. If my splitter quits, I'll just fix it and go back to splitting, even it means waiting a day or two on parts. If I had to split all my wood by hand, I would probably just turn up the furnace. Not that I havnt split a lot of wood by hand, I just aint able to do it anymore.

 

[user 122190]

Splitting wood by hand is the fun part for me. It's the picking up and moving the wood that kills me. Today I was splitting some white fir (I think) and it was light easy swings, and fun....

I had some older Tamarack to split also, and that was a PITA!

 

[Deleted member 116684]

you guy are pretty fast. It can take me all day, with breaks here and there. Maybe its the wood, which is usually oak or hickory. But i'm probably just slow. I love doing it though and hopefully will be able to for a while.