cord volume after splitting

[Dalmatian90]

Can't find the thread of the discussion of whether a cord shrinks or grows when you split rounds up...

But stumbled on this tonite:

Fact 1: Did you know that if you start with a cord of wood, cut it to shorter lengths, split it and then repile it, the original cord will shrink? The same amount of wood (less a little sawdust) will occupy less space. Table 3 shows how wood stacks up when cut and split.

http://www.umext.maine.edu/onlinepubs/htmpubs/7116.htm#Table 3

 

[Orange Hill]

I cut mostly eucalyptus and if it is a wind twisted tree it gets very stringy and does not stack as tight as a wind sheltered tree. I have never formally stacked unsplit wood but I might have to see some day.

 

[turnkey4099]

A pile of wood after splitting will get bigger by about 10%. No matter how you try you cannot split a round and pile back into the _same_ space that nature put it. You can prove it and not even visit the wood pile.

Take a pan, a box lid, anything shallow and a good sized carrot, potato or even slices off a dowel. Pack as many rounds as you can get into your container, dump them out, split in half and try to put them all back in. They will not fit unless you match them back up into the rounds you started with.

It is not logical as when you look at a pile of split wood, the spaces are much smaller. The cause of the growth is that there are a _lot_ more small spaces whith a total area greater than the large spaces you started with.

Harry K

 

[Coldfront]

I buy a 10 cord logger truck load of 8 foot logs, after I cut and split it I have at least 11 or 12 cords easy. Like was said take a round the size that will just fit inside a 5 gal bucket and split it in 3 or 4 pieces then try and fit it back into the bucket.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

I buy a 10 cord logger truck load of 8 foot logs, after I cut and split it I have at least 11 or 12 cords easy. Like was said take a round the size that will just fit inside a 5 gal bucket and split it in 3 or 4 pieces then try and fit it back into the bucket.

I've heard that you loose around 10% heat value in a split cord when done to household size firewood I think it was 2-3 inch wide 16 in long (1/3 cord face)

Sounds about the same as you experiance.

 

[KsWoodsMan]

Rounds and logs are a different story usually for me. The logs have bigger gaps unless they are extremely straight (very rare here). The load of logs will shrink when cut and split. The tightly stacked rounds will grow when split.

If I am in doubt I will roll across the scales at the local CO-OP to see how heavy it is green and get a close idea how much yield to expect. Otherwise I just splitting and stacking till I run out of space to work.

 

[JONSEREDFAN6069]

10 cords unsplit will be 10 cords split it just takes up more space because of the odly shaped peices, thats why whenever i order wood i order it whole, because when you order 10 cords of split you are loosing 10% of each cord there fore you are paying for 10 cords - 10% from each cord so in actuality you are only getting 9 cords.:monkey:

 

[woodbooga]

I started a thread in the fall after I did my big clean up of the processing area. In my case, where I cut a fair amount and do all my splitting in one area, the wasted biomass was a combination of chips, bark, and splinters.

http://www.arboristsite.com/showthread.php?t=77702

 

[thejdman04]

IMO you will LOSE some when you split the wood. as I read on this website before" triangles stack better then rounds". Also the bark usually falls off when you split rounds etc. That seems to be my experience at least.

 

[Zodiac45]

Rounds and logs are a different story usually for me. The logs have bigger gaps unless they are extremely straight (very rare here). The load of logs will shrink when cut and split. The tightly stacked rounds will grow when split..

This has been my experiance. Tree length always shrinks some due too crooks in the load. I've never measured from rounds too splits, only from the tree length load too the finished stacked cords.

 

[turnkey4099]

IMO you will LOSE some when you split the wood. as I read on this website before" triangles stack better then rounds". Also the bark usually falls off when you split rounds etc. That seems to be my experience at least.

You can keep thinking that but if you do either of the experiments mentioned in this thread you will find you are wrong.

Harry K

 

[mattmc2003]

You can keep thinking that but if you do either of the experiments mentioned in this thread you will find you are wrong.

Harry K

Carrots are a lot more perfect in shape than rounds of wood. Round things can't be placed together. MAybe i can borrow your splitter, my maul won't do carrots anyway...lol...sorry. Anyway, you can pick and place split pieces, but you can't do that for rounds.

 

[turnkey4099]

Carrots are a lot more perfect in shape than rounds of wood. Round things can't be placed together. MAybe i can borrow your splitter, my maul won't do carrots anyway...lol...sorry. Anyway, you can pick and place split pieces, but you can't do that for rounds.

And it still comes down to "You can't pack wood tighter than nature already did" no matter how you stack the splits. You will always have more total air space after splitting.

I know, I know, you won't be convinced until you try it with wood and you are not about to do that.

Harry K

 

[mattmc2003]

If you quarter,say, a 20" round, no the 4 pieces will not fit back as tight as they were in that 1 round. But if you got twenty rounds in a stack, you have HUGE gaps between each round, that are easily filled in with split wood. No way that something with no sides can stack tighter than an object with at least 2 flat sides.

 

[mattmc2003]

THe other thread on this is "buying logs to cut up and sell". I puy my artist skills to work for folks like you...lol.

 

[turnkey4099]

Well, I see that the doubters are:

1. Not going to be convinced by posts.
2. Not going to do either of the experiments proposed.


It isn't what you know that hurts. It is what you know that is wrong.

Harry K

 

[turnkey4099]

If you quarter,say, a 20" round, no the 4 pieces will not fit back as tight as they were in that 1 round. But if you got twenty rounds in a stack, you have HUGE gaps between each round, that are easily filled in with split wood. No way that something with no sides can stack tighter than an object with at least 2 flat sides.

If you pay any attention at all when you stack you will not have "huge" gaps. In fact the gaps you do have will only take kindling sized piece or slivers.

There may be a hole or two where you could stuff a small piece of kindling. And that is a stack of irregular Locust that doesn't stack all that tight. If you wish, I will take a shot of fairly regular splits that show the same effect.

That is a load of rounds on the PU. There is one hole (top left) where a decent sized split or two will fit. The hole on thebottom right is the wheel well. Anothe whole would take a small split.

Rick of rounds. Not one hole that will take a decent split.

Harry K

 

[Nuzzy]

If you think the same stacked rounds will take up less space when split, then by all means go ahead and think that.

My experience with my wood pile proves it differently. I'm with turnkey.



meh.

 

[TreePointer]

My experience with my wood pile proves it differently. I'm with turnkey.

Same here.

Here's another way of thinking about it:

Stacked rounds (unsplit) have some interstitial space between them, but they have precisely zero interstitial space where they will be split.

Split logs from those same rounds have more pockets of interstitial space around them than the unsplit rounds. Although the pockets are smaller, they are more numerous than those found in the stack of unsplit rounds. There is the tradeoff--fewer large pockets of space versus more smaller pockets of space. That is how a stack of split logs can exist in at least the same or greater volume as the unsplit rounds.

I will also grant that a load of unsplit long logs that are very crooked may have a lot more interstitial space in its total volume (wood + air) than a load of straight logs. If this is the case, then I can see how it's possible that the total volume after splitting could be smaller than the total volume before splitting.

 

[Nuzzy]

I will also grant that a load of unsplit long logs that are very crooked may have a lot more interstitial space in its total volume (wood + air) than a load of straight logs. If this is the case, then I can see how it's possible that the total volume after splitting could be smaller than the total volume before splitting.

Agreed.