A $1000 a cord is not unusual here as it has been like this for forty years that I have been here. I am surprised at how people have responded. For most part this is a resort area. In many neighborhoods there are only 20% of the homes occupied. The rest of the homes are for vacationing or weekend use. This area is about an hour to two hours from three ski areas. We are located about 100 miles east of Los Angeles. For people who want to go skiing they have to come here to one of the communities to stay or they can not ski. When weekenders come to this area they are as desperate as anybody to have a fire to sit around to enjoy regardless at the cost. Then those married with kids will not be forgiven if they do not provide a family fire. For most part people do not depend upon wood to heat their homes. Although I have about twenty five customers that at least supplement their homes heat with wood. Then many homes has LPG tanks for emergencies. However when the power goes out which is common during times of stormy cold weather patterns there is no heat period. As many homes depend on electric companies effort to restore power to run their central heating. So for some who do not plan ahead and the power goes out they call with one question is do you have wood then bring it. These people do not ask well how much is it? They want wood period at almost any cost. For a few of us who earn a living at selling wood we need these windfalls to stay operating. Then my bundling which often is very competitive is often marginal when we have no winters. So maybe this can put a little perspective on our wood supply work. Thanks
Can a hydraulic splitter be to fast
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ChoppyChoppy
Tree Freak
I wouldn't figure that many people need firewood in California.
I stayed at Beale AFB for 3 weeks in January/February several years ago. I had the A/C running, it was in the 60s-70s most days! I don't normally bother to make a fire in my house if it's much over 30* outside.
My only heat source for forty years here has been my wood stove. We have averaged 20 F for close to two months would any body say that it would be OK for a lit fire to take place. The highs have been in 40's about five times since New Years. For the last ten days we have had 26 to 30 F for a high with the lows 14 to 16 F. A few families have called with kids telling me they have an emergency since their furnace has quit. I do not think anybody on my street is worried about getting their AC working. Thanks
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ChoppyChoppy
Tree Freak
Still seems crazy that there is demand for that much wood. Must be quite an outfit, that's 3-4 loads of logs per day! Do they do the logging as well?
Choppy when was the last time you were is Southern California as we have quite a few people living from San Francisco to San Diego. Within a 100 miles of where I live I can think of at least a 100 firewood suppliers that go through more than a cord a day. I was just at one outfit that probably is delivering 50 cords a day right now as I know they have more than 50 employees. That place is near Los Angeles. I deliver to LA, but they do not come up into the mountains. The place I used to be involved with just sold Oak and Live Oak about haft to dealers and half to customers. If some one could figure out how to compete on many levels they could really do something. Thanks
Wood Hound
ArboristSite Operative
Can a splitter be too fast??And my answer is no,this is why i started a thread..
https://www.arboristsite.com/community/threads/log-chop-saw.329563/
https://www.arboristsite.com/community/threads/log-chop-saw.329563/
York the obvious answer to the original question is YES. Safety becomes and issues when the speed goes too fast the OP can not function with it. I was trying to build a a simple speedy splitter with a 28 GFM pump and a 18 HP motor. With the ram that I started with soon became obvious that it was too quick for most to keep track of. When the cycle time becomes less than 4 seconds the point of splitting wood get overlooked. My goal has been to design a set up that is manageable either for one or two OP. What do you say. Thanks
Wood Hound
ArboristSite Operative
My pump also flow`s 28 GPM and i only use the four way-am talking to a friend,we are thinking about setting up his splitter at the end of my outfeed tray and he will do all the resplitting,not sure of my cycle time but don`t like resplitting with my machine...Little fast for that...
How fast you "split firewood" is based on the entire process from log form to firewood staged for seasoning.
jrider has a pretty good set up. Logs are dumped in a windrow, rounds are cut, splitter is moved down windrow of rounds, leaving rows of splits to season where they fall from the splitter..
Most set-ups have significant bottlenecks before or after the splitter, such that a increase in ram speed is all but cancelled out.
Rather than focusing on "ram speed", reducing physical effort and fatigue, will more likely increase production.
With these poorly designed big splitters it takes two people to be efficient. Which means two people need to do twice as much as one person just to break even.
Look at it as hiring one person or two.
One person does one cord in eight hours.
Two people need to do two cord in eight hours.
Then there is the cost of the machine to cover, so two people need to be more than twice as productive.
I sold a TW-6 because... it increased effort when re-splitting. Period. (watch the YouTube videos of these big splitters. It's almost comical.)
So I tried quartering with the TW-6 four-way and re-splitting with a SuperSplit.
I was creating more work for myself, not less. Despite the TW-6 having a decent cycle time, it is awkward to re-split with. Dumping quartered wood on the ground to re-split... made more physical work. Which is what we're all trying to cut out of the picture.
If the process in inefficient, working faster may not be a long term solution.
Although I've never run one, I think the Eastonmade units with the adjustable height V-box wedge looks to be "faster" and much less effort than four and six-way wedges that have been copied for years by almost every other company out there.
ChoppyChoppy
Tree Freak
To be honest I thought logging had mostly been banned in Cali and burning wood even more so... the whole "logging is evil"/"woodsmoke is evil".
And then to top that with a good part of Cali more or less being summer year round, it just wasn't something I'd figure would be in much demand. Normally think of firewood selling well in cold areas.
Would certainly be interesting to see an outfit moving that much firewood. Do they do the logging as well?
Choppy logging is not banned. I work with a guy who removes trees for the power company. When a tree looks unstable it gets removed partly because power companies have been blamed for numerous fires. I also work with the USDA to reduce fuel loads. The people that live in the basin or valley buy the bulk of wood that is being sold. Los Angeles and surrounding communities equal 20 million folks which in most cases can have fires. Those living near the coast have a very big drive to have fires. Some times or days are banned from having fires, but usually only for a couple of days. Winters at times get below freezing which freak many people out in that they have to go home to a fire. More routine the days get down to 35 or 40 F which is very cold for Californians so they want to go home to their fire. It is true the the LA basin does not have long winters or there would be more firewood suppliers. Here where I live in the mountains firewood when it is cold is a very big deal. In many cases people will pay any cost to have wood when they want. There are three nice ski areas near where I live. Last winter we had no winter maybe one month of cool weather then it started to warm up. This year it was cool, but not until the end of December did we have much winter like weather. For two months we have had at least one snow storm every week with the highs ranging from 25 to 45 F and the lows ranging from 11 to 16 F so keeping warm can be important. At the present time near the end of February I have had at least 800 requests for wood most willing to pay $100 or $200 extra, but even that is not very profitable because of the immense effort it takes to get to the wood stock and get to the customer. Thanks
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the words are "too' and 'to" guys....c'mon....it's not that hard
KiwiBro
Mill 'em, nails be damned.
I'm trying to be less anal these days so will leave it to others to pick that post apart.
NSMaple1
Addicted to ArboristSite
But sometimes it is in this age of tiny touch keyboards and fat or shaky fingers.
It dont bug me nonne
It's "None" dang it, get it right (just kidding)
27 Ton splitter here. 4.5" dia cylinder, 11 gpm gear pump 19 second cycle time. If anybody that has a faster splitter that is worried about too fast for safe operation, I'll trade 'em splitters.
Wood Hound
ArboristSite Operative
I do not blame you-19 seconds would drive me crazy..
The tonnage is enough for my needs (16" lengths) but the ram speed has gotta change. Will be rebuilding it this summer and adding a hydraulic log lift and a table. For what I paid for it, I can do a lot of modifications and still have way less $$ in it than buying a new one. Using the on-line calculator, at 20" stroke it's a 14 second cycle time. I'd love to cut that in half or more.
Swap out the 11gpm pump to a 22 gpm pump, or better yet, go with a 28gpm pump, and you will halve your cycle time.. Two bolts, two hoses and a coupling, cant get much simpler than that. What size engine does your splitter have? A no money improvement would be to turn your highflow/ low pressure side of the pump so it would produce more power in the highflow mode. This would keep the pump from kicking down into low flow/high pressure in anything but the toughest of wood to split. My 28gpm pump hardly ever kicks into the low flow/high pressure mode.
Well, poopie. I don't know if spending any $$ on this splitter is worth it. I'll have to look at everything and run some numbers, but I'm open to suggestions. The fittings on the existing valve and cylinder are only 1/2", the gas Honda motor is only 5.5 hp. Tank has 3 gallons of Hyd oil. If I could increase the cycle time, I'd be OK with getting a new valve/fittings if needed and increasing the capacity of the reservoir too if needed. I could also add a cooling radiator to the system to cool the Hyd fluid. This project got started by wanting to add a hydraulic log lift, and make tables on the side of the beam and I thought that if I could decrease the cycle time at the same time I'm doing the other modifications, why not. I don't know if it'd be worth it if I had to buy a new cylinder and motor on top of the other parts. Fabrication is no big deal, neither is welding. I have access to steel to make whatever log lifts/tables/added reservoirs needed.
It has a 2 stage pump on it now, and it rarely drops down to the 2nd stage - only if there is a crotch to bust but with the wood that is available I can be picky on what I split and eliminate those tough to split pieces.
I read in a previous thread that the rule of thumb was 1/2 hp per gpm for a 2 stage pump. So what is the max GPM that I can run thru 1/2" fittings?
I only go thru 4-6 cords/year, so it's not a production endeavor, but the faster I can get the stuff split the happier I'd be. I will be out of wood in a month or so (but I won't need any until early Nov), and want to get 2 to 3 years ahead this year. I have at least 5 cords of 2 year old Red Oak now that is debarked cut to 16" lengths, so getting it split/stacked out of the elements will have me set for the winter of 2019/2020. There is probably another 5 cords of 2 year Red Oak in 12' lengths stacked up off the ground and I have another 5-6+ cords of White Oak from trees that died in 2018 cut into 5'-6' lengths and piled up. Had to have a tree service come with a bucket truck and drop 7 White Oaks in October that died close to the buildings.
It has a 2 stage pump on it now, and it rarely drops down to the 2nd stage - only if there is a crotch to bust but with the wood that is available I can be picky on what I split and eliminate those tough to split pieces.
I read in a previous thread that the rule of thumb was 1/2 hp per gpm for a 2 stage pump. So what is the max GPM that I can run thru 1/2" fittings?
I only go thru 4-6 cords/year, so it's not a production endeavor, but the faster I can get the stuff split the happier I'd be. I will be out of wood in a month or so (but I won't need any until early Nov), and want to get 2 to 3 years ahead this year. I have at least 5 cords of 2 year old Red Oak now that is debarked cut to 16" lengths, so getting it split/stacked out of the elements will have me set for the winter of 2019/2020. There is probably another 5 cords of 2 year Red Oak in 12' lengths stacked up off the ground and I have another 5-6+ cords of White Oak from trees that died in 2018 cut into 5'-6' lengths and piled up. Had to have a tree service come with a bucket truck and drop 7 White Oaks in October that died close to the buildings.
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