How many times do you handle your wood.

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Below H = Home, S = Sale wood
1 - Cut/buck standing tree
2 - load truck/trailer
3 - Get home and unload into pile
4 - split-load into wheelbarrow
5 - lift out of wheelbarrow and stack

6H - load into wheelbarrow/trailer/truck/etc - carry to house.
7H - lift again to stack in the house
8H - Lift into stove

6S - Load into truck/trailer
7s-unload out of truck/trailer into wheelbarrow
*8S - lift out of wheel barrow to stack (I don't dump at any of my customer's houses as all live in relatively upscale digs (not my thing) and that wouldn't work very well, but they pay for the convenience of my stacking.

Either way, until I end up with a tractor with a grapple bucket and a Super Split that can travel to where I cut, its not likely to get better anytime soon.
 
1-drop tree
2-cut 6 to 8ft logs
3-load with forks onto trailer
4-unload with forks into pile
5-fork log next to owb when out of wood cut and let rounds land where they may.
6a-load into stove when wife says she's cold
6b-roll big round to splitter with log lift. Back to step 6a
Seems like every year I try something a little different.


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For my own firewood..

1: Cut with feller buncher and bunch into piles.
2. Skid to landing
3. Delimb with stroke delimber and sort by species.
4. Load on to log truck
5. Unload logs at the shop.
6. Cut with chainsaw into ~20-25fters (usually in 1/2)
7. Load onto processor with skid steer
8. Cut, split and drop off conveyor into dump truck
9. Haul home (about a mile)
10. Dump in driveway
11. Using a yard cart and ZTR cart it to the backyard and
12. Stack.
Once it's good to burn (a year or longer)
13. Load back into cart and haul front of the house
14. Stack on that rack (on the porch)
15. Load into wood bin as needed (wood bin sits near the stove, holds a couple days worth of wood)
16. Burn.

For wood I sell..
1: Cut with feller buncher and bunch into piles.
2. Skid to landing
3. Delimb with stroke delimber and sort by species.
4. Load on to log truck
5. Unload logs at the shop.
6. Cut with chainsaw into ~20-25fters (usually in 1/2)
7. Load onto processor with skid steer
8. Cut, split and drop off conveyor into dump truck
9. Stack
10. Deliver to customer.

Ferrying around with the yard cart is a pain, but I don't want to make ruts all over my yard from the truck or drive over the septic system with anything heavy.

The rest is pretty efficient. A 7-8hr day in the woods with 2 guys will make around 40-50 cords of logs. Can fit 9-10 cords on the log truck and I can have my big dump truck loaded (5.5 cords) in about 6 hours if I have someone stacking in the truck and someone loading the processor while I run it.
 
The bare minimum would be 3 times...
Cutting standing dead, the stuff not needing split gets (1) tossed in the trailer, (2) tossed from the trailer into the basement, (3) tossed into the firebox.
The likely maximum is 7 times...
(1) Split and load into trailer, (2) unload and stack outside, (3) load into trailer and move to house, (4) tossed from the trailer into the basement, (5) stack in basement, (6) tossed into the firebox.
Yeah, I know that's only 6... but sometimes, on rare occasions, the stack falls over :D
*
 
Load the truck, pull off truck onto splitter, and stack in the shed, load the stove,,unless I'm cutting with young Richiebobbiejo, he likes to cut it far from the truck, deep in the thickets and toss it 2 or 3 times instead of dragging the wood out on the trail with a truck,,lol,,he'll get old one of these days and will start using a strap to pull that wood out of the thickets..
 
For my own firewood..

1: Cut with feller buncher and bunch into piles.
2. Skid to landing
3. Delimb with stroke delimber and sort by species.
4. Load on to log truck
5. Unload logs at the shop.
6. Cut with chainsaw into ~20-25fters (usually in 1/2)
7. Load onto processor with skid steer
8. Cut, split and drop off conveyor into dump truck
9. Haul home (about a mile)
10. Dump in driveway
11. Using a yard cart and ZTR cart it to the backyard and
12. Stack.
Once it's good to burn (a year or longer)
13. Load back into cart and haul front of the house
14. Stack on that rack (on the porch)
15. Load into wood bin as needed (wood bin sits near the stove, holds a couple days worth of wood)
16. Burn.

For wood I sell..
1: Cut with feller buncher and bunch into piles.
2. Skid to landing
3. Delimb with stroke delimber and sort by species.
4. Load on to log truck
5. Unload logs at the shop.
6. Cut with chainsaw into ~20-25fters (usually in 1/2)
7. Load onto processor with skid steer
8. Cut, split and drop off conveyor into dump truck
9. Stack
10. Deliver to customer.

Ferrying around with the yard cart is a pain, but I don't want to make ruts all over my yard from the truck or drive over the septic system with anything heavy.

The rest is pretty efficient. A 7-8hr day in the woods with 2 guys will make around 40-50 cords of logs. Can fit 9-10 cords on the log truck and I can have my big dump truck loaded (5.5 cords) in about 6 hours if I have someone stacking in the truck and someone loading the processor while I run it.
I use a lot of small equipment to try and make things efficient, but your equipment list is making me jealous. I do like my JD Gator for moving the wood from stacks to the house tho. It doesnt track up the yard, fits inside the basement door (barely) and I dont have to unload it until I put the wood in the stove if I dont want to.
 
1. Cut logs and load to trailer (I don't fell any trees)
2. Unload to split pile
3. Pickup to split into trailer
4. Move from trailer to woodpile
5. Move from woodpile to inside as needed
6. Load from inside into stove



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Too many times.


Standing tree to ground then cut limbs off.

Pile limbs, pick up with grapple bucket on tractor, take to burnpile. (Lately the majority of trees are cut on a grassy area, then I have to pick up all the broken branches/rake the grass)

Cut trunk into 12’-14’ sections pick up with grapple bucket, put on pile up off of the ground.

Remove from pile with grapple bucket, put on trailer to take home.

Drag off trailer with different tractor, pile up at house, off of the ground.

Drag off pile, cut to rounds, put rounds in FEL of tractor and take to splitter.

Split and put back in FEL of tractor.

Stack inside wood shed, or outside on pallets, covered.

Put in FEL of tractor, take to house and stack in outside wood rack. I usually do that once a week.

Put in totes, bring inside once a day.

Totes to fireplace insert.

Fireplace to metal can, take outside and dump.
 
I either split where the tree falls or haul scrounged rounds home and split at the pile.

-Splits to trailer
(If rounds are split at the pile, add another step)
-Trailer to pile
-Pile to furnace room.
-Wheelbarrow to stove
(If I'm stacking in the furnace room, add another step)

So 4-6 total
 
It also depends on how big the round is.
If it's a big one and I split it in half and one piece hits the ground and I keep the one half on the spliter.
I split that half again and keep half and the other hits the ground.
I still have to pick up the halves and run them through till there to size.
So I'm picking up some pieces more then others.


I've been working on a better system for years.
Since I plenty of room I'm setting up some of those metal carports for $600.00 installed.
Going to dump the rounds in front of the carport and split and just throw it in a pile under the carport.
That way it can get plenty of air circulation and keep it dry.
If I want I can stack from the other end and pull stock from that side.
 
Let's see - for standing trees:
- Drop tree.
- Buck into rounds in woods.
- Pick rounds up and place on splitter (that's one...)
- Split rounds and place splits on tractor bucket or on carry-all (that's two...)
- Drive tractor to woodshed and stack (that's three...)
- Load wood boiler (that's four.) So, four.

For log length delivered, we skip the "drop tree" part, so the handling is the same.
For branch wood, I cut the branches into 80" or 100" pieces and load them in a trailer, so that's one extra step, but I cut them right next to the woodshed and stack, so that's still only three steps, I think.
If I am cutting for future years and stacking somewhere else besides the wood shed next to me OWB, then it's five steps. At some point I move the wood from one stack or shed to the other.
If I can get one or more of my kids to help, I can cut at least one of the stacking or carrying steps out.

I guess it all depends on your version of "handling". I count handling as - picking up a piece of firewood, by hand, that has been cut to final firewood length. Split or round doesn't matter. Moving any portion of the wood with a machine doesn't count.
 
I get them already as rounds or at least short enough for a pickup truck.
1. Load into truck in the spring time when suburban people have tree work done.
2. Stack to be cut to length
3. After cutting, stack rounds
4. The following winter once they freeze, I split them and stack a third time.
5. A year later, move 3 days worth at a time into this little shelter I built in my back yard, that I just have to reach out the window for
6. Into the stove

The only improvement I think I could make is to cut rounds as theyre coming off the truck.
 

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