Re-splitting, a labor saver?

[Streblerm]

I’m always looking for ways to make heating with wood more efficient. This is from a wood scrounging hand splitting homeowner’s perspective not a business one. I’m speaking about the whole process from gathering to splitting to burning not just the efficiency of the burning appliance. The biggest “cost” that I have identified is the labor it takes to bend over, pick up, and put down each piece of wood. I’ll call this a “touch”. There are a lot of touches in the process. Gathering, , splitting, stacking, burning. Each of those might have several touches. not all touches are equal of course. Gathering large pieces is a higher labor touch than moving firewood sized chunks but as you get to smaller and smaller pieces the return for your touch gets less and less. Somewhere in the middle there is the perfect size but where is it?

Sure you’ll never have all pieces your perfect size. There’s always going to be some “sticks” and small splits or gnarly pieces that you just give up on when they’re small enough to fit. But what do you shoot for in the mix? I used shoot for a piece that could easily be handled with one hand. This leads to plenty of small stuff and lots of time chasing and handling small splits. I found myself often looking for bigger stuff for longer burns as it gets colder.

What does this have to do with resplitting? I always tried to avoid it, to make the pieces ready to go in the stove before stacking. In my process there are 4-6 touches for each piece between splitting and burning. Stack, bring into garage for staging, bring into house, put in stove. Sometimes there is tossing into a pile before stacking and stacking in the garage. it dawned on me that maybe I should shoot for bigger pieces. Pieces that are just small enough to fit but need two hands. There will always be smaller pieces and we have the technology to make smaller pieces if needed. One handing pieces was giving me firewood elbow anyway.

I realize it’s not a free lunch. This isn’t the same as eliminating a step from the process, I’m still handling the same amount/weight of wood but I’m bending over and standing up fewer times which is worth something. There’s also a good chance of eliminating a splitting swing if you just burn the bigger piece. I’m re-splitting indoors with a light weight axe without even a full swing. Most of the time the dry pieces split super easy. If the piece doesn’t split I flip the axe upside down and bring the poll down on the concrete with the piece stuck on the cutting edge. It never fails.

It might not be for everybody. I’m sitting on 3 years worth of wood so a little extra drying time isn’t a big deal. Every piece I’ve checked has been below 15% moisture in the center. I was concerned some of the soft maple and poplar would rot but it doesn’t seem to be a problem so far.

 

[B Brown]

Some times i split my wood big, other times i split it in 5-6 splits, then i ''sew'' those smaller ones in with the bigger one's. I also put some nice split pitch into the stack as well. That way, when i go out to get wood, i get a pretty good selection of starting wood,and long lasting burning wood. This year i find myself resplitting wood. just for the fun of it, i enjoy using my splitter,or my axe, i'll even cut the bigger pieces into shorter lengths with my little 193T stihl just because its not doing me any good just sitting on the floor of my shop. I might go out and split a whole wheelbarrow full of kindling some day's and then, just cut a bunch of wood in half without splitting it. I enjoy using all my wood ''tools'' i have the time, and the health to do it, so, why not? I try to make it fun, i've worked hard in the previous years getting my wood, now its winter, its time to enjoy the fruits of my labor.

 

[Franny K]

The only re splitting I do is to make kindling and now that I am into sawmill making lumber scraps from that lessen making kindling.
I will make a few comments about changes over time.


A four way hydraulic splitter will make sufficient smaller pieces just breaking down to get largest splits into stove opening. Somewhere around 6 inches the decision to split or not should be enough to balance the output. In my case one stove takes larger max pieces than the other. The instructions for my catalyst stove suggested, probably still do if one gets a new one, five inches by two inches seasoned covered outside minimum 6 months as the target for fuel.

The split then stack has to a large degree been replaced with pile and cover just not all of the way to the ground. Black rubber roofing or edpm in 0.060 is great stuff, eliminate the wood shed. Rock pile under the wood or purchased crushed stone or rounded stone purchased.

Get a hoop or two inside near the stove. Get a trailer for lawn mower or garden tractor, take wood from woodpile to door from garage to house, eliminate the piling in the garage mentioned. Modified for post 1 description of situation vs mine. Probably still stack some in the garage for use when lawn mower path is un usable.

I never got the stuck piece off the axe or similar by hitting concrete or floor. Use a piece of firewood that will stand on end, I guess wall damage from flying chunks might effect that choice.

One local guy has suggested splitting the wood and stacking it on a long conveyor belt and having that end near the door. That would kind of clutter the yard seems hard to beat especially if one covered the stacked conveyor with the rubber membrane. Perhaps he envisioned the conveyor covered like a wood shed.

The stove and the chimney will of course effect things, a central masonry chimney a couple stories high works quite well.

 

[panolo]

I try to cut my rounds as close to 24" as I can. Than I split by feel. Some chunks get made larger while other I do smaller. I tend to do the softer wood smaller so when I mix it in there is always usually a piece of it on the coals between the denser wood. I get quicker relites and higher temps in my OWB.

I'm not efficient but my process goes as follows. Cut tree to 8' lengths, load into trailer, stack into piles, logs to log deck, cut to 24", split into pile, moved to stack, and finally to the stove. It's not uncommon for me to leave it in a pile for awhile until I get the time or ambition to stack it. For me that is the most tedious part of the process.

I also have not had a problem with rot and I usually have some wood that folks say rot quickly.

 

[bowtechmadman]

I have an OWB so that limits the "touches", as well as the door is rather large so limits any need for re-splitting or splitting period. I did however find a negative to reduced "touches" when I was a bit younger. I figured if I could lift it I'd just put it in the OWB why waste time/ "touches" on splitting. The surgeon showed me the error in my ways when he fixed my double inguinal hernia. I know have a splitter with log lift, as well as sometimes just fill tractor bucket then move bucket to splitter height rolling logs right on splitter from bucket.

 

[NSMaple1]

Wouldn't be a saver for me. I split it to final size right at the tree all at once. Way easier for me to pick up a few smaller pieces all at once (or one at a time if it's been a long day) than stuff that's still big enough to need further splitting. I am usually putting splits right into a trailer right at the tree too, most times right off the splitter. So final size splits are good & easier for tossing into the trailer.

So, talking touches, that is the first. Second would be onto the pallet. Third would be 2 years later, pallet to wheel barrow. Fourth would be wheelbarrow to basement stack. Fifth would be into the fire.

I used to cut out steps 3 & 4, and only have 3 touches all told. Used to wheel pallets right into the basement. But I added the wheelbarrow stage, since I have been leaving it drying in stacks a lot longer. That extra 1-2 years led to more stuff finding its way into the stacks that I figured I didn't really need to bring into my basement for the winter. So doing the wheel barrow (from right outside my walkout basement door) leaves the crap outside & gives me really clean wood inside, at the cost of a few hours more work each year. Pine needles, leaves, mice nests, old wasp nests, snake skins......

 

[Streblerm]

Yeah if I really wanted to streamline the process I would have a covered woodshed and just bring wood into the garage and leave it on carts. Right now with just top covered stacks It burns so much nicer after it’s been inside for a week or two.

Resplitting in the garage is really easy with dry wood and a light splitting axe. I can split a day’s worth in a matter of minutes. It also knocks a bunch of the crap off. It’s much easier to clean trash off the concrete garage floor than the house floor.

 

[greenskeeper]

As I'm splitting and stacking, I mix and match the size of the splits so that when I bring them from the pile up to the house I have a good random mix of large/medium/small pieces of wood depending on what the wood stove calls for.

 

[Trapper_Pete]

the least possible handling and bending over I have found is

cut rounds
noodle if necessary to get them in the truck
back truck up to splitter which is right in front of the wood shed
split and toss in wheel barrows at the end of the splitter inside the wood shed
stack
bring in the house and burn which I don't really count as part of the proccesing

1 to get in the truck
1 to split
1 to stack

some time we split on site loading the truck as we split so I count that as one to split and place in truck since you have to toss it some place the back of the truck is right there then we back right up to the shed so two is to unload and stack I just can't get it any fewer than that since my wood isn't next to the shed to start

1 to split and toss in truck
1 to unload directly to the stack in the shed

I don't know how to handle it any less

 

[Trapper_Pete]

we shoot for the largest piece you can toss one handed , the smaller stuff just sort of happens from all the odd sized pieces or weird grain

softer woods I will split a little smaller , like silver maple, poplar , it dries fast and makes good start up wood


also an axaroon saves the back at the splitter , and if you get some stringy wood it cuts the strings

 

[cantoo]

I burn in my OWB.
Cut tree down and limb it.
Use my rear grapple to grab and drag tree length to landing.
Mark tree length to a3'2" long logs and cut with saw.
Load onto my log trailer with tractor and haul to my place.
Unload with my loader and stack into piles.
Later I use my loader forks and put 4 or 5 logs on it, drive over to processing area, mark each log at 32" long with paint.
I cut the logs with my 460 and with the loader I push the rounds into a pile in front of the splitter.
Later I lift each round by hand and place it on my splitter with 4 way hydraulic splitter. I split it into pieces small enough for my wife to load herself. The pieces go off the splitter and the wedge pushes the splitter around the pile of rounds until they are all split.
I then stack all the splits into my 4'x4'x 32" wide wood crates. The crates are moved to storage area and when I need them I move them with the loader to in front of the OWB.
Splits are hand loaded into the OWB.
Ash is shoveled out of the OWB and into my loader bucket to dump on my burn pile.
I sometimes use the loader to load the 32" rounds onto my dump truck to dump onto my splitter table to save lifting all those tons of rounds.
All limb wood up to 8" is just cut into 4' lengths and stacked into the wooden crates. It gets handled the least amount of times.

Firewood to sell is done the same way until the log cutting stage.
Logs on loader are painted at 16" long and cut with 460.
I hand lift each round onto the splitter. It's split into 4 to 5" splits. The splits fall off the splitter onto the conveyor which drops them onto a 16 to 20' tall pile.
When seasoned the conveyor is turned around and each split is hand loaded onto the conveyor which dumps it into our dump trailer.
Trailer is taken to Town parking spot and sign " This Load $300 " is placed on it.
When someone calls my son delivers it, gets the cash and dumps it where they want it. We do not offer stacking.