How much wood can you split?

UrbanTC

UrbanTC

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I have heard a lot of tall tales of how much wood one person can split in a day, and I don't believe em' one bit!

I know this depends on many different variables, but, how much wood have you split in a day? (NOT BY HAND)

Maybe we can start with a minimum setup:

A wood splitter around the 20-30 ton range with a single wedge?

All wood cut to length and ready to split.

So, what would everyone agree to be a good estimate of the amount one person can split?
 
can only comment on using a maul.
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So, what would everyone agree to be a good estimate of the amount one person can split?

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As long as I could just toss it to the side, probably about 4-5 cords depending on species.

Add beer... 3 cords.

-Tom
 
Usually I split by myself with a 30 ton 5.5hp splitter. I can split real close to a cord per tank. If I stay at it for 8 hours I can split 3.5 to 4.5 cords. This is splitting maple, oak, cherry and ash. With wood that's harder to split my efficiency decreases by 25%.
 
This may sound outragerous, but during the winter we do 8-9 cords a day of dry lodgepole... We run three guys, one cutter, one splitter, and one guy to chuck wood and deliver. The splitter guy is always stocked, wood stacked about one foot behind him. We have a custom dump bed that holds 2 cords. Fill a load, keep splitting while the delivery is out. Any of our fast guys can pound out a cord in 45 mins to and hour. We hate it, so usually no breaks, just get it done and go home. Typical day is 8-9 hrs.
 
It's worth mentioning that dry lodgepole splits as soon as the wedge touches it. It's about the best kinda wood splitting I can think of (if there is such a thing as good wood splitting). It's pretty light too so loading a truck is easy (if there is such a thing as easy when it comes to loading firewood in a truck). How much do you sell a cord of lodgepole for in Bend?
 
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It's worth mentioning that dry lodgepole splits as soon as the wedge touches it. It's about the best kinda wood splitting I can think of (if there is such a thing as good wood splitting). It's pretty light too so loading a truck is easy (if there is such a thing as easy when it comes to loading firewood in a truck). How much do you sell a cord of lodgepole for in Bend?

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ASH
 
I've been doing this for 20 some odd years since I was just a wee little whipper snapper back where the men are real men and the women look like real men and the sheep run scared and we can do 50 cord a day or better with just bare hands.
 
Dumbest idea ever, but I removed a pine, and cut to length, split, and chipped all the wood since the chipper was just an itty bitty one. We dropped the butt log, I cut to length and noodled 30-40" diameter wood into quarters, one guy splitting and one guy feeding the chipper. Guy splitting who does firewood for a living figures he split between 8-10 cord in a little less than 2 hours. lol

And yes, we were flying. But then again, it was green pine, so stuff pretty much popped apart too. Overall, I'll never do it again, I'll hire a damned log truck if I need to!
 
Here, splitting by hand.

theXman splitting wood


Was nice to warm up my video editing skills.

I better now put out a few Arborist videos. Coming soon, I promise.

I also learned youtube has a few new things going on since last year, so it was good to learn.
 
Here's a nice trick to splitting more wood buy hand. Find a trucker with an extra tire, or an import with a 20"+ rim. No reaching down to pick up the fallen rounds.
 

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Here's a nice trick to splitting more wood buy hand. Find a trucker with an extra tire, or an import with a 20"+ rim. No reaching down to pick up the fallen rounds.

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This is a great idea, I used it growing up in northern MN. we bolted two tires together to get some more stability. We also cut our fire wood to 25" lengths so the added height help to hold them in place.

The biggest draw back to the tire trick is that you have to move the wood twice by hand. Rather than tip it up on end and swing away. We also noticed that the maul ended up in the dirt less and a glancing hit was more forgiving as the maul bounced off the tires.

Back on topic; I could split and stack a cord of 25" oak/maple in about an hour. My dad was a coach of the University of New Hampshire woodsman's team back in the day and taught my brothers and I proper speed splitting technique from a young age.
 
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It's worth mentioning that dry lodgepole splits as soon as the wedge touches it. It's about the best kinda wood splitting I can think of (if there is such a thing as good wood splitting). It's pretty light too so loading a truck is easy (if there is such a thing as easy when it comes to loading firewood in a truck). How much do you sell a cord of lodgepole for in Bend?

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Nice. Sounds like you have a tight and effecient system. And that's with a one way wedge?
 
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I usually go with "Flight of the Valkyries",Wagner.
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That's another one of my favorites! and is actually in my file to use as a video music sometime.

gotta keep the music big ya know.

Oh, Tom,

I was wondering who was going to be jealous and be the first to mention the wood was clean and straight grain. Hey, I don't think you'd like to see the maul get stuck 4 times before I split each piece, video would not have moved very fast. Hey, there was slight wavy grain in the middle of that one.

We do try to cut all firewood to 18 inch lengths, so I'm pretty sure it was very close to 18 if not 18.

Any other way I cheated that you can think of?

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