Splitting Firewood

Tell me about how you go about splitting firewood.

I used to buy green cordwood. That is 4 feet long and round (not split). I used to cut and split 2-4 cords by hand per year. Oak, Hickory, Swamp Maple

I have a HF two handle manual splitter but that is just not gonna do the job. It's OK for a few logs if you are not in a hurry. I probably split a 1/2 cord TOTAL over 3-5 years - just here and there.

NOW - I have maybe 2 cords of stuff I need to split by way of yard work this year, plus my neighbor has about 10 cords that he is not going to use. I may buy it from him a couple of cords at a time. It's all tree length.

I was thinking about an electric splitter. No oil, no gas, pretty quiet. I don't need it to be really fast. Hmmm, maybe just get it done ain't so bad either

Sooo - anybody use an electric firewood splitter?

Nope. Seeing I just split it here and there year round, I use a 8lb. splitting maul. Gets what I need done, gives me some good exercise, my nephew some exercise and even my son who don't need any exercise. Everybody says he looks like Vin Diesel when he walks into a place.

Leo , i have not done it but spent a fair bit of time researching it at one point. Came to conclusion electric not the answer but i have been biased in favor of tractor being a core power plant and source for this kind of task. Its got the hydraulics to drive a ram or the pto can be used to drive another hydraulic pump of higher rate/volume.
Tractor can then be used to move wood around without moving it off the pile and onto something else then off that carrier again when it comes to use.
So my thoughts are given u on your homestead for years to come think of the whole process on a multi year basis and engineer the full process so your body takes least punishment.

Thats how i am trying to look at all sorts in this line.

Maybe its time the lawnmower got an upgrade or supplemented to some machine able to do more and be more versatile i.e. handle a small loader, or pair of forks for lifting a pallet of wood on the rear and moving it etc. Scrape driveway, mix concrete, even run a generator for emergency...list is almost endless. [emoji1]

Actually Leo, if I was you in all honesty I would look at either buying a gas powered splitter or rent one. I know they have them down here with a Briggs and Stratton engine for around $1500.00. I'll only split maybe a cord and a half all year round. So, the splitting maul is good for me. And, like I said it's a good upper body workout which is not going to hurt me at all. I know guys that have the gas ones and love them. I have one guy I know that has one that runs off the hydraulics of his Bobcat. Anyway, gas or hydraulic is the way to go for that much wood.

Leo,

I have an older version of the DR Electric Log Splitter. I couldn't find something really comparable on their site. I usually split about a pickup load a year - oak and pecan mostly. If I get the wood green, it splits nicely. Pecan turns to rocks when it dries so it won't split at all after it's dry. Oak is a little better. If I was going to do as much as you are, I'd go with the suggestions above. Rent a gas powered one when you need it. This electric one at least won't handle that much wood.

Depending on the wood, I would either rent a splitter or split by hand. On straight grained wood a wedge and maul in good hands will out perform most consumer grade hydraulic splitters all day long.


One of my friends in upstate NY heats with wood and used to split all six cords by hand. It's a great work out. He now has a gas powered splitter that will operate either horizontally or vertically, so you don't have to lift the logs.

I don't split much a year at all...just enough to fill my rack in pic...but do it all by hand. My buddy has a gas splitter that he has offered to let me use, but I like to split wood. Good exercise and lets me pound out some aggression/stress too.

I'm guessing it would be less than $100 to rent one for a day...would be a long day but might be a good option.

This is what I am considering

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiZp9mD8_7s


There is a 30% discount next wednesday if I use my amazon CC
BTW - I earn points and I don't carry a balance.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B014VGDWB...UTF8&colid=R8K6C5BK5JZQ&coliid=I3H8KE9VYS0QEY

save your money on the electric. unless you can bring a 18 or 20 " chunk of oak to try it out with first.. soft maple splits like butter and thats what they showed you in the video.

That's about 50% the size of the one I have. Mine will split a 20" log, or so they advertise. I'm with Larry, though, I'd take some pecan or oak to test it on.

I have watched several videos and the oak also gets split, even with knots.

I don't have any 18-20 inch oak to split.

I cannot safely split with a maul any longer, neither do I have the energy to do so. I just won't split.

I am gonna try this out, I was just hoping to get reviews from some that owned electric splitters. There are pretty good reviews on it.

So.. I did a little research, but it's on the other computer I left at the office so I don't have the details (I was spending a lot of time doing reruns to recreate a specific problem and was filling the time between them).

The "7 ton" bit is pretty much impossible, the maximum theoretical pressure from the ram size and hydraulic psi they're using looks to be about 2.4 tons. The good side of that is that it looks like pretty much all of the other setups inflate thier numbers by about the same percentage so that still makes it a mostly apples to apples comparison.

I was going to call the video you posted as a bit sandbagging (and it kind of was) because although he split a decent sized block, those were all what I'd call "one hitters", that is straight and easy splitting. A couple of the other videos were a bit better and actually had a knot or two. Still not the worst wood I've seen by a long shot.

The final take away I ended up with is that it looks like it point to be pretty ok for green wood that isn't too gnarly as long as you aren't in to big of a hurry. If you were needing to do a lot or had to deal with much dry out really knotty wood something in the 25 ton plus (nominal, as noted they all seem inflated) would be better.

So from where I sit, I'd say go for it. Worst case you have to pick and choose some of the logs that you don't want to deal with some which is still better than where you are.

Looking forward to the unbiased review

When I cut firewood I would often use my blackpowder splitter. Worked pretty good on straight grain woods but on knarly stuff I had to follow up with a wedge and sledge. Mostly I used the wedge and sledge. I called this kind of work "fun" back then. Wouldn't call it that these days. If I had to cut and split firewood these days it would be with a gas powered splitter. No question about that.

I don't have a need to split firewood and like Leo, I no longer have the energy to swing a maul.... my dad split wood (for fun) up until he died at 74... matter of fact, he was loading a cord of wood to deliver when he died and was found laying in the yard leaning against the wood pile.... as a youngster, I remember watching him split wood using two wedges he bought for $0.50 when he was about 20 and a wood maul that he made using an axe... he took a limb of oak or hickory about 6-8 diameter, using his axe, he chipped away about 3 feet or so to make a handle.... it would usually last a whole season, then he'd make another. Smaller stuff he could split with the axe, which was always a double bit axe.

Any thing I split now I do with a chainsaw and then cut a bowl blank out of it.

Ryan, yeah, I don't put too much stock in the numbers. Like a 6.5 hp shop vac - it is pretty much impossible to justify the numbers. But what does it really matter if there is 1/2 ton of 20 tons as long as it works. My shop vac sucks up the dirt - but I am SURE it does not produce the 6.5 hp as I would think it would.

As to an electric splitter is concerned, truth is, I am a bit cynical about it. I was also very cynical about the electric chain saw my wife got me for Christmas one year, till I tried it. I loved it for the following 10-15 years.

I was hoping to hear from someone that actually used electric log splitters. Opinions are fine, but they are not experience.

My neighbor has a gas splitter that I can use, but I want something handy and I hate to keep asking.

If I need to be selective, that is OK. If I need to split a few gnarly, that's OK. If I need to chainsaw, band saw - thats ok.

I am pretty sure it will work on 80% of what I have to split.

Next Wednesday is PRIME day on Amazon - I will order it then.

I received the splitter yesterday.

My first initial take on it - YES - it will do just fine.

I split a piece of red oak crotch, gnarly, branch piece. Not easy, but a splitting maul would have bounced off and wedges would have needed to be pounded all the way through.

Regular normal red oak splitting - sure, no problem, even with a branch splitoff with knot

Straight grained red oak - no issue

I'll try to do a video, but extremely busy last few months.

Nice thing about it - NO GAS, no cord to pull, no carb that needs cleaning, and it is quiet.

Not so nice - that stupid safety switch that needs to be held in - THAT - MUST - go away.

Sounds like a winner! If you don't get to the video I'd like to see a pile of the results when you get it done

A couple of the more industrial units I've seen were intentionally designed to be used by two (or more) people, one person would just hold the deadman switch down and act as the safety monitor. I'm guessing there was some OSHA/? government ruling that all splitters must be outfitted the same way, although it obviously doesn't scale so well down to a single person jobbie.