What's the smallest rounds you guys keep?

Depends how dry the wood was when cut. If it was ready to go in the stove, I might keep some 5" rounds. I have a cat stove so I slow down the burn with the air control, not big splits or rounds.

I usually cut down to 1-1/2" diameter. I cut on someone else's property and want him to be satisfied that I am taking everything I can.

Me too, I'll go down to 2" +/- rounds, depending upon how many branches are coming off it and getting in the way. I scrounge, so I need all the wood I can get. I often have to pile up the branches, so I'm cutting down to 2" anyways to make the branches manageable. I don't bother splitting stuff that small anyways, so that's one less step to offset the extra effort of smaller stuff. And they help fill holes in the furnace to get maximum BTUs out of a burn.

2" and below is where I stop, I like burning larger pieces but the smaller pieces are great for getting the fire started or reviving it.

I cut what I need to cut, smaller stuff I break by hand or with my little gator. Usually end up with 4-5 bins of kindling every year

In the woods, I just lop the whole top off at the first crotch, and leave it. I rarely drag anything smaller than 20" diameter out of the woods, and would definitely not touch anything smaller than 10". Just not worth the effort, when there's bigger stuff laying all about.

Now, when 7 trees fell in my yard between Irene and Sandy, I was splitting twigs the diameter of my wrist. No sense in putting work into hauling it out to the woods, when it falls next to the woodpile.

When I was desperate for wood I was cutting down to 1". Now that I'm flush with wood I've become a snob. About 3" is the smallest. My new stove seems to like big hunks of wood too, so there's another reason...

I use everything down to an inch, otherwise I have to deal with it by chipping or dragging it away. It partly depends upon the type of tree. Some turn into a real tangle of small branches on the ends and I won't fight with that.

About 4.5" or so is the smallest I'll keep for the same reason Ashful said, if there's bigger stuff available I'll pass on anything smaller.

My minimum in collection is 4 or 5 inches and I try to split most of that. My recent score of persimmon and hedge, I was a little more particular on keeping the 4 inch stuff because of the quality of the wood for burning. With red maple and such and if I got plenty of wood at the time, then 6 inch might be my min.limit, case by case basis for crying out loud

warno said:

I have noticed while looking through the wood shed topics it doesn't seem like there are very many people keeping smaller rounds. It seems to be all splits. I'm just curious, at what diameter do you guys stop cutting into the top of a tree?

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Look back for a post I just had "what percentage of your wood is split versus whole logs?", and you'll see some good answers there too. It's currently on page 2.....

I generally go down to about 1-1/2". What some people forget to account for in the "not worth the work" is that the small stuff doesn't need split, it can be stacked immediately upon arrival to my wood-stacks. Often times there isn't a great deal of limbing until you get down to the 2-3" mark and from there I just make a snap judgement call as to how much work it's going to take to get the rest of the wood.

Generally I'm cutting tree-tops (the last couple months have been the exception to my usual wood cutting) so if I didn't go smaller than 4-5" I would be leaving behind a significant amount of the wood and I would be leaving behind a big mess for the person to clean up if it's a home lot etc.

That being said, the last few weeks I've been cutting standing dead Ash trees that have the tops already "cleaned out" because they are dry & brittle. When the tree falls all the small stuff gets knocked off and it's just big stuff left. Wow, can I ever cut a LOT of wood fast that way. I can have a full cord cut & loaded into my truck in ~2 hours. But because it all requires splitting and some if it is generally big and hard to handle it does take longer to split it.

IMHO, the perfect size for a round is 4-7 inches; split it one time and done. You still get a decent amount of wood in a split, the round is easy to handle, and you only have to split it once to get 2 pieces of wood.

CountryBoy19 said:

IMHO, the perfect size for a round is 4-7 inches; split it one time and done. You still get a decent amount of wood in a split, the round is easy to handle, and you only have to split it once to get 2 pieces of wood.

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I agree with that. I actually have to leave anything that I can't lift into the trailer. It's just not worth the risk to my back to try to lift a 30" oak into the trailer.

Depends on a lot of things...wood species, how tired I am, how much wood I have, etc. There is a notable amount of heat in a 2" hedge round ...not so much in pine. My wife always laughs because at the start of a day of cutting, I trim everything down to ~2" dia branches...by the end of the day, if it's not 8"+, I'm not touching it. It's always good to have some small stuff for a quick hot fire...especially in fall and spring. Another thing I do if the small rounds are grilling wood (oak, cherry, hedge, etc) is to get a quick fire going with the small stuff and let it burn into coals, then throw a stainless steel grate on top followed by some slab of meat. The neighbors probably think someone is crazy when the smell the 'grill smoke' and it's 0ºF and snowing outside.

I don't mind having 2" rounds, they're nice for a quick hot fire, and the heat requirements of my place (750? square foot) aren't exactly high.

2 inches typically

Sometimes I cut logs - so there are no branches
Sometimes I cut dead standing - dead so long the branches are gone.
I don't get landscaper/arborist scrounges here - usually no branches there either.

I have a branch dump and usually a shortage of time so I focus on the heartwood and throw the branches in the dump or woods if I'm cutting blow-downs on my own property.
Oak I tend to keep beefier sections of branches maybe down to three inches.

In the past I've saved more and smaller pieces - when I had time.

If is in my back yard, I would leave it bigger but when I am begging for wood on someone else property I want to be invited back and a good way not to be invited is to leave a lot of tops.

If it's popple or junk softwood, no smaller than 3-4" . Good hardwood , I will cut down to 2-3"

I keep everything down to 2", it's good when starting a fire from scratch and to fill in when you have a big gap between splits. With my new stove it gets up to temp quicker and into cruise mode when I put 4-5 small pieces on top. I'm cutting tops now so I'm getting quite a bit of small stuff.

The twig piles arent very photogenic. Lol

My twigs are very shy.

Ashful said:

In the woods, I just lop the whole top off at the first crotch, and leave it. I rarely drag anything smaller than 20" diameter out of the woods, and would definitely not touch anything smaller than 10". Just not worth the effort, when there's bigger stuff laying all about.

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That seems like a bit of a waste. There'd be a lot of wood in a top that was 20" at the bottom. Most trees I cut aren't that big. Situational perspective, I guess.