Wood splitter for heavy residential use

What is the best gas powered hydraulic wood splitter for heavy residential use? I am planning on splitting 8-10 face cords per year, mostly sugar maple and ash, 20-30 inches in lenght. How many tons? What brand?

Thanks!

I don't think 8-10 face cords is close to heavy residential use and you will be fine with whatever you buy. You'll easily get by with a 20-22 ton unit. Speeco, Huskee, Brave, Troy-Bilt all make fine splitters. Probably find that most have a maximum log size of 25".

When I read Heavy residential I thought maybe one of those deal like 3-5 neighbors going in together and doing 50 + cords a season
like wendell says all the major brands should work fine on that level of use. Look for one on sale
Heck I do 6-8 full cord on my 30 year old 20 ? something and it just keeps on chugging along

I recently ended up buying a Timberwolf TW-P1 with a 4 way and table.... What a great splitter for the home.

The 30" length requirement is the limiting factor, not the face cords per year.

I am using a Huskee 22 ton (from Tractor Supply) and have split about 10 cords this year. The only wood that gave the splitter a real workout was some pieces of really wind twisted Beech. Other than that nothing has really given the splitter much trouble at all.

8-10 face cords is a long ways from heavy use. You are talking maybe 3 cords on average. That is about average use of wood per year or slightly under average.

I cut and split 9 full cords (27 face cords) with my old 20 ton MTD splitter and have split over 30 full cords in a year. However, even without measuring I know I could not split a 30" log. I'm thinking 26" or 27" is the stroke on the ram but would have to check. Most wood is cut to 16" lengths.

The general tendency is now to go bigger. There is the mentality that bigger is better for some reason. It is supposed to be faster too but speed depends more on the operator rather than on the machine. In all the years we've had our splitter I have come upon exactly one piece that didn't split. I could have probably split it if I worked on it a little but for one piece, I just threw it on the brush pile. It was a gnarly knotty elm. But for all the wood we've split, I've seen no need to have a bigger splitter.

The 30" length will be a problem - most gas splitters use a cylinder w/ a 24" stroke, and have that end 1/2-1" from the baseplate, (or wedge depending on the splitter design) giving an effective 24" maximum splitting length...

There are splitters made that will do longer, but you are generally looking at commercial grade equipment, and prices, to get there...

What are you burning in that needs 30" wood? Most of the stoves I've seen won't take much over 20", and 16" is more common.. I would say that your best bet is to go with any of the mentioned brands and limit yourself to 24" splits.

If you must have 30", I would say go with one of the above mentioned brands, looking for one with a cylinder that mounts using an end clevis setup (not one of the trunnion mounts) and get a welding shop to extend the beam length to move the mounting point further out. The 24" stroke should still split just about everything, and if you get something it doesn't, you could split part way, pull the ram back, and stick a 6" block under it to make it finish the full length.

Gooserider

For 30", maybe just a frame and build your own with a longer cylinder? I'll agree - 10 face cords is not much of a workout for any splitter.

I'm no expert on gas powered splitters, but 3 cord per year is nowhere near "heavy" use.

If 30" is a real requirement, check out:

http://www.americanmsr.com/home.htm

or

http://ramsplitter.com/ModelHV25.html

I know a face cord is a mythical figure, but I don't know how you guys are doing the math. Given that the OP might be bucking to 30 inches, 10 face cords each being 4'x8'x30" by my math would be 6 1/4 real cords. Still not what I'd call heavy use.

I guarantee his 30" estimate was a SWAG and nowhere near 30" - I bet there's nothing over 20"

out door wood burner! But 24in. is the way to go imo