When to split.

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As for the beliefs that the wood will dry through the ends and not need splitting, we usually find those who believe this are the ones who see the cracks on the ends of the logs and assume they are dry.

Also for what it is worth, I may post some pictures later but we are splitting some wood that was cut to length 10 years or more ago. Wood is still very wet and it is not from the outside moisture. It just has been locked in for 10 years.
 
I'm not sure what is right and what is wrong but I typically start scrounging around the end of October until I have enough to cover what I will burn that season. Once the weather breaks I split and stack. So far this has worked for me for the last 5 seasons. Now with that being said I can do this because I have been at least three years ahead and this year moved to four years ahead so there is no big hurry. When I started I would split as soon as I could find the time.

I just finished splitting and stacking for 2016-17 :)

That's good Joey. Sounds like we do things very alike. Only difference is we start in December.
 
As for the beliefs that the wood will dry through the ends and not need splitting, we usually find those who believe this are the ones who see the cracks on the ends of the logs and assume they are dry.

Also for what it is worth, I may post some pictures later but we are splitting some wood that was cut to length 10 years or more ago. Wood is still very wet and it is not from the outside moisture. It just has been locked in for 10 years.

Just out of curiosity, do you think it is OK leaving rounds up to about 3 1/2"? I have a small firebox and find I like the way a couple of a small rounds burn with some dry splits. If it was not so much work I would stock up on more of these.
 
That's good Joey. Sounds like we do things very alike. Only difference is we start in December.

If I had the trees on my property I would start later. I have to take what I can get when I can get it.
 
Joey, I have plenty of them every year and will also leave some 5" diameter in the rounds. As you stated, they are good to have especially with the small firebox. They hold the fire longer. We always wait for the cold part of winter to burn the large rounds but the small 2" or 3" stuff we burn any time.

In the picture below are the rounds from last year. I don't think there are any over 5" in there. The pile from this year is a bit smaller but then, I also did not cut as much wood this winter. lol

Wood-2012d.JPG
 
Bret, that is only a very small part of what we put up last year. If memory is correct we were between 6 and 7 cord total. Ya, we need to get going on the splitting too but now we have to wait for the spring rains to stop. Well, some spring snows too....
 
I've got a pile of mostly dead, bark falling off locust (borers killed the entire stand) in front of my barn... it's 16' long, 10' wide, and eyeball height tall (I'm 6' tall) ..and that's what I've brought home so far... I've got at least 3x that I haven't hauled home yet... I still need to figure out a place to stack it all.... The best place for it to dry would be in the middle of my garden... yeah... no...
 
Not as much hoeing to do if you do that. ;lol
 
As far as wood in rounds or splits taking more space...try this experiment, load as many rounds into a truck bed as possible, then load as much split wood as possible, see which take up more space. I think you will find as I have that you can get more wood in your truck bed with rounds than you can with split wood. Why would that be?

The reason is that there is more space between splits than rounds
 
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Depends upon who does the stacking maybe?
 
I hear some types of wood split easier when they are fresh cut and green.
 
Neighbor lost a bunch of big oak trees during Sandy. I finally got around to cutting them up in December, and it was a breeze to split... nice, straight pieces, hardly had to swing the axe. This week I went back to split some of the stragglers and it's noticeably more difficult.
 
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