splitting wood

I keep any rounds under 6 inches whole. I make sure i let them season for 3 years. I had a nice rack of well seasoned 4-5 inch rounds that I'm burning this year.

It depends on the wood. I have had small rounds of oak that still sizzled after 3 years stacked outside. A small electric splittter is great for the small stuff.

We burn lots of logs, 4-7". Even our hardwoods are soft -- all doug. fir, true fir, hemlock, broadleaf maple, alder will season in 6-12 months (has to be over the summer). Only Bitter (wild) Cherry & Ash will take longer to season of the local woods. Oak is available about 50 miles away, but very expensive & few burn it, unless owning their own wood plot. On occasion one might obtain "1st growth" or "old growth" fir or locust that will take longer to season.

We like the logs for overnight burns & slower burns in shoulder type warmer weather. I have to load them, however, wife only deals with smaller pcs.

Anything in the 4-5" range stays as-is. The one exception is birch, which will rot if not split. I guess you could also score the bark the length of the round with a saw, but I've never thought that was worth my time. Pretty much any birch rounds that are too small to reasonably split I leave for the fungus.

Yes . . . a) particularly when it is a higher BTU wood like apple or oak that would make for good long-burning, overnight fuel and b) when it's close to the end of a long day of splitting and I get lazy and figure "That will fit in the stove . . . good enough."

Small rounds....probably under 3 or 4 inches stay whole but other than those, they get split. It really helps with the drying and seasoning process.

I use lots of rounds 2" to 4" in diameter. No problem. Everything else that's straight, I split. The small rounds seem to season roughly as fast as splits.

Im also have a question.
I had a load of firewood delivered in anticipation of my new insert being delivered this Friday. The first thing I said to him was "it's not split". He said that he thought I could use the larger logs for all night burning and the smaller ones during the day. Supposedly, this is seasoned Locust. I'm now thinking I should have told him to take it away and bring me only split. What say?

I used to be very anal and think that everything should be split and would even let smaller pieces lay, but the last few years I have come to appreciate bigger pieces up to about 5.5 inches as they do burn well as long as they are seasoned, and yes it does take them longer to dry out but they work great too!

I try to split anything over about 4". I have bottom grate boiler so I need to restart my fire everyday as there are no coals. I find that a split with an open face (no bark) lights a lot quicker than round with bark all the way around. I end up with plenty of small rounds as if I am getting wood from someone elses lot I usually cut down to 3". I inevitably pick the big splits, once things get going so the small unsplit rounds are usually just burned at the end of the evening when I want to top off my storage with hot fire and then let it go out.

firefighterjake said:

Yes . . . a) particularly when it is a higher BTU wood like apple or oak that would make for good long-burning, overnight fuel and b) when it's close to the end of a long day of splitting and I get lazy and figure "That will fit in the stove . . . good enough."

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Bingo right there it is. When splitting with my uncle I always joke the longer he's splitting the bigger the splits get. I myself normally split the 4 1/2 - 5 inch stuff. anything smaller I leave for a couple of years and its good to go. But sometimes it comes down to, it's getting dark, I'm tired, and some 6 inch rounds go onto the stack.

The "hand test:" if I can lift the piece with one hand gripping the end, it's small enough. Too heavy? Split it. It provides a nice mix of sizes for the stack and fire.

My wood scrounging area is a utility easement through the woods. Lots of limb trimmings that are 2 to 4 inches of mostly oak in lengths cut from 18” to 8 ft or so. It was nice of them to cut so many pieces relatively short. They were sitting around for a year or more before I took them home, bark was beginning to come off. There were some larger pieces also, they all got split. After being at least 2 years old some of the rounds still hiss but they catch fire quickly and the hissing doesn’t last very long. Those smallish trimmings from the woods provided me well over 2 cords of wood.

i split even 4 inch but i don't go half, i take off a inch off one of the edges and i dries a lot quicker and the small inch piece i use for kindling. when the larger of the round start to dry the bark peals off and dries even quicker

I use a method for splitting where I can group rounds of all sizes and lengths and split them like whack-a-mole. I sometimes hit the sweet spot for the smaller ones and get them to split, but just as often they go through the process unscathed and get stacked whole. But most of those are smaller than my wrist.

I go by how my hand fits around the end.
If I can easily pick up the round by the end, meaning it isn’t much bigger than my palm, it doesn't get split.
If I can't get a good enough grip to throw it one handed, by one end, it gets split

We follow the happy wife rule.

I saw and split, my wife stacks (she says I'm not good enough [emoji3]). Anything Mama doesn't like gets split again.