Ruggedmade wood splitter. Beware, poor quality. Not so rugged.

[atsah]

We have a place close by that sells cut, split delivered in a truck that holds four cords, they always give extra and a good mix of hardwood for $800.00 if you have an efficient wood stove, like dry heat, have a higher temp than you would normally set your furnace on, you will get way more for your money burning wood.

If your worried about moving wood around and the mess is creates, your not much of a wood burner and should probably be turning the dial on the wall for heat. In some areas the cost of wood is stupid high like $350 a cord. In that case it makes no sense for most people.

I spend $600 on propane per winter here in Northern Maine, if I didn't burn wood I would spend $3000 on propane per season to keep the temp at 74F. For me the higher temp dry heat, cost and exercise makes sense.

The wood splitter thing, well, a $1000 dollar 12 second cycle time Brave or something close in quality does the trick for most people. I have split hundreds of cords with my 22 ton Brave Honda powered splitter and never had it stop on a knotty piece of wood. We split 16inch for me and 24 for my brother. I don't get the 27, 37 ton thing, my 22 never stops to think about a knot in a piece of wood and I have split a lot of hickory.

 

[LD1]

The capitalist system at work. If you dump a load and it is good wood and the amount is correct you will get the job again. If the customer feels shorted he won't call back.

Thats my thought.

Good wood for a good price and they come again.

The trouble is when I am advertising a cord for $160.....And someone else advertising a "truckload" for $120....it makes it hard for the customer to make an educated decision because no one knows what a "truckload" is. Long bed, Short bed, fullsized truck? Ranger or S10? Stacked or tossed? How heaped, etc etc. 99.99% of "truckloads" I see are far less than a cord. But More often customers gravitate toward the cheaper price....even though it may be more expensive per volume.

Thats why there are laws on the books and thats why the States weights and measurements departments get involved. Because you are selling a product, you have to have a defined unit of measurement.

It would be like one gas station selling gas for $2.50 gallon....and another gas station advertising gas for $1.50 per pitcher.
Same questions....whats a pitcher? Pitchers come in different sizes. Cannot tell weather its a good deal or not because you dont know what you are getting.

The argument can be made.....well the customer can see my truckload and see what they are getting. Well I can look at a pitcher to and the average person cannot tell if its a 2qt pitcher or a 3qt pitcher.

And too many people dont understand what a "face cord" is either. All that hear is cord. Customers call me (desperate for wood because their usual guy is out), and want to barter. Tell how cheap the other guy sells a "cord" for. Then tells me they deliver it in a standard bed pickup tossed on. Oh but its heaped on. Sorry dear....that AINT a cord of wood.

Too many people have a false assumption that a "truckload" = a "cord". And it makes it brutal for the guys trying to play by the rules.

My best advise to customers is to ask for volume of their "truckload" purchases. Either in cu-ft or in fractions of a cord. If the seller cannot disclose that info....they are shady and I wouldnt recommend buying from them. And if they can....and the amount is within a reasonable tolerance of what they claim......thats fine. Because I do agree with you that it aint an exact science. I certainly dont stack out and measure every load. But have in the past and know what a true cord looks like tossed on the dump trailer. So I just grapple and load til it looks right. Stacked out its probably within 5% +/-...or about a wheel barrel load

 

[4570Man]

I gave up trying to play right. I sold way more truckloads. Whenever they asked I gave an honest answer to the volume. I had my phone ringing off the hook for repeat customers this year and due to record setting rainfall I have been unable to meet the demand.

 

[atsah]

Where do you cut that much wood? Do you have a large woodlot?

 

[Jstpssng]

About 12 years ago I took a wood scaling course, although I never did get my license. The first thing the instructor said is that firewood is the lowest value product in the state; yet they get far more calls about it than any other in the state. More recently my cousin asked me what I thought about a load of 8' wood that he had bought; except that every stick was 7'6". That makes quite a difference in an 8 cord load.

OTOH it seems like there recently was a similar discussion about buying gravel, and the best way to determine the size of a load.

 

[farmeratheart]

Back in the late 70’s and early 80’s Dad and I sold all of the firewood we made in our “spare” time. We cut to 16” length using a buzzsaw. We stacked between posts driven into the ground 8 ‘ apart. The stack was made 4’ high- 1 1/3 x 4 x 8 = 42 2/3 cubic feet = 1/3 full cord. That amount was easy to toss into the full-size 8’ box on my truck. I can’t tell you how many customers we had that would say something like, “We never got this much wood before from our other “guy”. We never advertised after the 1st year. Repeat customers and word of mouth referrals gave us all the demand we could handle!

 

[ovrszd]

I have a Woods HLS27 (Speeco) splitter with 27 ton rating and Kohler engine. I paid $1000 for it, so I am not sure what these $3000 - $8000 splitters are all about or what makes them a value at that price? That thing better clean the house and give me a knob job after a hard days work for that kind of loot!

I guess that I am missing the draw of a $7000 splitter? Maybe it is a for those that are splitting wood like a drag race and it is all about speed? For me, I split wood because I want to split wood. I usually get so far ahead of myself and get enough split, stacked and covered that I am out of room on my pallets and don't want to split more because I get tired of burning rotted wood because it say for 3 or 4 years and the ground killed it with water/rot.

I just know that I do NOT miss swinging the Fiskar super splitting ax. That Woods splitter was a great $1000 and well spent!

View attachment 591471

View attachment 591472

If you've never had a good splitter then you probably don't know what they are about.

That's okay. It's why there's such a range of splitters on the market.

My $7K splitter will bury me, and my Sons, and my Grandsons with nothing more than fuel added. It's 9 years old and splits 15-20 tandem axle 16ft trailer loads of wood per year.

For complete disclosure, I had to put a battery on it 2 years ago.

 

[Rock Crawler]

If you've never had a good splitter then you probably don't know what they are about.

That's okay. It's why there's such a range of splitters on the market.

My $7K splitter will bury me, and my Sons, and my Grandsons with nothing more than fuel added. It's 9 years old and splits 15-20 tandem axle 16ft trailer loads of wood per year.

For complete disclosure, I had to put a battery on it 2 years ago.

I don't know what I'd do with that much wood? A few cords a year is good for me.

 

[ovrszd]

I don't know what I'd do with that much wood? A few cords a year is good for me.View attachment 591524

I understand. That's why you are content with your little splitter.

Just understand that there are people that split much more. And for those, a $7K splitter is logical.

 

[marcusmerritt]

My Uncle James used to say: "boy, you get a lot of warmings out of a fireplace: you get warm when you cut down the tree; you get warm when you cut it into lengths; you get warm when you split it; you get warm when you stack it; you get warm when you bring it in the house; you get warm when you burn a fire; you get warm when you haul the ashes out." What a great value.