Wood Processing for burning..

[hr3]

Looking for input on how" You All" process there own fire wood for the season.. I guess I'm looking for ideas for making it easyer..

This is how I do it.. Cut the trees.. mostly clear cutting right now.. soon i will be thining out.. So anyway I just drop about 5 to 6 cords any witch way,,, and limb them up.. I hook the tree and the wiffy pulls them out,,"with the tractor".. I'll limb another by the time she gets back then the hook again.. After they are all pulled out and stacked I'll push the brush into a pile.."We wait till the winter to burn it"... After the pile is done I'll start cutting off the pile and the wife will start splitting the smaller stuff.. We stack the wood on 1/4 cord pallets and use the tractor to stack them in a windrow on the edje of the field... In the fall we will bring them over to the house on the pallets and just dump them into the basement... I can fit a cord at a time in the bulkhead,,, the wife stacks it during the day and I'll drop another cord the next night or so,,,

This year we are running behind..Only 2 cords in the windrow,, rains this spring then the hot summer,,So We are back at it now that it has cooled...

 

[Mark_in_NH]

Ideally it would be nice to be one season ahead of yourself, that way your burning dry wood and hopefully the wife has a wood splitter to make it easier.
Other then having some type of a wood processor, which would be quite expensive, it sounds like your doing it about the only other way I can think of.

 

[Reg]

Ideally it would be nice to be one season ahead of yourself, that way your burning dry wood and hopefully the wife has a wood splitter to make it easier.
Other then having some type of a wood processor, which would be quite expensive, it sounds like your doing it about the only other way I can think of.

and dry wood is so much LIGHTER than green - now THAT makes the job easier, the final phases anyway.
Makes less mess in the chimney too.

 

[RonMar]

A season ahead would be better. Dry wood in addition to being lighter to handle, burns cleaner... When I used to do this(switched to a pellet stove 3 years ago) my goal was always at least one season ahead, or at the very least, processing at the end of winter for next winter's wood.

The less I have to move it, the happier I am(was). It is of course easier to move in one piece with the tractor. I used to make one long windrow pile that could be covered loosley with 2 long rectangular tarps. The two tarps are placed along the sides of the long pile and loosley tied together at the top of hte pile to allow airflow up thru the gap but keep most of the percipitation off. the bottem edges are left loose to allow airflo to enter under the pile and dry the wood.

I would drag the log alongside this pile area and limb and cut it there. Then the pieces get stood up right where they were laying and split at least once and thrown onto the pile right alongside where the log was drug. Up to about 6" in diameter, this was a one swing per piece affair. Any larger might be more than one swing and or a wedge. After the wood was removed, the limbs got drug-raked to the end into a pile and the next log brought in. I never used a log splitter till my last year or two, and it does typically take more time, at least for me it did. A log splitter does split on the first pass, but is slower, and requires that you again move the wood to the splitter, position it properly on the splitter and then move the split pieces onto the pile. This extra moving always seemed like more work to me than the way I had done it for years.

I thought a splitter on a front end loader with the cylinder/rail hanging down below the bucket and offset to the side miight be nice. Never had the luxury of a tractor till a few years ago or I am sure I would have developed this for my older years. This way I could cut the drug up log into pieces, and the only change from the way I have done it would be to rotate it 90 degrees on the ground instead of standing it upright. You would then drive along the line of wood pieces with the tractor and position the splitter in turn over each cut piece of wood and split it right where it lays from the tractor seat. A 4 way splitter head could probably be made to work well as you could lift the piece of wood off the ground once started, to facilitate a clean 4 way split...

 

[hr3]

The wood is pleanty dry as long as we get it cut and split in the early spring late winter.. I drop the trees while there is still snow on the ground that way I don't tear up the ground too much hauling them out,,hmmm don't know why that matters I dig the stumps shortly after... and yes we have a splitter.. I do think that this fall "late" I will drop next years wood though.. To save trying to get at the trees with 2' of snow around them.

Been thinking of going to a "bio log",, but then that wouldn't be free,,so to speak,,

 

[Ken45101]

I cut my wood to length in the woods and haul it with either a trailer behind the tractor or the Kubota RTV. Dump it next to the wood shed until it gets split and stacked in the shed.

During winter, I load a small utility cart and pull it into the garage with the 4 wheeler. We take the wood directly from the cart to the stove.

I should have enough left over from last winter for this winter. Plus I have another 3-4 cord waiting to be split. I too get behind with the wet year we have had this year. My plan was to get 3 years split and stacked in the shed.

 

[brandoro]

I hang the splitter on the side of the 3 pt carry all, chainsaw, fuel and oil in the FEL and idle off into the bush. Last year and this I have been blocking up and splitting trees that the wind took down in a big storm last summer. I cut a bunch of blocks, split them onto the carry all, when it is full I drive back up behind the shop and pile the wood. I find that way I don't play myself out going too hard at chainsawing or muscling blocks onto the splitter, the drive back and forth to the wood pile gives me a little break. I can keep a pretty steady pace all day, surprising how much wood that can be.
Should be a photo attached showing the carry all on the B7610. Since then I have extended and strengthened the carryall and made a better mount for the splitter. In this photo I was trying the splitter out with it just C clamped in place.

 

[Ken45101]

Rod,

that looks like an interesting approach. You must have flat land to get around in the snow with turf tires.

I had a carryall, but it didn't hold up. But then I guess it wasn't made for carrying a heavy load of rocks But I do like your set up and approach to work.

We don't get much snow here but we do get a lot of mud. Even on gentle slopes in winter I've gotten equipment stuck, even with ag tires. I had one utility trailer loaded with wood that I couldn't get up a gentle slope. I unloaded it and it stayed there until spring....by which time it had two flat tires Our winter mud here is like grease.

Ken

 

[20 20]

Drop cut up load drive to wood shed spilt and stack. If anything is to big to load then save and spilt where it was dropped. The idea to cutting/using wood for heat is to handle it as little as possible. Of course for all of us folks that have been doing this for years and years and years and.... we all know that wood heat makes ya warm/hot twice. Once while you're working with it and again in the fire/woodstove.

 

[Highbeam]

I do it differently. I want to remove the tree to clear the woods while also getting firewood. Don't want a mess out of my woods so I fall the tree and then drag it with the limbs still attached to the limbing area. If the tree is too long I cut off the lowest section and drag it to the limbing area. Once there I get of the tractor and limb the tree. Then back on the tractor and drag the log to the log stack. Unhitch the tree and then go back to the limbing area and shove all the limbs into the limb pile which is quite large and is right next to the limbing area. Round and round I go until a sizable stack of logs has been accumulated.

I should mention that my woodlot/property is 50 miles from home.

I return to the woodlot with only a truck and trailer and fill the truck and trailer with about 2.5 cords of rounds. Drag the trailer home and dump near woodstack area. Split the wood into a pile and then stack, stacking is the least fun part.

Today I have 13.5 cords stacked on pallets plus another 4 cord heap that I plan to sell since the 13.5 cords represents three full seasons of burning.

 

[dodge man]

I split the wood where I fall the tree. I put the bucket of my end loader with in a foot or two of the splitter and throw it in the bucket. I store mine on an old foundation so I just dump the endloader bucket full of wood on the foundation and stack it latter. When I am ready to burn the wood I throw it in the end loader bucket and haul it to the house. I only burn about a cord of wood a year, or maybe a little less. Stacking on pallet sound like the way to do it as you handle the wood less than I do.

 

[Ductape]

Unfortunately, we don't have enough trees or property to heat our house every year, so I have to drive to the free wood. Pack up the saws, tools.... hook up the trailer. Get my helper and off we go......

 

[Ductape]

I usually drop off my haul at my in-laws, where I split and stack everything to season. I also do a couple cord for my inlaws, and if I have enough I've been known to selll a cord or two. I don't mind working with the big stuff, since my late FIL was always looking for an excuse to fire up his Bobcat and set the big rounds on the splitter for me. One small mod I made on the splitter...... a shelf to hold the rounds while I'm splitting. Saves the back from having to bend over and pick up the same chunk over and over again.

 

[forgeblast]

I am doing some release cuttings on our property. I cut all the beech out and leave the maple, oak, and cherry. I use the limbs to basically fence in small seedlings so that the deer will not eat them, leaving me with what i have-- a beech lot. I am trying to give the higher quality hardwoods a boost, and to have my forest regenerate as a mixed hardwood not just a beech forest. My methoud is to drop the trees in the woods, limb them, and then slice and dice them to the right size. I then load them into my tractors cart and take them to our house and split and stack them. My time line is to cut the trees down in may early june, split them. and then leave them split until august when i stack them. This year with all the rain I tarped them early otherwise they would be drenched. Nice streaches of weather i take the tarps out to let the wood dry out.

 

[Ductape]

I keep about ten cord or so at home....... eight outside, and a couple cord in the barn so we don't have to go outside to shag wood in the dead of January. I definitely handle my wood too much..... I need to figure out a way to minimize the handling. Strangely, I still enjoy working up firewood every year.

 

[ToadHill]

One tip, when you get to the thinning out part, I wouldn't worry about getting rid of the brush piles. I drop the trees in such a way that I can push the limbs into a pile and leave it to decay. I've found that it helps in regeneration of species like Maple.

By the time the brush pile had decomposed, the maple seedlings are tall enough that the deer won't do much damage eating them as they seem to like the younger ones most.

 

[hr3]

Highbeam.. How do you unload the rounds when you get back to the house.. I see your useing you flatbed for this... I'v hauled 14' rounds on my flatbed and pull them off with a wench in a tree,," a real pain".. Once and a while I get free wood from someone and this is how i handle it,, but then I have to go back for my tractor...

 

[jimmyj]

Our family woodlot is about 50 miles away and we try to leave all the mess in the forest. We cut, buck and split the wood in the bush and then haul it home in loads with the truck and trailer. I hate having the mess at home.

We tend to do it when it's still cool out and also when it's not muddy. late winter or late fall are our most productive times. I also pile all of the brush/slash and then "mince" it with the saw. It makes it decompose very quickly. When we cut we try really hard not to damage the woods.

That said, I got lazy last year and ordered in a truckload of logs and just did all the work here on the driveway in front of the shop. I was able to clean up the mess but the gravel drive still has a lot of sawdust mixed in. In the long run, even though I paid for the logs last year I think I'm still getting a good deal because when we cut we split the wood ourselves I end up working a whole day, spending $ on fuel etc and only bringing home about 1 cord.

 

[jas67]

JimmyJ,

I did the same thing, bought a truckload of lots, and cut & split them in my driveway. I have the same issue with the sawdust.

Like many others here, my time is limited, and I'm not getting any younger, so I try to minimize handling.

My solution is racks made from pallets. I have a Kubota B7610, which is limited to just over 1000 lbs rear lift (my B7100 before that was only good for about 600), so I cut pallets in half, and build sides with 2x4's and lumber scraps to 42" high ( SWMBO's dictated dimension, as she doesn't want them higher than our fence). By my estimate, these weight about 700lbs loaded with green oak splits, as I needed to cheat with the hydraulic top link to lift them; the B7610 does fine.

Here are pictures of my racks (at the risk of being like LB and posting the same pictures that I've posted before.

I put one of these racks right beside the splitter, and stack the splits directly on them as I split. I then use the rear carry-all, and drive 'em with the tractor to my fence line for seasoning.

This is actually only my second season with a wood stove (last year, I bought already cut/split/seasoned wood). My plan is to cover the tops of these pallets around October. This cover will probably be some kind of plastic sheeting stapled to the top of the rack frame with a stick or piece of PVC pipe bowed to "tent" the middle up so that they don't hold water.

I have a pallet fork for my FEL, so this winter, the plan is to use the FEL fork to lift a pallet as needed to the deck (which is only a few steps of of the ground), and use a pallet jack to position it by the back door for easy access.

Using this method, I only handle the splits once until I bring them in and put 'em in the stove.

As others have stated, you definitely want to stay at least a season ahead, so that your wood can dry for more than a year. Not only is the wood burn more cleanly (less chimney cleanout, and less chimney fire risk), but you get more heat out of it. If the wood isn't fully seasoned, you waste a good bit of heat to boil the water out of it.

 

[bpattie]

It has always seemed to me that what makes cutting, splitting and stacking more labor intensive is how many times you handle each piece. This year I changed things up and was surprised at how quickly it went. First, I built a set of forks for the front bucket. What this allowed was that I could basically haul back an entire de-limbed tree or more if a smaller tree, cut to maybe 12-15 foot lengths. in one load (maybe a 1/3 cord). Then I cut to splitting length, very close to the splitter which is right next to where I stack. Cutting the logs off the forks works well and saves the chain from going into the ground and it does not get dull nearly as quickly and cutting at a height of 3 feet is a lot easier on the back. I used to cut it to length where the tree was cut, but then I had to load the cut to length logs in the bucket and could not haul nearly as much as I can with the forks and had to make a lot more trips.