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Re:Firewood Splitting Simulator by bregma on Monday June 15, 2026 @06:51AM (#48539429)
I don't burn softwood because hardwood is a much better fuel as a primary heat source, especially when you live in a mixed forest. Sugar maple, red oak, birch, and beech. Beech is the best: straight grain, good density, but less common where I live.

The trick to splitting hardwood, other than avoiding burls and knots, is to shave off chords around the outside of the buck. If you tried radial cuts or splitting on the diameter, well, best of luck with getting a season's wood split in one year. Chords around the circumference for about 50% of the buck, thenif you're lucky the core will split on the diameter.

Also, use a maul with fat cheeks and no edge rather than an axe. It's the right tool for the job.

Re:Firewood Splitting Simulator by butlike on Monday June 15, 2026 @09:18AM (#48540833)
Between yours and the parent comment, I'm just surprised how LONG splitting wood takes. A year for a season's wood feels much longer than I would have imagined.
Re:Firewood Splitting Simulator by LtdJorge on Monday June 15, 2026 @10:21AM (#48541727)
I don’t know. Each year, my dad and I bring the chainsaw before November, fall some dead pines and cut them into logs. We either split them into firewood that evening or the next day. That’s enough for around 3 months of winter (center of Spain, cold, but almost never below 0C and never snows).

We don’t split the, into very small pieces, some logs we don’t even split as they fit into the fireplace in one piece. We don’t look for the highest girth, but for what’s more practical, yearly fires kill enough trees for that.

Re:Firewood Splitting Simulator by bregma on Monday June 15, 2026 @02:44PM (#48545378)
I live in Canada, winter is 6 months and we get a few weeks below -30 and deep snow November through March. It's a different story.
Re:Firewood Splitting Simulator by LtdJorge on Wednesday June 17, 2026 @12:40PM (#48572948)
Yeah, I figured something like that
Re:Firewood Splitting Simulator by bregma on Monday June 15, 2026 @02:41PM (#48545351)
My experience is it takes 100 hours to buck, split, haul, and stack the 7 or so cords of wood it takes to heat my house. A cord is 4 feet by 4 feet by 8 feet. The total time includes time it takes to sharpen the saw, and time it takes for trips to the gas station for gas for the saw and the splitter. Time for replacing the handle on the maul or the oil in the splitter is extra.

But that 100 hours is using a hydraulic splitter. Hand-splitting using a maul takes several hours longer. But it keeps you twice as warm: it heats you once when you split it and once when you burn it.

Re:Firewood Splitting Simulator by kelseydh on Monday June 15, 2026 @09:33AM (#48541047)
Advice I would add: use a tire when splitting firewood to hold the logs together. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMv6-SYzv-Q

Wood no longer goes flying. Much easier to chop quickly.

Re:Firewood Splitting Simulator by tyleo on Monday June 15, 2026 @12:36PM (#48543767)
That’s a rad technique. Thanks for sharing.