Splitting and stacking firewood... slightly different approach than usual

Hi Folks,

I came across this arrangement in someone else's woods and loved it. It is going to be perfect for us.



Long lengths of a coppice wood - likely sweet chestnut in this picture - are cut and split in-situ in the woods using metal wedges and a club hammer. They are stacked for 12 months or more, then moved to the house for final use when they are a bit lighter. The arrangement I saw had neat cubes of logs, each layer in alternating directions.

This solves quite a few issues for us, as our woods a fair distance from home, and hauling heavy wet wood home is already problematic. 3 foot long lengths stack much more neatly without additional support at the ends, when compared to wood cut to it's final length for burning. It will be easier to split the heavy material where it falls and then move the splits to the track side as well for drying, too.

I haven't tried this exact splitting technique yet, but from what I was told it is faster and easier than using a traditional splitting axe, and less hard on the body. Tools fit into a simple canvas pouch. Chestnut, which we have plenty of, is ideal for this as it splits very nicely.

I'll try and take some photos and videos in a month or so when we are felling again.

I often wonder about using wood for heating.
Often I smell the badly operated heaters and think about the fumes and health.
In my experience many people dont know the importance of running the firebox properly.

I am not bashing wood burners generally.
In some cities they are banned now for that reason.
As population increases do you think we may have a problem on our hands?

I was told it is faster and easier than using a traditional splitting axe, and less hard on the body.

Agreed. Much easier all the way around. You might still need an axe to get enough of a split started to hold the wedge. After that it's one or two good whacks & you're done. On bigger logs sometimes a second wedge is needed to remove the first wedge.

Most frequently these problems are caused by burning wood that is not properly seasoned, not by the burner itself. Here in the UK it is now illegal to sell small portions of unseasoned wood - the presumption being that small portions of wood are most likely being bought to burn immediately. You can still buy large loads of green wood to stock a woodshed to dry it yourself.

I'd love a stove that could burn these long logs as-is. No scope for a rocket stove in our current house, unfortunately. I'm sure a batch burner could be designed to burn these.

Hi Michael;
Even for a batchbox three foot is a bit long.
However once dry and hauled home .
Cutting those in half would be pretty easy , an axe, a chain saw,  a hand saw,  a cordless sawsall  all work really well!

Battery chainsaw is my go-to. It lives in the kitchen, by the back door, along with the charger :)

I might even make up a special stand for cutting them to length. It would be nice to run a saw down through a couple of dozen at a time and get nice consistent pieces. Leave it stacked long until right before bringing it into the house, then it can have a final week indoors in the rack before using.

That size looks perfect to split with a froe.  Very easy on the operator.  

And it would be easy to stack on a pallet if you did have access to a machine to move it.  Like cut and stack as you can then rent / borrow a machine for a day to haul ALL the wood back to the shed at once.