PNW guys - need your advice on splitter tonnage (dht)

[MrWhoopee]

I live in northeastern California. We get a lot of ponderosa and lodgepole pine, white fir, doug (red) fir, incense cedar and some black oak. I get by very nicely with my 5 ton Homelite electric.



The only stuff that gives me any real trouble is knotty/crotchy oak. Tonnage is not your biggest consideration. 30 cords of wood is a lot of splitting, I would pay particular attention to the ergonomics of the operation and speed of production. You don't want to be working bent-over or trying to lift big rounds. If your wood will mostly be small enough to lift, then a kinetic splitter, with their fast cycle time, might be the best for you. If you will also be handling rounds too big to lift, then a hydraulic that will go vertical might make more sense.

If you're selling firewood, cords/hour = dollars/hour. If your splitter is slow, your hourly rate is low. If you screw up your back and can't work, you're losing money. Most of the small-timers sell firewood for reasons other than the high rate of pay. By the time you figure all of the various costs (equipment, fuel, chains, oil, permits) plus the time it takes to cut, load, haul, split, load & deliver a cord, you're lucky to make $10-15/hour.

Work smarter.

 

[cedarhollow]

i have an old, very old, splitter with 4" cylinder and 5hp briggs that will go though anything i put under the wedge. I'm an old phart and dont move as fast as I did decades ago so not too worried about speed, The most important thing about it is that it flips from horizontal to vertical so I dont have to lift every round up in the air. I was going to build one with a 13hp honda gx and a 5" cylinder and aquired all the stuff to do it but this old timer just keeps on splitting. Just my $0.02 on splitters