need advice on wood splitting

< ----------- Scratches head

I dunno, i've been heating with wood for over 30 years now. I've also dabbled in it commercially. The numbers being thrown out seem to be all over the map. You can make money at this but you have to use your noggin and work smart. Like scrappinlife was saying though .......... it's hard dangerous work and quite frankly it gets tedious after awhile. It's a nice change of pace but if you're doing it day after day it gets old fast.

Just some random thoughts based on experience:

1: You don't want to be messing with a tree that's 3 - 4 feet in diameter. You're well out of your depth. You need a sizable investment in heavy equipment to manage that stuff. A big ole chainsaw isn't going to be enough. I tackled a tree that was 24" across the butt a few years ago but it cost me. About 2/3 the way through the job the piston / cylinder assy. on my saw lost compression. That ended up being a hundred bucks in parts and about six hours of lost time in the shop to fix it. It's debatable as to whether or not i made anything on the job after the setback.

2: You have to size the equipment to the type of work you're doing. I've owned an electric splitter and split with a splitting maul before. It's okay if you're doing a couple of cord a year for your own stove. If you're just doing stove length (16") it's a lot faster to split it by hand. If you run into a knotty piece cut it lengthwise with your saw. It's slow but it works well enough if you file the teeth on your chain the right way. There's not too much trouble with kickback.

The next step up is one of the nicer hydraulic jobbies with a decent motor from the big box store. They run around two grand. They all come from the same manufacturer but are sold under different brand names. The big difference is in the quality of the parts used to build it. The lower cost machines have cheaper hydraulic pumps and slower cycle times. The higher cost machines are geared up a little better and have faster cycle times. The overall design is good but it sucks working around the engine exhaust all day. If you had to work with em' day after day for weeks on end it would make you sick. Anyway .... these are fine for the average homeowner that's doing 8 - 12 cord a year but they won't hold up for commercial work.



For commercial work you need industrial quality gear and that gets expensive. You have to charge accordingly. If you're low level with a decent saw & splitter you should probably be charging 40.00$ / hr. for your time. The guys with heavy equipment are charging about 100 - 150.00 $ /hr these days on most jobs. It probably sounds like a lot but after you take out expenses there's not always a lot left over.