How much kindling?

[John_M]

I have the equivelent of four 50 gallon drums of kindling, chunks and cookies gathered from fallen branches and a recently downed ash. This does not include all the ends of 2x4's, 2x6's, 2x8's, 2x10's and 2x12's left over from building my house. I have been splitting these leftovers by hand using the best kindling splitter hatchet ever made. My neighbors really appreciate a surprise box of kindling during the burning season. This year I may split some of these for myself but I will not use my trusty Plumb splitting hatchet because my arthritic right wrist does not take kindly to the pounding.

This year I will use my new 26 ton H/V wood splitter in the horizontal position. Using this to split kindling is like using a 200 hp outboard to scramble eggs. But it will save my wrist and I just enjoy using the splitter.

So, even with donating some to neighbors, I will probably have enough kindling for about two years. As others have said, one cannot have too much kindling, especially when you are only a nights and weekend burner.

John_M

 

[Backwoods Savage]

I guess different folk have different ideas of what size wood is considered kin'lin. I split mine down to less than an inch. Can't see myself using a 20 ton splitter with blunt wedge to do that.

Keep watching. As soon as my body quits acting up (just not able to do much of anything right now), I'll get some pictures on how to do that splitting extremely easy and fast using a 20 ton splitter....vertically.

 

[donmattingly]

I have two sources for kindling. One comes from the wood splitting area, depending on how much splitting is done, I will usually get 5-6 five gallon buckets or kitty litter containers full of kindling. Also, we have 3 large silver maples in the yard. My wife claims they are healthy and would give me holy hell if I took them down. Well, for healthy trees, they sure drop a lot of branches! They are all picked up and put into the kindling pile. Rarely to I have to buy that ridiculous $6 bag of dry kindling wood at the hardware store.

 

[TreePapa]

I agree you can never have enough kindling. As long as you have somewhere to store it.

True. I have only so many 5 gallon pails and they take up too much space on the floor.

That's why old dairy crates work so well. You can jam the wood into the crates and stack the crates. Of course, only legally obtained dairy crates would ever be used by anyone on this forum, right?

Peace,
- Sequoia