I found a local dude that had some kiln dried stuff, sent pics of the oven and everything. Freshly split an it's at 13% moisture reading. Nice. For some reason it's coaling a bit more tho? Idk what kind of wood it is tho.
Yeah, well, I live in the woods, with 1 acre. My neighbor has 30 acres, she doesn't care if I cut down dead stuff, so I've been poaching that. The biggest issue I have is once I cut up a log into rounds.... I can't split them! I have a splitting maul and give her everything, but most of the time the wood won't pop. They say you're supposed to split the rounds to help the wood dry out, but I typically can't split the rounds unless they GET more dried out. I don't have a splitter so I'm chopping everything manually since it's fun, but IDK how you people split all this stuff. I'm 180lbs... not a huge guy, but not small either. Does everyone have power splitters or what?
Hmm. Everybody has a different opinion on whats best when splitting by hand. Some like to swing heaver mauls and sledge, others like the speed of lighter ones. Regardless of which you find you like, pay attention to form. Many people pull up while swinging and cut their swing power. Too high of a chopping block will do this too. And look over the round for check marks to aim at. You can also split slabs off the sides of rounds that don't want to split in half.