Would you purchase these rounds?

[Ashful]

Do expect some gnarly tough elbows and crotches. The few times I've bought wood this way, I got mostly ugly stuff. You can always noodle them, if you have a decent saw.

 

[HarvestMan]

Finally got my load of rounds (11 cubic yard dump truck) for $100. Was expecting "mixed hardwood", but this is all red oak. Should be fun to see how long it takes to split this stuff. Here are a few pictures.

 

[Clarkbug]

Dang! Thats a pretty solid deal methinks. Well done!

 

[stephiedoll]

Looks like a nice load with lots of BTU's. Should spilt up fast, just slow to season.

 

[1750]

Wow, that looks great! Unless you are in it for the exercise (sometimes I am...), you could also rent a splitter for the day and knock that out.

I'm amazed at how fast I can process wood with a splitter.

Strong work!

 

[gzecc]

Regional cordwood price variations drive me ape; prices are literally all over the map, but clearly the second vendor is the better choice for you.

I can assure you that if you stay where you are you will have a good handle on the going rate versus a bad deal versus a great opportunity within twelve cords or so. If you move 300+ miles you'll have to start over.

Don't ask me the going rate for cordwood up here, I am jealous of all y'all.

Lets talk about property taxes and jealousy.

 

[HarvestMan]

Progress update: I have put in about 6 hours of splitting so far. Here are a few pictures of the progress. I will be curious to see how many cords I get out of this load. I can't see it coming close to the 11 cubic yards = 2.32 cords. Also, biggest surprise for me is that 18 inch +/- length rounds really means 99% less than 18 inch and quite a bit more than you expect are considerably less. I'm betting that half the wood will be shorts anywhere from 8 - 12 inch in length. I can see the benefit of getting log length wood and cutting it to your desired length. For me, it just means I need to store half in stacks and the rest in a fenced structure.

 

[HarvestMan]

Finish line in sight: a second wind let me quarter all the remaining rounds:

Plus I have these nice chopping blocks left over

 

[Ashful]

Looks fun. I used to do a lot of hand chopping, before my shoulders got bad. It happened quick, as in just a year or two, so do pace yourself.

 

[HarvestMan]

Finally finished splitting and stacking. Took about 9.5 hours and I still have about 8 stinkers that I'm not sure what I will do with. Might offer them to a friend who has a splitter, or may break out the wedges/maul/sledge; not sure at the moment. And the grand total excluding stinkers comes to 1.7 cords. Perhaps a little less than I had hoped for but still much better than the going rate of $75/face cord. I'm going to get another load soon and hopefully there will not be as many shorts in the next load. Here are a couple pictures of the stack.

 

[Ashful]

Re: stuff that won't split. Set it aside. When the pile gets big enough, rent a splitter and plow thru it. Back when I split by hand, I managed this way. I'd rent a splitter once per year to play catch up, and split the gnarly stuff I couldn't do by hand.

 

[DPurvis]

Very nice score. Looks like good quality hardwood at a good price. Time to order another load before the price goes up

 

[Hickorynut]

Enjoyed your posts of your wood pile and splitting progress, Harvestman. Impressive work and good deal for you. I split by hand too by the way

 

[Dune]

I would pay $100 here in the land of the $400 cut/split/delivered cord.

I figure I spend about $70 a cord in actual cash outlay for wood I gather myself, so if I can have that much work done for $30 I am very happy.

 

[Applesister]

I think you got a very good deal. If your pallets measure 4' x 4' by increment it looks, to me, as if you got about 2.5 cords. The tree guys did nice by you. They obviously brought you the pick of what I consider "the good stuff".
You have a nice chunk of wood there. And you whipped it out in good time.
Good job.

 

[Dune]

Finally got my load of rounds (11 cubic yard dump truck) for $100. Was expecting "mixed hardwood", but this is all red oak. ]

Hot Dog!
What a smoking good deal that is, and IMHO the best wood for hand splitting to boot, not to mention a very high BTU species.

What isn't so good though is stacking in a big block. Slows seasoning down to a crawl. Single row is best, double OK, big block, not too good.

 

[Oldman47]

Your local price for a face cord is only $75 so 3 of them comes to $225. Are you confident enough in the "about 4 face cords" estimate to bet on it being a 25% discount? I would pass but that is me.

 

[Ram 1500 with an axe...]

I think you did great work and all but in my opinion, you are stacking fresh split wood too close, I know it is a lot of wood but stacking it in single rows are in the best interest of the drying process..... When do you plan on burning this....

 

[HarvestMan]

I think you did great work and all but in my opinion, you are stacking fresh split wood too close, I know it is a lot of wood but stacking it in single rows are in the best interest of the drying process..... When do you plan on burning this....

I failed to point out that I stacked this wood as tight as possible only to determine the amount of cords in the load. This wood will be moved to my long term storage area once the snow melts and stacked with sufficient air gaps for drying. Any future loads I process this winter will likely just be split and thrown in a large pile. I am currently designing my new long term wood storage area, but that is a topic for a future post.

Thanks to everyone for their feedback. It has been a fun learning process for me and am glad to have found another wood source for keeping the home fires burning.

 

[seabert]

I failed to point out that I stacked this wood as tight as possible only to determine the amount of cords in the load. This wood will be moved to my long term storage area once the snow melts and stacked with sufficient air gaps for drying. Any future loads I process this winter will likely just be split and thrown in a large pile. I am currently designing my new long term wood storage area, but that is a topic for a future post.

Thanks to everyone for their feedback. It has been a fun learning process for me and am glad to have found another wood source for keeping the home fires burning.

Nice wood. I always look around for tree guys doing work and toss the workers a $20 if they load my pickup with short rounds then I split by hand in the off season.