Removing Labor From Tranportating Firewood

[Maple Man 85]

Something about the tradition of sugaring pushes me to continue to use a wood fired arch(not to mention its free fuel minus my time), I very much enjoy the smell of wood smoke and boiling sap along with carrying on the tradition of firing with wood. What are other doing to transport wood in an effort to remove the manual labor of cutting/stacking/transporting firewood?

Maple Man 85

[PerryFamily]

I cut and split my wood at the pile and stack in bins. Some are 1/3 cord others are a full cord. I move those bins with my skidsteer. Otherwise that's about it

[CharlieVT]

Skid my logs to directly in front of my woodshed.

Elevate each log off the ground using front end loader, picking up one end of log with chain under log and hooked to two hooks welded to the bucket. Log is cantilevered off the bottom of the bucket suspending the opposite end of the log in the air, waist high. I can buck the logs standing up that way rather than bending over for every cut. (Just don't let the pieces land on your toes. ;)

Tow my splitter right up to the open face woodshed. Bucked pieces are rolled into the front end loader and lifted so pieces can be rolled out of the loader bucket onto the splitter. Split pieces are taken off the splitter and are stacked directly into the shed. Splitter stays attached to a garden tractor so it is easy to move; splitter is always located so split wood is stacked directly from splitter into shed.

My woodshed is a couple of yards from the sugarhouse. The sugarhouse has enough wood storage space for a day or two of boiling. During boiling season, I use the front end loader to move split wood from far end of woodshed into the sugarhouse which has a barn sized door for bring wood into the sugarhouse.

I like the idea of bins because I do end up moving pieces from shed to loader to sugarhouse by hand, and I've experimented with making bins, I just haven't gotten around to making all the bins that would be needed.

Equipment: New Holland 1920 tractor with front end loader, Uni-Forest 3-point hitch skidding winch, 32 ton splitter with 4-way wedge, old Sears garden tractor for moving the splitter.

The idea is to minimize bending over and lifting. Whatever your equipment and setup, just try to arrange things to minimize lifting and moving. We heat the house with wood; sometimes when feeding the fire, I think about how many times the piece had been handled and moved before being chucked into the firebox, all that work, up in flames...:cry:

No matter how automated you get, when it involves wood, it involves work. :)

[buckeye gold]

I once done a sample weight on a few sticks of wood and counted the number of pieces in a load. It came to around 1500 lbs a load if I remember right. I figure every piece of wood is handled 6 times before it is burnt. That means we have physically lifted 9,000 lbs per load by the time it's burnt. Multiply that by your number of loads and we have done many tons of lifting. My doctor once told me to be more active to stay in good physical shape......I did hold my tongue, but I was thinking "get your a## out of this office and spend a couple sugaring/wood cutting days with me Bud!" and we'll see who needs exercise. Now all my wood is at least a year old, so if your moving new wood it weighs even more.

[Maple Man 85]

I process wood for two houses plus what I burn sugaring, most of my winter is spent cutting/splitting/piling wood. I roughly process 21-25 full cords annually (and I split by hand). It certainly helps to have a Massey 383 with a Norse logging wench as I can haul multiple trees to the landing at a time. Looking for something to put the green wood in and transport it with the tractor directly to the point of use. I don't have a bucket but do have a crane that attaches to the 3pt hitch. Buckeye, I laugh at doctors when they tell me to exercise more!!!:lol:

Maple Man 85

[Wanabe1972]

I have a small homebuilt wood processor that we take to the header. My dad loads the the logs on with a small tractor to fill 10 foot bunks then the wood rolls onto a conveyor and is fed forward to cut lenth then a saw cuts it and drops to the splitter with a 6 way wedge. The wood then goes to a conveyor to my truck. When i get it to the wood shed the wood is touched by hand for the first time, then gets touched 1 more time to the firebox. It is not the fastest thing in the world at 2/3 cord an hour but you only touch the wood 2 times. You are never dropping the tip of your chain in the dirt while cutting. I have used this 3 years now and split 20+ cord and only had to sharpen chain twice. I dont use this for sugar wood as i get my wood free from work in the form of 2x2 hardwood pallets. Once im sweetened up i can make a gallon of syrup from 8 percent sap in 1 1/2 to 2 pallets.

[Chicopee Sap Shack]

I'm looking to get cage tanks remove the tank and use it as a wood rack. Move it with a tractor from the splitter to the house or sugar house. I want to stack them 2 high so that will take a larger tractor


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[maple maniac65]

I'm looking to get cage tanks remove the tank and use it as a wood rack. Move it with a tractor from the splitter to the house or sugar house. I want to stack them 2 high so that will take a larger tractor


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Maybe even a counter weight going two high

[maple flats]

A few years ago, I made 4 wood racks, each were 24" x 66" x72" tall, with a sloped tin roof. That worked good in the summer-fall on dry ground, but I had major issues moving them when the frost was coming out of the ground. I dismantled all but 1, which now is used in the sugarhouse to hold the wood in front of the arch. If I had a tracked skid steer I'd likely still have them and many more by now. At the time my plan was to have them for all of my wood, but the issue on moving them when the frost comes out of the ground changed those plans. I had envisioned setting one in front of the splitter, load it as I split the blocks, then carry to the field where I dry my wood and set each on a pad of concrete blocks. Then as needed, go pick one up, carry it to the sugarhouse and set it in front of the evaporator. Not all my plans work out!

[WestfordSugarworks]

A guy I know has oak cages that he has built and splits wood into them, moves them with tractor to dry/store, and then can move to sugarhouse when he is ready to use the wood. Not sure on size of cage or how the wood is accessed (swinging gate built into cage?). It is a lot of repeated contact for most sugarmakers. I imagine the cost of wood and time to built the cages is high, but if built right they should amount to a huge savings in labor over the years. Imagine just being able to split and throw chunks into a big container, stack the containers somewhere with tractor until they are dry, and then pull out and drive right up next to the arch to be fired. That way you only are touching the chunks twice, once when you throw them in and once when you throw them out into the rig.

[jbuck]

Here's our new system for firewood. It saves the common problem sited here, of multiple touches of each piece. We can process wood anywhere on the property and deliver it to the sugarhouse when needed, all by mechanical means. We store the wood outside under roofing panels which saves room inside for the tractor and other equipment. It took a while to fabricate all 15 or so pallets, but well worth the time compared to handling each piece three times before you load it into the arch.
14706

[Lano75]

I am using cage tanks minus the plastic tank. You can leave them out in the woods and then move them to sugar house before winter. Atleast this is the plan!

[maple maniac65]

Here's our new system for firewood. It saves the common problem sited here, of multiple touches of each piece. We can process wood anywhere on the property and deliver it to the sugarhouse when needed, all by mechanical means. We store the wood outside under roofing panels which saves room inside for the tractor and other equipment. It took a while to fabricate all 15 or so pallets, but well worth the time compared to handling each piece three times before you load it into the arch.
14706

Am I seeing 4x4x4 so that is half cord per pallet. 3000lbs

[jbuck]

The dimensions are 48" x 42" x 42", or thereabouts. With a slight gap between the two rows of wood for airflow, we have just about a 1/3 of a cord per pallet.