For those that love country life but aren't that enthused about splitting wood for the wood stove with an 8-lb maul, you'll LOVE THIS!
We have a Quadra-Fire 2100 wood stove. It's the smallest one they make at 1.5 cu.ft. We love it because it's extremely efficient and it heats all of our house. When we brought in wood last Fall the stove was still in the boxed crate and all the instructions would say (in 4 languages, of course) is 'cut to 18" or less for a good fit.' Well, the length statement was true, it's the girth that ended up being a problem. We left all wood 8" or less in width unsplit and just stacked it, figuring that an 8" log would be a great night log. The rest of the wood we split with a home-made power splitter loaned from a neighbor.
It take long before we realized that all that unsplit wood, about 2 cord, needed to be split. Ugh! There just wasn't enough air flow in that fire box to get a really nice burn from larger unsplit logs. NOT my most favorite thing to do, but we've been doing it for the past 6 weeks.
Last week I started doing some research on splitters, air powered, gas engine, and electric. We only need about 4 cord so al those expensive gas powered units just didn't seem necessary - besides the sticker shock! I found a couple discussion boards where some more 'mature' guys gather to talk yard equipment. Quite a few recommended electric, especially the Ryobi 4-ton electric splitter from Home Depot. we got it last night. Tried to get an end of season price break but the manager said this was a really hot item and that there were only two left. Rats! well, we tried. Still a good price for what we got.
Today I gave it a test drive. YES! This baby splits a 12" log like a hot knife through butter. True, this is pine and alder, not hardwood, but I was certainly satisfied with the performance while that big red 8-lb maul sat in the corner, unused! I filled my 4' x 3' wood rack in 30 minutes without working up a sweat. It took that long because I had to carry logs from the stack into the barn next to my split stacker, about 75'. If it had been closer I could have done the job in 15 minutes or less!
I get enough exercise around this farm as it is, pounding steel posts, digging fence post holes, stretching fence, bucking hay, moving manure, and working in the garden. If I can save a little labor without spending too much money, I'm all for it! Now I enjoy my wood stove a litle bit more!
A added comment about stove installation. At first we couldn't keep a fire going and what fires we did get going were poor to say the least. Bob Brown, the manager at the Big R in Wenatchee went to work trying to get answers for us. hte solution was a total surprise. You need to add 5' of pipe above the roof for every 90 degree turn in your pipe. We have two bends, so spending a couply hundred dollars on 6' of new pipe on top of waht we already had seemed really spendy, but we did as directed. Wow! The very next evening the temperature gage on the exhaust jumped to almost 500 degrees, allowing us to damper down the fire for hte very first time. This little Quadra Fire was been a top performer ever since. More pipe - I would have NEVER guessed that answer.
