Hi all,
Long time lurker here. And really good writer of long and rambling posts, it seems. I’ll try and give you all a complete picture so grab a brew, sit back and try and make sense of this block of words.
I’m Andy.
A couple of years ago we (myself, the wife and the in-laws) had an RHI biomass boiler installed to heat our home, guest house and cafe up here in the forgotten Far North of Scotland. We all live and work the house, and since the beginning of COVID (and the abrupt end of my former industry) I have had the time to just split logs. All day every day. Rain, shine, more rain, snow, sleet, snain, hail, snail, wind, graupel, sub zero temps, boiling over 20c temps, all of it.
This isn’t in any way commercial as we don’t sell any logs, but is potentially on a small commercial scale. Home owner grade kit isn’t up to any job at this place, despite being our home...
For the last 2 years we’ve been processing these by way of cutting with chainsaw down to 450mm lengths, into a small trailer on a mower, round into the back yard, onto a The Handy petrol vertical splitter, stacking and tarping (more permanent log stores are in progress).
On a good day I can process 3 or 4 winters days worth of logs, at a guess the boiler burns about a stacked cubic metre per day so I’m splitting between 3 and 4 cube per day. In the summer time it might not burn for days or a week! Which is nice!
On a bad/otherwise busy day, or with a gammy, knotty, twisted load of logs coming off the stack it might be barely more than a days worth.
We currently burn around 100t (or 4 trucks/approx 160 cube depending on your measuring scale) per year, all from former forestry plantations on the Flow Country as part of the restoration project, or similar areas nearby (minimising our transport footprint) and it arrives in 3m or 4m lengths between 100mm and 400mm diameter, though heavily averages in the middle, 200-300mm. Manageable enough to lump around without killing my back. Mostly Sitka in the last few loads, with other spruces and pines muddled in. All softwoods.
With our first child on the way and in an attempt to find some time to spend with them and do something besides logs (like build the log stores...) I’m looking for some input on the next logical step in processing.
I’ve been eye balling the Eastonmade log splitters for the last few months.
I am loving the idea of the diesel powered one (given the massive tank of red that trickle feeds our hot water boiler) but they are unfortunately over budget for the foreseeable.
It would be the ideal next step in the way I currently operate with the transport distance (weak bridge and tight bend keeps the big logs further away) but would cut my splitting time per trailer from nearly an hour to around 5 minutes at my best guess from YouTube videos.
Conservative budget would be £6k but I’d hopefully do my very best convincing face and salesman pitch to the in-laws and stretch that to £7k or so... + VAT
My thoughts currently are split between:
Balfor Horizontal or AMR Horizontal splitters. It would need to be towable and preferably with Diesel engines fitted if they offer those as options, along with 4 and 6 way adjustable wedges. 120cm stroke on both is fine, I’ll just sit two logs in the cradle and double up!
I’ll be making phone calls in the week to discuss these and anything else anyone can suggest.
I’m open to suggestions for other horizontal log-through-wedge style splitters that I haven’t discovered yet.
Rock Machinery’s Dominator is my other thought, I’d hope to push to a VR20T, ideally I’d not be using my car in the woods to park the processor by the log stack, but if budget dictates and need must, I’ll cut a bigger hole in the hedge and use the car to position it. I’ll probably end up having to use it with a bigger trailer anyway, so it may as well get used to it! Until I can afford a quad...
Again, I’m going to call and see if they can fit a little diesel motor instead, cut the operating costs by several quarters or more and save a lot of trips to Tesco for a can of fuel.
Open to suggestions on other small processors too.
So these are my thoughts, after lots of reading on these forums and others, lots of time on YouTube etc I still can’t decide which would go best so I’m looking for pros and cons, warnings and foibles, or tips and tricks on anything like this? I just want shot of The Handy! Probably keep it for doing the stove logs though.... it’s pretty good at those.
Help!
Thanks
Andy