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Anyone have a wood splitter attachment on the hoe?

NH575E

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My house plans had a fireplace. I told the architect to erase it and add closet space there. I have a switch on the wall that heats my house just fine. If the power goes off I have a Diesel generator. :)
 

Clawed Backster

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I guess I'm just a weirdo. I actually enjoy cutting firewood. That is when I can do it at a relaxed pace, in decent weather.
I always get a kick out of the people who would never dream of cutting firewood because it is too much work. Yeah, the same people who will spend $25 per month on a gym membership.
BTW, I am WAAAAAY too picky about my firewood to ever buy it from someone else. Yeah, I'm "that guy" who trims all of the knots absolutely flush, and cuts all of the pieces to just the right length. ;)
 

Old Growth

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A sawmill is the best firewood creating machine known to man.

Run a mill for a few days a week and you will so tired of firewood that you will start giving it away to anyone who will come get a load!
 

aighead

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Apr 25, 2019
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Dayton, OH
@Swetz that splitter is sweet!

@Mr580backhoe! if nothing else that attachment looks pretty enjoyable to use!

I'm also pretty interested in you guy's coal discussion. Any clue what a ton of coal goes for? I assume it's also regionally drastically different prices, so maybe not an easy answer.

All this is predicated by a propane tank fill, I came home to, Friday, that for some reason cost 3.92 a gallon. I'm pretty sure someone screwed up as the neighbor just filled up for 1.90 a gallon. Ours has never been nearly that much and it's about triple "normal" price. 1600 bucks for a fill up is too much! The wife is calling them today.
 

Swetz

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Thanks aighead!

aighead, I hope that is a simple screwup, but energy prices have been on the rise recently, for some reason:eek:!
 

NH575E

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I'm gonna hurt you guys feelings.

In the winter time my propane bill would equal my summer time electric bill and the electric bill would only drop 25%. Between that and the additional fire hazard I decided to go all electric when I built my house in 93.

My electric comes from a non profit co-op. Every year I get a check for the excess profits that were earned 20 years back divided by the number of members for that year. Usually $60-$90.

My average bill for the last 14 months was $219 with the high at $307.

I got no incentive at all to go out in the cold and split wood.
 

Swetz

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NH575E, I do understand that a wood burning stove would not be a priority living where you do. Insulation from the heat would be more the focus, and a good A/C system...LOL

You are a lucky guy to be able to get power on the cheap! NJ is one of the highest power costs in the US. Of course, we are not quite to NY or California levels.
My PA house is less expensive than NJ, but not living there, we do not use that much. As far as A/C, we only have a couple window units that only fun a couple of the really humid days in the middle of the summer. Most nights in the summer with the windows open it gets nice and cool in the house.
 

edgephoto

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Aug 13, 2019
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Location
Stafford, CT
I have that knob on the wall and can dial up whatever temp I want. I want a stove for the coziness it provides not for any kind of cost savings. That would be a plus but not my motivation.

My previous house had a coal stove and I loved it. I miss having that type of warmth in this house. We are planning a build and a stove is a must. This house I am in was built in 1910 and I have replaced the windows and insulated it. I burn about 400-450 gallon of oil per winter. I am expecting my new house to burn 300-350 per winter, less if I run a stove.

I do not really enjoy doing firewood. It is not relaxing to me but I have done it and it is a good workout.
 

old-iron-habit

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Moose Lake, MN
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I would never be without at least a backup wood stove. It's a backup that always works, if the electric grid is hot or not. The wall switch is nice but I like belts and suspenders. And staying warm.
 

stinky64

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java center ny
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Aighead, I don't know if your propane company offers or you're enrolled in some kind of price lock system, but before I got hip to my company's shenanigans, if I wasn't locked in we got the sweet low price at the beginning of heating season...then "market fluctuation" kicked in when demand was higher..damn near tripled the price one year...after a heap of heated discussion on the phone and threats to cancel service we got the price lowered and locked..gotta watch them suckers...And don't forget it got cold and snowed in Texas so I'm sure that's why propane prices are going up in The Buckeye:rolleyes:
 

aighead

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I think we were locked into something for the first year or two and at some point it appears as though our account was bought out by someone else, but they didn't really tell us that. I completely understand that the market goes up and down for this kind of stuff, and I'm willing to accept it to some extent but when the neighbor, about 1000 feet away, gets it for 2 bucks cheaper, per gallon, it seems crazy. I forgot to see if the wife called them yesterday, we've got some big life things happening so her mind was likely elsewhere.

I'm pleased to be on propane. Like someone mentioned above it's nice to have some guaranteed heat if the grid goes down and, in my old house, it wasn't unusual to have $3-400 months for electricity through the cold months.
 

Fred from MO

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146
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MO
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Engineer
That's cute as hell but when I hit 65 I started buying my firewood. It's cut and split by somebody who's young and dumb.
How much wood do you use a year and what would it cost if someone else did all the work?
Looking at that thing I see you still cutting down trees and hauling them to your yard and then splitting the rounds.
Pay the young and dumb for that grunt work, they need the money and why the hell would you want to do all that?
They'll even stack it for a little more.
Joe H
Im still young enough and have 80 acres of woods. The house has a fireplace and a wood stove, the shop has a big wood stove. I cut and burn around 13 chords of wood a year. So yes I use a lot of wood. It all payed itself back when I was -17 degrees last week and had no power. Worked out well.
 

Fred from MO

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I've only split wood a tiny bit, with a standard horizontal/vertical splitter but this looks much preferable to me! I don't heat my house with wood so much but something like this would make it much more reasonable to do so.
Thats what I am thinking. There are trees I tackle that are 3 foot in diameter. I can cut slices into those size trees and are 18-20" long, but its still a big 3 foot diameter disk that weighs a lot. On those big ones it would be nice to use the hoe to jockey it around and split-I think??? Thats why Im wondering if anyone on here has used one?
 

Fred from MO

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My splitter is anything but traditional...LOL
I do not use my equipment to split wood at all. I do use the loader to carry it tho.

My splitter is home made. It has a log lift that I LOVE. I previously made a splitter with a crane to lift the logs, but the log lift is the bomb!
My splitter has a 3 cylinder Briggs& Stratton (Daihatsu) diesel engine taken from a Toro mower
The axles are from a jeep, and the rear drives the machine via a hydraulic motor (ross)
Steering is controlled by an electric solenoid valve
Again, anything but traditional, but can shear a log at just above idle...It is a beast:D.

I really see no need for a splitter on my equipment at this point...just me tho.
View attachment 234329 View attachment 234330 View attachment 234331 View attachment 234332
WHoa!!!!! Now that is an Awesome Machine!!! You win for the coolest log splitter I have ever seen. What a beast!! I would love to build something like that some day. I have an extra jeep frame, beams and axles. I have a few V8 Engines laying around too. That is awesome. Perhaps I could build a 304AMC log splitter like that some day!!
 

Fred from MO

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MO
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This might be what you have in mind for a splitter attachment
Yeah and that guy has the exact same kind of machine I do. His home made one looks pretty good. But by the time you add the materials, your time etc its hard to beat the price of the guy who sells them.
 

Fred from MO

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MO
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Engineer
I am going to be building a house soon on 15 acres of wooded land in the next year or two. I will have a pretty decent pile of wood that I could burn. I hate splitting wood by hand. I love that drivable log splitter.

Most of the trees on my land are 18-24" in diameter. No real old growth trees. I am guessing that 100 years ago the land was pasture or at least all the trees were cut for timber.

Once I burn through the pile of wood from building the house and cleaning up everything that has fallen and is good for firewood I will switch to coal. I had a coal stove in my previous house and I loved it. 2500 sq ft colonial and I heated it with the coal stove. I burned just under 2 tons per winter. House was nice and toasty. Only have to shake it down and fill the stove twice a day and empty the ash once per day. Shoveling a ton of coal twice per winter is much less work than cutting trees, splitting wood, stacking and carrying it into the house. Also made way less mess. You can spend more money and buy coal in bags like pellets.
I bet the coal was cheap to buy too. Coal is so plentiful in our country but it gets a bad wrap.
 

Fred from MO

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Aighead, I don't know if your propane company offers or you're enrolled in some kind of price lock system, but before I got hip to my company's shenanigans, if I wasn't locked in we got the sweet low price at the beginning of heating season...then "market fluctuation" kicked in when demand was higher..damn near tripled the price one year...after a heap of heated discussion on the phone and threats to cancel service we got the price lowered and locked..gotta watch them suckers...And don't forget it got cold and snowed in Texas so I'm sure that's why propane prices are going up in The Buckeye:rolleyes:
I have propane in the shop to start it off on those days when I havent been in there for a few days, and its 20 degrees in there. The propane will heat it up fast, but I want the wood to be the primary once the chill is taken off the place.
 

Swetz

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So I was at a Tractor Supply near my house in PA last night. As I walked thru the door (in the foyer area) there were pallets of 2 types of coal. I prolly wouldn't have noticed them were it for this conversation. The local food store always has the bags out front in the winter. I have a hunch that coal is a lot more popular than I thought. I am going to keep that in my mind when I purchase a wood burning stove in the future. I will look for one that can also do coal, as a nice backup to wood. As stated above, it looks like a lot of energy can be stored in a small space. That might be helpful if I was to get snowed in with limited access to my wood some day...backup plans are always good in my mind!

Fred from MO,
Thanks for the coolest log splitter award!
Not splitting too much today...LOL...But I would bet she will fire up almost instantly when the snow melts. That diesel just purrs too, no matter how big the log is! Got so much snow my cover has given up the ghost, oh well, a good reason to put a nice roof over it:D:D

Coal.png 20210227_094548.jpg
 

T-town

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NE PA
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retired !
Swetz....
Lots of coal to be had round these parts.... one of the few places in the US where the 'hard' coal lay. Was never used to generate elec..... that was the soft coal out in western Pa.
This was used in steel making..... and to heat buildings. Lot of btu's/volume compared to the soft stuff.

Its delivered in a dump that brings it by the ton. Old valley homes stored it where it was used..... in the basement. Trucks all carried various chutes to get down below.
Our daughter's in-law uses it to heat an old 2.5 story farmhouse..... 3 ton @ $570.
I remember it @ 90/ton back in '80...
Not as quick to get to heat...... but easier to maintain a level than most wood stoves I've seen.
Auto stoker stoves built here in Pa make for nice set-ups.
All kinds of dual systems to be had...... coal/wood


Though handy storage/move around wise.... you wouldn't want to buy it buy the bag to heat for a season.
Not a "pretty" fire to look at though........ cleaner than most old wood stoves.... though not sure 'bout some of these newer wood stoves. They have built some 'boxes' that seems to get most stuff combusted.

...and needed to compliment your splitter!!! and you can use it to go down to the mailbox to fetch the mail!
 

Tones

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A mate of mine has adapted his log spliter to run off the blade circuit of a 4 ton excavator. He also has a grab with a hotsaw on the excavator as well. When he wants wood he hooks it up, heads down the paddock and with the digger stacks the wood. Then he connects the splitter and gets into the stockpile. His wife brings down a small tractor with a tip trailer which he loads and she carts the wood home. His last job for the day is to stack the fire wood using the digger of course. It's the best no sweat firewood operation ever.:D
 
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