In this video, This Old House landscape contractor Roger Cook shares tools and techniques for quickly, safely splitting firewood.
Tips for Splitting Wood Logs
- Don’t use an ax to split firewood. The narrow head will become stuck in the wood.
- Short logs can be split into firewood using a steel wedge and sledgehammer, but it’s a slow process that requires two people.
- A maul combines a sledgehammer with a wedge in one tool. It’s heavy but does a good job of splitting logs.
- A splitting axe is similar to a maul, but it has a narrower, lighter head that easily slices through logs.
- Always stand the log on a short chopping block, never on the ground.
- Keep the area around the chopping block clear and free of debris.
- An electric log splitter provides an easy, quiet way to split logs, but it’s rather slow and has limited capacity.
- Gas-powered log splitters can be rented for splitting virtually any size log.
