Electric only has about 25% of the max force as gas and it cycles about 1/8th as fast. They typically sell for about 1/4 of what a basic gas model sells does.

Sigh. That's the same thing that happens as we get older!;)

Avoid the Harbor Freight stuff. While the stats may look good, the execution is not, and the warranty is BS. Most rental stores will have a discounted rate for extended rentals, such as weeks or a month, that should bring your cost in line with the idea of buying and re-selling. Besides, once you own one, you will be confronted with "borrowers". A decent new splitter should cost at least $2000-2500.

^ The rental stores I've spoken with base their rental discount on the basis of multiple days. Example 4 days rental (at $80 per day) is the cost of a week rental. 3 weeks rental is the equal of a month rental. So if I wanted to rent for a month it would be around a kilobuck, tax included. For about $600 more I can buy. Then I can use it for the roughly month or so it will take me and I can sell it for a little less than I paid. It’s the best value.

The problem with most of the web based vendors (harbor freight, northern tool, home despot and lowes online) is that shipping is about $500. That added cost kills the value.

I think I'm gonna get one at Sears or at a place I found called www.woodsplittersdirect.com - they offer what appears a good value (honda engine) 5 gallon hydrolic reservoir, and no shipping costs.

Tell me about it...:o

For about 20 years of using wood as a main source in WNY. A few years ago we switched to Anthracite coal in an automatic stoker stove. I would never go back to wood. Even getting wood for "free" the work involved along with saws , chains , splitters , wear and tear on the body not to mention keeping the wood stored dry and I could go on. I keep a little around for the Fireplace but otherwise if I had the itch to screw with wood I would sell it and buy more coal.

I dunno about coal but I've been thinking of switching to propane. My house is deep into forest land and have 10s of thousands of trees around. Despite this, typically I just buy a couple of cords when needed because as you point out, it’s too danged much work, to cut up and split wood. But this stuff fell and couldn’t be left on the ground as it blocked passages for some of the bigger critters in the area.

Of course, once this is split, I won’t have to worry for about 3 years.

http://www.blaschakcoal.com/html/calculate.htm Depends on where you live. The closer to NE PA you are the cheaper it is. Here in WNY Coal is less than 300 a ton. Antracite burns clean and hot. No smoke to speak of. There are hand fed ones that can be used without electric. Propane would cost me about 400 more for about the same BTUs all things being equal.

My father, always the romantic, bought my mother a new log splitter for their anniversary from Northern Tool. It's a 20T vertical/horizontal.
http://www.northerntool.com/images/p...es/1165_lg.gif

They used to heat exclusively with wood but are at the age now (mid-60's) that it's more supplemental. He used to offset the cost of their big boat fuel (about 5000 gals./yr.) every winter but they are downsizing to make things easier and that's all part of the trickle-down. For non-commercial, it's getting used comparatively less so no need to go real crazy and buy the biggest and fastest (unless that's your M.O. :)). Depending on your log size, a 20T dual split (splits in both directions) should be sufficiently powerful and speed up the splitting process.

http://nepacrossroads.com/about4416.html In your spare time you can check out this thread / link.

> a 20T dual split (splits in both directions) should be sufficiently powerful and speed up the splitting process.

Thanks for pointing that out. The downside of that model appears to be that it is horizontal only so you have to lift the logs into place. That is a huge amount of extra work.

Plus Northern tool wants about $400 to ship any of their log splitters