One Of Our Top Cabin Must Haves
Our Top Cabin Must Have List is slowly developing as we get familiar with cabin life. However, without a doubt, I know one thing that makes the cut! She’s a cold, hard beauty weighing in at 530.5 lbs and packing 28 tons of splitting force. Meet the YARDMAX 28 Ton Horizontal / Vertical Gas Log Splitter w/ Briggs & Stratton 208cc Engine (that’s a mouthful!).
Until this year, Bob has cut and split all of our firewood with a chainsaw and axe. However, that was when we were spending the odd weekends up here and didn’t need six cords of wood (maybe more?!) to make it through winter.
Why I chose the YARDMAX 28 Ton Log Splitter
Size
The Yardmax 28 Ton is a Half-Beam. It’s about 18″ shorter than a Full Beam Splitter but has the same power capabilities. If you want to know more about the how’s and why’s of a Half vs a Full Beam Splitter you can read more here. We preferred the Half Beam for storage purposes (it’s still 100 inches long!) and for the ability to move it around the property easily.
Power
It is 28 Tons. The tonnage refers to the amount of pressure the cutting wedge puts against the spinner plate (the part the log is resting against). I learned that 28 tons was the minimum recommended tonnage for cutting seasoned Fir and Cedar, our two most available and used woods. Learn more about tonnage and see a handy wood chart here.
Flexibility
The Yardmax 28 Ton is both a horizontal and vertical splitter. This works very well for us because some of our logs are large and very heavy! We set the splitter vertically and roll the larger logs onto the spinner (up to 24″ diameter!) and cut them into quarters without ever having to lift them. After, we switch to the horizontal position and finish splitting to our final firewood size.
Time to Get Busy!
The snow had just started flying the day the splitter arrived. Consequently the delivery guy wasn’t too keen on bringing it down our rough, little road. Once assembled (which took about a day) it fired right up and we got busy splitting.
We were under pressure to get our wood split and stacked as winter was fast approaching, so we spent the next 5 days splitting and stacking like mad. I can’t believe how much wood we were able to get through; close to six cords! It took just a fraction of the time it would have taken us to cut by hand.
I loved splitting the wood with the splitter. I can stack with the best of them, but I’ve never been much of a help with cutting the wood. However, the splitter eliminated the need to chop wood by hand. I was able to contribute and make a difference in the workload usually reserved for Bob. It was definitely a team effort to get the wood cut and stacked in such a short period. Without the Yardmax we would not have been able to beat the oncoming winter.
Final Thoughts on the Yardmax 28 Ton Splitter
I recommend and encourage anyone that needs a large amount of firewood on a yearly basis to look into purchasing a log splitter. Not only is it a great investment for us, it turned out to be a cabin essential. A few days of hard work is paying off in months of warm, cozy fires in the wood stove. Such a great addition to the cabin!
Do you have any must haves I should know about? Please let me know in the comments below. Also, leave any questions you might have about the log splitter, I’ll do my best to answer. Lastly, if you haven’t already, please sign up to receive notices when there’s a new post on Cabincore Living.
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Thanks for reading!
Very cool. Please add me to your email list. Bobby and I have been friends since Broomfield High.
Bob says hello! Thanks for checking out the blog. I’m sorry I cannot personally add your email to the notification list. The sign up is at the very bottom of the page if you want to add your email next time. Thanks Pat!