Oh, my goodness, look at all this wood. Geez!

Oh, hey! How are you doing? As you can see, I have got a lot of logs I have got to split and I am trying to figure what might be the best method and it may be helpful when you get rid of the splits in the logs. So, let us talk about the three options that I have got today.

The first one, of course, is just a standard splitting maul. This is called like a sledge hammer, weighs about sixty-eight pounds and has a face on it like an ax but it widens out very quickly so that if you drive them all down into the wood, it splits it. There are pros and cons when you are designing the work with the splitting maul like this. The big pro is that, number one, it is portable and it is inexpensive. I mean you can throw this bad boy on the back of your car or your pick-up truck but here are the cons.

Number one, it requires a tremendous amount of physical labor to split a tremendous amount of wood. The other problem is that if you are working with big logs, sometimes the maul just will not do the job and if you have any knots on those pieces of wood, you might also forget about it. You are going to need a different tool but if you need a tool that has got a little bit more power, you may be interested in this bad boy. Check this out.

This is a manual log splitter and all that really is it has got a ten-ton, think of it, there is no way you could do ten tons with that splitting maul. It has got a ten-ton hydraulic jack that you pump with handles and as you pump the handles, this little piece in here comes up and it basically pushes the log up against the splitting wedge right here. The pros and cons of this little manual log splitter, here is the best part.

Number one, it allows you to split bigger logs, that is a good thing and of course, it can take not too much effort to do it because there are two speeds on this particular log splitter and it is not that expensive. It really is just a little bit more than maybe if you bought four or five splitting mauls but of course, the cons are if you have got a lot of wood to do, it is going to take you a while to do it and you have to bend over a lot actually below the logs onto the splitting rail and of course, you are picking the pieces up, as well. It is a good tool but it is that in the in-between.

Now, if you have got a lot of work to do and you want to use a minimum amount of effort then you need one of these bad boys. Check this out. Twenty-seven ton hydraulic ram gasoline powered. All you have to do is pushed down on this lever to make it work. Now, that is not very hard. That is as simple as can be and here is the cool part of it, check this out.

You do not have to lift the logs up, you just roll it over onto the position and this ram come straight down and splits the log in two.

The pros and cons of using a gas powered hydraulic log splitter like this should be really obvious. Number one, is the power and the speed. This tool is much more powerful, much faster than any other method of splitting wood and of course, the best thing is you have got a lot of wood done in one day in a very short amount of time but the cons, number one, is really, really pretty expensive if you are going to buy one of these tools. You are going to show up a lot of money. That is not a bad idea if you are going to split wood year in, year out.

You might find that this is really the way to go especially if your time is valuable but if you are going to just do a small amount of wood, maybe one or two or twice, you can rent this.

Call up your local tool rental. You can rent one of these things for four hours or even a full day or even a weekend, that may be the best way for you to go and you are going to save your back.

I am Tim Carter from askthebuilder.com.

Wait, wait a minute. I forgot to tell you something. Remember, you have got to read all the safety warnings on the tools. You have got to read the manuals. You have got to wear all the protective gears, safety glasses, gloves, who knows, steel toed boots, every thing that is out there so that you do not get hurt when you work with these tools.

I am Tim Carter from askthebuilder.com.