How to Split Firewood & Logs

Little Loads

Oct 4

8 min read

Splitting firewood comes down to four things: a low, stable chopping block, a tool matched to the timber, a square swing that follows the grain, and clear ground around you. In Perth, the tool choice carries real weight, because Jarrah and Marri are dense hardwoods with grain that often runs at an angle rather than straight down the round. In this article, we explain how to split logs by hand, which tool suits which piece, how to handle knots, and when splitting is worth doing at home rather than ordering firewood already cut to size.

Key Points

A splitting maul suits dense Perth hardwoods. A splitting axe suits smaller rounds and straighter grain.
Split rounds before you season them. Bark holds moisture in, and a split face dries far faster.
A chopping block at about knee height prevents most missed swings and most sore backs.
Firewood sold for domestic use in Perth has to be under 20% internal moisture, so wood delivered by a supplier is already dry and only needs sizing down.

What You Need to Split Firewood Safely

Splitting is a job for a wedge, not a blade. A splitting tool has thick cheeks behind the edge that force the timber apart as the head sinks in. A felling axe has a thin blade designed to cut across the grain, so it buries itself in a round and jams.

These are the tools that come up most often. Any hardware store will carry them, and a heavier head is not always the better choice.

Tool	What It Does	Best For
Splitting maul	Heavy wedged head, usually 2.5 to 3.5 kg, that splits by mass	Dense hardwood rounds such as Jarrah and Marri
Splitting axe	Lighter wedged head, faster to swing	Smaller rounds, straight grain, longer sessions
Steel wedge and sledgehammer	Driven into a crack the maul has started	Knotty rounds and large diameters
Chopping block	A wide hardwood round that takes the shock and lifts the work	Every split. Splitting on the ground blunts the edge
Hatchet or kindling splitter	Small, controlled splits	Kindling

Wear safety glasses, gloves, long trousers and closed boots. Steel caps are worth having, because a half-split piece falling off the block lands on your foot. If you are also cross-cutting logs to length, that is a different job with its own risks, and WorkSafe WA sets out the training and protective equipment a chainsaw needs.

How to Split Firewood in Six Steps

Set the block on level ground, clear two metres around you, and check that nobody is standing behind you or within the arc of the swing.
Stand the round on the block with its flattest cut face down, and look at the end grain. Seasoned rounds already carry cracks, called checks, that run from the outside towards the centre. Aim at one.
Place the round on the far half of the block rather than the near edge. A swing that comes up short then hits the block instead of your shin.
Set your feet about shoulder-width apart, with the round in line with your leading foot.
Swing with straight arms and let the head do the work. Sliding your top hand down the handle on the way through adds speed without adding effort.
Aim through the round rather than at its top face. On a large piece, take slabs off the outside edge instead of trying to halve it through the centre.

If the head sticks, avoid levering it side to side, which is how handles break. Lift the maul with the round still attached, turn both over, and bring them down together so the weight of the round drives the head through.

Splitting Axe vs. Maul: Which One to Use

Most people own one splitting tool and use it for everything. The honest answer is that Perth hardwood rewards the heavier option, and that a maul is slower and more tiring to swing.

	Splitting Axe	Splitting Maul
Head weight	Around 1.5 to 2.5 kg	Around 2.5 to 3.5 kg
How it splits	Speed and a sharp wedge	Mass and a blunt wedge
Suits	Rounds under about 250 mm, straighter grain	Large rounds, interlocked grain, knots
Fatigue	Lower, so more splits per session	Higher, so fewer swings before accuracy drops
Risk of jamming	Higher in dense timber	Lower

Accuracy beats weight. A 2 kg head landing on the crack you aimed at splits the round, while a 3.5 kg head landing 40 mm off it bounces, and tiredness is what moves the second one off target.

Should You Split Firewood Wet or Dry?

Green timber splits more easily than seasoned timber, because the fibres have not yet shrunk and hardened against each other. Fully dry Jarrah is genuinely difficult by hand, which is why rounds are usually split soon after they are cut rather than left whole for a year.

Splitting also does most of the drying work. A whole round is sealed by its bark, so moisture leaves it slowly through the two cut ends. Split it, and you open several faces at once. The Firewood Association of Australia notes that green wood cut into 300 mm rounds takes six to twelve months to drop below 25% moisture content, and split wood gets there considerably sooner.

Most Perth households are not processing green logs. They are sizing down firewood that arrived seasoned, which is easier work and can be done in an afternoon.

Read more: How to Season Firewood

How to Split Logs Without a Log Splitter

A hydraulic splitter is a machine most households will use for a handful of afternoons a year, and hand tools handle domestic quantities perfectly well.

For an oversized or stubborn round, drive a steel wedge into an existing check with a sledgehammer until the crack opens, then move a second wedge along the same line. Two wedges are far more useful than one, because the first almost always disappears into the timber before the round gives way.

Splitting inside an old tyre is a popular method for keeping the pieces upright between swings, and it works. Use a tyre with the sidewall cut away rather than a whole one, keep the tyre on the block rather than on the ground, and accept that the rubber will take some hits.

How to Split Knotty & Stubborn Logs

A knot is where a branch grew out of the trunk, and the grain wraps around it in every direction. Driving a wedge straight through one rarely works.

Turn the round over and start from the other end. Grain that is impossible from one face often opens from the other.
Split around the knot rather than through it, taking slabs off the outside until only the knotted core is left.
Leave the worst pieces whole. A dense knotted round makes an excellent back log in an open fire or a fire pit, where it burns slowly and holds heat.
Set aside anything with embedded metal or grit. It will destroy an edge.

How to Split Kindling Safely

Kindling causes more injuries than firewood, because the pieces are small enough that people hold them while they strike.

Set the hatchet edge on top of the piece, then strike the back of the hatchet head with a second billet of wood until the edge travels through. Your hands stay away from the edge for the whole movement. A kindling splitter, which is a fixed blade you strike the wood onto, does the same job with the same principle.

Jarrah mill ends, the offcuts left over from milling, split down into kindling readily and light more easily than a full round.

Read more: How to Light a Fire

When to Split Firewood in Perth

Late summer and early autumn is the practical window. The weather is dry, the wood is dry, and you are not carrying armfuls of wet timber in June.

There is a supply reason as well. Firewood demand across Perth climbs as soon as the weather cools, and stock tightens through the middle of winter. Households that order early get the pick of the seasoned wood and have the whole of autumn to split and stack it.

Once split, stack the wood off the ground with the sides open and the top covered. Split faces dry in moving air, and a tarpaulin wrapped all the way around a stack traps moisture against the timber.

Read more: How to Stack Firewood

Do You Need to Split Firewood at All?

Often, no. Firewood delivered by a supplier arrives seasoned and already cut to length, and a good proportion of it is ready for the firebox as it is.

Splitting at home is still worth doing, usually for two reasons:

Smaller pieces catch faster and burn hotter, which is what you want at the start of an evening.
Kindling, which no delivery replaces.

Suppliers describe sizing in their own terms, and double split is the one that causes most confusion. It means wood that has been split twice, down to a smaller piece than a standard block, and different yards draw that line in different places. Ask for the approximate width in millimetres rather than the label, and check it against your firebox.

Little Loads supplies seasoned Jarrah and mixed-species block wood, in bulk or bagged, delivered across the Perth metro area. Jarrah burns hot, holds coals and produces little smoke, which is why it is the most requested firewood in Perth.

Order Seasoned Firewood in Perth

At Little Loads, we deliver firewood across the Perth metro area six days a week, in bags, trailer loads and full truck loads, and we can help you work out how much a winter actually takes for your fireplace or heater. Our yard at 325 Dundas Road, High Wycombe is open seven days, and trailer hire is available if you would rather collect. Have a look at our firewood range, or get in touch and tell us what you are burning it in.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long should firewood sit before splitting?

Green rounds are easier to split soon after cutting, so there is little reason to wait. If the wood has already been seasoned by a supplier, it can be split at any point, though it will be harder work than green timber. What matters more is the time between splitting and burning, since split wood needs several months of open-sided storage to finish drying.

Can I split firewood with a normal axe?

A felling axe will split small, straight-grained pieces, and it jams in anything larger. Tell the two apart by looking at the head from the top: a felling axe is thin and flat behind the edge, while a splitting axe or maul widens sharply into thick cheeks. Those cheeks are what push the timber apart once the edge is in.

What size should split firewood be for a wood heater?

As a general guide, aim for pieces around 100 to 150 mm across, and at least 50 mm shorter than the internal width of the firebox so they sit flat without touching the sides. Check your heater's manual, since maximum log length varies. A mix of sizes burns better than a stack of identical pieces, because the smaller ones get the fire established.

Is Jarrah firewood hard to split by hand?

Seasoned Jarrah is one of the harder Australian hardwoods to split by hand, because it is dense and its grain frequently interlocks rather than running straight. A maul, a good chopping block and steel wedges make it manageable. Marri is generally more forgiving, which is one reason mixed-species loads split more easily than straight Jarrah.

Is it safe to split firewood inside a tyre?

Used carefully, yes, and it saves bending down to reset pieces after every swing. Cut one sidewall out so the rubber does not sit above the timber, keep the tyre sitting on top of the chopping block, and replace it when the rubber starts to split. Never use a tyre still mounted on a rim.

Does Little Loads deliver firewood that is ready to burn?

Yes. Our Jarrah and mixed-species firewood is seasoned before it is sold and is delivered cut to length, so most of a load can go straight into the firebox. Many customers split a portion of each delivery into smaller pieces and kindling, and burn the rest as it arrives.