For anyone with more timber than an axe can handle: a felled tree in rings, a stack of cordwood from a hedge job, a woodland thinning. A contractor brings a tractor- or engine-driven log splitter, or a firewood processor, to your stack and splits it into firewood logs on site. The wood never has to leave your land.
A hydraulic log splitter pushes a ring against a wedge and splits it in two or four. Rings go on, logs come off, and the contractor works through the stack at a steady rate. For timber still in trunk or branch lengths, a firewood processor saws it to length and splits it in one pass; otherwise it is cut into rings with a chainsaw first, which takes time and is priced in.
Agree the log length before the day: 25cm (10 inches) suits most stoves, bigger open fires and boilers take longer logs. Say what size the logs are for so the contractor sets the machine to suit.
The split logs come off into a heap, a trailer or builder’s bags, or are stacked where you say. Stacking is slow by hand, so it costs extra, but a stack dries faster and more evenly than a heap.
Split as early in the year as you can. Wood seasons far faster once it is split, and logs split in late winter or spring have a full summer to dry. Hardwood such as oak, ash and beech generally needs a year or two in a dry, airy stack to get below the 20% moisture a stove wants; softwood is quicker.
The machine needs firm access to the pile. A tractor and splitter on wet pasture will leave ruts, so a dry spell, a frosty morning or a pile by a hard track all help.