Loading Firewood

by Anonymous

I have a huge pile of firewood in my yard and want to load it with a tractor. If I use my bucket I pick up dirt, rocks etc.

Do you know of an attachment that is the best for picking up wood from a pile and loading it into a trailer?

Answer

I agree it's difficult to scoop up a load of firewood with a front end loader if it's in a pile. Assuming the firewood is already cut and split into manageable pieces, it's probably easiest just place the bucket close to the pile of wood and hand load the pieces into the front end loader.

Once you have the bucket loaded, then you can drive it to your trailer and dump it in. I've used this method a lot. Even though you still have to physically hand load the firewood, you will find it's easier to toss the pieces into a front end loader at ground level rather than standing up and throwing them into a nearby tailer.

Another popular option is stacking the firewood on a pallet. However, this still requires the manual labor of hand stacking the firewood on the pallets. Once loaded on the pallet, you can use plastic wrap, rope or tie downs to secure the wood to the pallet. Once secured you can easily move the loaded pallet with pallet forks on your front end loader.

If you want to make an investment and purchase an attachment for your tractor, a stone fork or a rock bucket attachment would be your best choice. These buckets do not have a solid base which allows the dirt to fall through.

You can also purchase tine attachments for your bucket which work okay, but if the tines are spaced to far apart the split wood will become wedged between the tines.

The downfall to any front end loader attachment is the price. Attachments can range anywhere from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand. Also, I'm not sure you will be completely satisfied with the results.

Overall

If you are certain you want to buy an attachment then I suggest you research a stone fork or rock bucket attachment. Many people, including myself, have tried to come up with a perfect solution for scooping up a pile of firewood with a front end loader.

In the end hand loading is usually the quickest and easiest way. Or, you could hire a couple of high school or college students to do the work for you. It's cheeper than any attachment you will find.

I hope this helps,

Nick
firewood-for-life