You think about a lot of things when you are cutting,splitting,stacking and burning wood for heat....I wonder about what people did Way way back before there were chainsaws and trucks and iron wood stoves and mechanical splitters? Let alone automatic pellet feeders!
Surely, a guy could not dedicate this kind of time consuming effort with basically an axe, possibly the luxury of a crosscut saw, and maybe a horse? There were more important tasks on hand...I tend to think a guy had to build a fireplace and chimney right...something that would throw the heat into the dwelling and not up out the stack? Fire going all the time year round for cooking even?
A guy would probably command his kids to go and gather various dead branches no larger than your wrist to burn? You cannot trust a kid to swing an Axe without busting off the handle, and that would set a guy back half a day to whittle out a repair? Plus, you would never waste your main crosscut saw for cutting 16" lengths of 16" diameter Oak blanks day after day? Just to burn? Theres a LOT of BTU's stored in leaves and pinecones even! Just have the kids go and haul in various scrap such as this on the daily or as required??
I think in the 1800's, a lot of this was done barefoot as well...we all know how tough it is on modern footwear slogging around in the slush and mud...I cant imagine some old timey gear holding up at all...Just try making a set of shoes or gloves or knitting up socks from scratch! Let alone trusting a kid with important tools or wasting their energy and limited daylight putting up a nice orderly stack?..I just dont know how they did it, but I have thought about it a lot....
Anyway, Mankind somehow managed to make fire and survive before all the modern luxuries we have access to....Chainsaws are a relatively new invention...Woodsplitters even more so...just try chopping down a 30" diameter Oak tree with an axe, into manageable lengths, dragging them home, cutting up stove blanks with a bow saw or crosscut or something, then splitting and stacking? It would take a grown man all day! Try getting a modern day kid to do it! Damn! Within a week, All you will have to burn is busted axe handles, leaves, twigs and pinecones!
In the light of this historical context, WE got it easy!