Wood heating, i.e. burning of tree parts which have been cut off into firewood pieces of suitable lengths, normally between approximately 25-50 cm, and possibly have been split, represent a relatively large part of the renewable sources of energy produced in the world. In many cases it concern relatively large consumers, for example house owners which cover essentially the whole or a large part of their totally heating energy requirement during a year through firewood burning. In many cases these consumers cut and split all of their firewood need by themselves and dries the firewood e.g. in manually made wood piles, in large sacks or simply in a dumped stack under a roof.
However, there exist a large need of and a large market for purchasing of ready cut and split firewood, which is sold, bundled with straps or piled in sacks of relatively small volume and a weight between approximately 3-25 kg per unit such that these can be easily handled manually. Hereby a consumer, for example a house owner or a tenant, can easily purchase, load and transport smaller amounts of firewood for burning in open fireplaces, stoves and the like. Primarily maybe for the feel-good effect a wood fire can provide, but also to get a heating contribution to the regular heating. There is also a market for piling firewood on for example pallets provided with surrounding and securing railings or gates which can be loaded by means of for example pallet loader equipped loading machines onto trucks and/or trailers for delivery of larger amounts of firewood to a consumer. From SE 1100065 is known a device comprising a conveyor which, from a stack of cut and possibly split firewood, is capable of directing the firewood pieces in parallel in one direction and end-aligned in relation to each other along one end. However, a large problem is that there doesn't exist any equipment which automatically and rationally can convey the cut and split firewood pieces brought together and in parallel after cutting and splitting in order to facilitate subsequent bundling, packing into sacks or piling onto pallets. This work has up to now had to be performed entirely manually which is a hard, time consuming and monotone work where the risk for repetitive strain injuries among the personnel are large.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds