Access Door for firewood storage

[SARG]

Just wondering if anyone has problems with ants, bugs, termites, etc. "sleeping" in the wood until it is moved into a relatively warm place so that all of a sudden you have hundreds of ants scurrying into the living area. Ask me how I know? I'll tell ya. In my other house I had a stone fireplace and a storage bin built next to the FP, (not an access door like here). You store wood right next to the fireplace. So I figure I'll load it up with some cut wood and before long I have hundreds of ants crawling over the hearth, carpet, etc. What a mess. Vac everything up and realize that the ants were just nesting in the frozen wood then came awake when the wood was brought inside and it warmed up. Kinda interesting to see!

The described situation was exactly why our Vermont Castings was sold.

 

[GLyford]

That's why my woodshed is halfway across the yard, not up against the house. Went to split a nice perfect cylindrical chunk of birch into kindling one time, inside was just chock full of ants. I'm used to only seeing them in pieces where there are knots or splits...

For bringing wood in, I put a plank on the back deck stairs and just roll the whole wheelbarrow in, that way I can unload it without opening and closing the door a bunch of times, and have much less bark to clean up.

 

[Tig]

Bugs are the reason I would make the insulated and sealed wood door access an insulated and sealed wood box. Keeps the wood a bit cooler and keeps critters contained.

 

[YotaBota]

Thanks guys for all the input and pictures. In my old house, we had wood storage on both sides of the fireplace, so I would just open the basement window and i had a large sheet metal chute that I would slide the wood down, and whoever was at the bottom would stack it into the wood storage box. With the stortage filled it lasted us about a week. Never had any problems with bugs in the 10 years we used the fireplace.

 

[dex3361]

We made the fit on the door tight, so the only bugs are the riders that come in with the wood. Usually the are few when it is cold.

 

[Obed]

For the house we are currently building At Home In The Woods , the wife designed it so we could roll a wheelbarrow all the way to the fireplace. Won't know how well it works until we are in the house.

Obed