Firewood Storage

[rationalizer]

I'm about to collect the firewood I've been cutting this year and I'm curious if there are any "tricks" to keeping it dry and ready for burning. I built a 28' x 4' covered concrete platform at the east end of my barn (on the downwind side) and I was wondering if there are advantages to keeping the wood elevated off of the concrete? I was thinking of building a wood "frame" out of 2x4's to keep the wood off of the concrete - is this "overkill"? I suspect that some of the wood will be in storage for 2-3 years before it is used.

Thoughts/advice?

Thanks!

Bill

 

[MossRoad]

I would think that keeping air circulating under it would prolong its life as, even on concrete, it could get moist under there. My in-laws burn wood for heat and keep theirs elevated on old skid runners. They just put scrap OSB over the top to keep rain off and it lasts for two seasons, no problems.

 

[chim]

If you want to keep it elevated, you may be able to get skids just for hauling them away...........chim

 

[hwp]

We burn about 10 cords of wood a year. By the end of October I make sure I have about 20 cords stacked, 10 for this year and 10 for next year. I stack the wood over gravel on pressure treated 4x4s. This lets the air circulate through the bottow rows so it is as dry as the rest.

 

[Boondox]

Bill -- Absolutely keep it off the concrete. That said, the method doesn't have to be anything fancy. We lay scrap 2x2s on the ground about a foot apart and stack on top of that. Have also used pallets in the past. They work great, but in the dark my foot sometimes landed between the slats so I gave up on them. (I'm not the most graceful man around /w3tcompact/icons/crazy.gif)

We used to stack wood in the open and drape tarps over the rows, but it gets old having to shovel or plow your way to wood. So we built a mini-carport off the south side of the garage -- south so the sun would help the drying process. The joists are attached to the garage by hinges, so as the ground freezes (and rises) the hinges allow the whole thing to flex. Not sure if you have freezing temps where you live. See attachment.

Pete

 

[beenthere]

I find the cheapest thing to stack firewood on is the firewood itself. Cross it so there is air flow. To me it makes no difference what it is stacked on, as long as there is air circulating and the pile is protected from rain and snow from above. As the pile gets used up and exposes the bottom layer, just toss it up on top somewhere, and use it a few days or weeks later. In a couple years, your firewood will be dry enough to burn well if stacked and protected this way. Remembering that wood shrinks as it dries, and will dry faster (thus shrink more) on the ends exposed to the outside. Tall piles will lean and sometimes become unstable due to this drying and shrinking. I will stack only on pallets if that is the way I plan to move the firewood to the house when it is dry.

 

[Boondox]

<font color=blue>Tall piles will lean and sometimes become unstable</font color=blue>

Here in New England the ability to stack green wood in a manner that remains stable throughout the drying process is considered a sign of manhood. /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif Men whose stacks lean or -- heaven forbid! -- fall over are subjected to much playful ribbing.

Seriously, there's an art to interlocking the chunks and weaving the stack with opposing leans so the entire affair remains stable even if unprotected and hit by a serious Nor'easter. It's just most flatlanders never take the time to think things thru. If you're in a hurry you can form chimneys (alternating layers perpendicular to each other) like BeenThere does, but that takes up an awful lot of space. We stack chimneys on the end of each row to anchor it; but the long rows of parallel sticks let you stack about 30% more wood in the same space. Sure it won't dry as fast, but the wood we stacked in July and August is burning hot in the woodstove right now. Watch an old timer some time; the logic of the old ways comes thru loud and clear.

Pete

 

[JJT]

Make sure you stack your wood bark side up, it will shed water that way and be less apt to take on moisture.

 

[jyoutz]

I heat with wood and use about 4 cords / year. I few years ago I got disgusted with wet wood, digging under the snow and blowing tarps, so I built a simple wood shed. I constructed a three-sided 6' tall chain link fence enclosure. Then I bought pipe clamps and wood framing and built a sloping shed-style roof on top of the fence. I covered this roof frame with metal roofing. The result is an almost perfect woodshed. Long-lasting and nearly indestructable and very cheap to build. The open-mesh fence walls allow the wood to dry and the roof keeps it that way. I use pallets on the ground to stack the wood on. I've never mastered the art of wood stacking, nor do I care to. The fencing is tough enough to hold the wood in a neat looking bundle, no matter how bad you are at stacking.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Back in the early nineties and late eighties I made and sold "rick racks" and "kord keepers". I sold them through a couple of fireplace shops and on lumber yard that had a package deal to go along with their firewood sales. You bought firewood and paid to have it delivered and stacked and they gave you a price break on the rack.

It was one of those busy hands and idle mind moment kind of deals. It came to me that I could bend some pipe in such a configuration that any two pieces could make a whole rick rack. I didn't have a bender at the time and most muffler shops don't have dies for inch and a half pipe. But a local one did have the right pipe die. I cut a deal with them where I'd come in when it was slow and they charged me by the hour in cash to bend up my pieces. Then as an order would come in I'd take two pieces and weld them up to make a rack.

There were a couple of funny incidents about those worth sharing I believe.

Just for grins I made up a rick stack like the firewood dealers do when they deliver. You know, two ends cross stacked with the middle just stacked, four feet high and eight feet long. I took a picture of it. Then I put all that wood in one of my rick racks. I was like a foot short across the top. This was done at the hardware store's wood lot. When I had done their style of stack one of the delivery drivers told me I'd done it wrong. A mouse couldn't run through it. If I'd done it right a rabbit could.

I tried to get some firewood dealers selling them for me. They wouldn't have none of it. I strongly suspect it had something to do with their ability to bring in four cords on an eight by twelve truck bed stacked four feet high.

Yup, it was a fun thing while it lasted. I had big plans. I had contacted a boat cover manufacturer and had priced out covers for the racks just in case. I had a vision of being the wood rack world's Donald Trump. It wasn't to be.

If you wanted to make one and you had some schedule twenty steel inch and a half pipe and a willing fella with a bender capable of one hundred and eighty degree bends.

Take a piece of pipe and cut it seventeen feet long. On the pipe make marks at two feet, ten feet, and fourteen feet six inches. At the fourteen feet six inch mark bend a one sixty. Come down to the ten feet mark and bend a ninety ninety degrees off from the one sixty. What you're wanting is your one sixty to be perpendicular to the ninety. Then at two feet bend another ninety so that with your previous ninety you have a one eighty.

Make two of these. Put them together where the one sixty is at opposite ends. You will have to do some trimming for fit at each end. Weld it up. Then cut in four legs however high you want it off the concrete. I also welded up piece of two inch by quarter plate across for the legs to set on. A brace or three between the pieces on the bottom was also placed to keep then aligned.

Some paint and you have a long lifed rack that is an honest four by eight inside measurement. One person can move it around empty with ease. It's a neat knick's delight.