Firewood storage

[hutchman]

Was planning on the boiler room having block walls. The door going to the inside of the basement would be a steel outdoor rated door with the weather strips that would hopefully keep bugs from getting into basement from boiler room.

I'm sure I'll have to do some kind of sealing around the floor joists above.

The roll door idea is growing on me. It would maximize space as I'd have to keep an area clear if I used the double doors to swing in and if I got the swing out type, a good snow (rare around here but it does happen at least once every few years) would keep them from opening out.

Roll door has none of those issues.

I'd just have to find an insulated one.

 

[Walkin Horse]

I've got an old 3 bay shed that was here when I got here. I started to tear it down but I have reinforced it a little. I figure if it falls I can flip the top off of it. I have about 2 more years stacked near the house that I'm tired of looking at. Plus fighting to keep it covered up. Now I bring the logs right here cutem and splitem and stack. What's piled up I had cut somewhere else. It's mostly out of site so I don't have to worry about the mess. I figure 1 bay will last me a year so after I get it full I can just cycle back around and that will give me three years of cured wood.

 

[RedNeckGeek]

JMER817, your idea for a concrete boiler room sounds perfect for use with palletized wood. Using a roll up door would eliminate problems trying to swing open double doors over a snow packed entryway or into what promises to be a crowded room. I just started heating with wood last fall, and during the summer bucked, split, and stacked ten cords of oak onto pallet racks made with scrap lumber. It was very handy being able to put the wood onto the pallet right from the splitter or saw buck, and not touch it again until it was moved to the stove. Each 40"x48" pallet holds a little less than a half cord, and I move them around with a set of forks on QD mounts on the tractor. If my tractor was any smaller I'd have gone with a 30"x48" pallet and just stacked one row on it for less weight. A couple turns of pallet wrap up near the top keeps the wood in place while it's being moved, and is available fairly inexpensively at the local Harbor Freight. The pallets are parked under a tarp for now, and I bring one into the garage when needed. Lots of Decon pellets under the tarp, and a couple of packets on the one in the garage, too. They must work because I haven't seen any mice yet, but a few crickets have hitch hiked in. Made up a dolly with scrap steel that holds enough wood for a few days. It measures 2'x2'x5' and when loaded it's just about all the weight I'd want to try to move. Biggest problem for me is that the path from the wood stack to the garage isn't very level, and I lost a few loads off the pallets before I started using the pallet wrap. That and I have to remember to fold the ROPS on the tractor or it'll rearrange the top of the garage door opening.

 

[Garandman]

Very nice setup TnAndy.
I store wood outside for a year before moving a hay wagon - 2 cords- into the basement near the wood furnace. Having it in the same room as the furnace for a spell does a great job on the final drying of the wood so it burns nicely. If I've been ambitious I might have 4 or 5 cords in the final drying.

One of the guys here uses his basement wood pile as a thermal mass. He has a vent from the furnace that dries and warms the wood, and once warmed up it helps keep the area at a more steady temperature.

 

[s219]

One of the guys here uses his basement wood pile as a thermal mass. He has a vent from the furnace that dries and warms the wood, and once warmed up it helps keep the area at a more steady temperature.

Not sure how much thermal benefit he'll get from wood though! It's very poor at holding temperature. I remember studying the thermal mass of typical building materials when designing a home once, and an all-wood structure will track changes in ambient temperature very closely, with little time delay or temperature difference.

 

[jbbankshot]

I store my wood in bins in a pavilion. I can stack two high and 24 total. I use forks on my JD 3320 to bring a bin to the garage where I have a dolly that can hold the whole bin. This greatly reduce the effort required to keep a fire burning.

 

[hutchman]

I like it! Are those those totes that had the 275 gal or so plastic tank in them at one time?

I store my wood in bins in a pavilion. I can stack two high and 24 total. I use forks on my JD 3320 to bring a bin to the garage where I have a dolly that can hold the whole bin. This greatly reduce the effort required to keep a fire burning.

 

[jbbankshot]

I like it! Are those those totes that had the 275 gal or so plastic tank in them at one time?

No, they are just foldable stackable metal bins.

 

[Tenn_Blue]

Some really nice systems some of you guys have! Ours is pretty simple in comparison. We use wood as our primary heat for the main house area via a free standing wood stove. Central furnace is the supplemental system.

I have a 10 x12 old metal shed in the dogs yard - 25 yards or so from the house. That's my wood shed. I put a couple air vents in the roof and the warm summers help dry the wood out for next winter. I stack around the outer walls and build center isles so I have access to it all. Use a first in/first out rotation, coupled with our normally mild winters let me get enough wood in there to last a couple years use. Once the shed is full, I stack/cover un-split wood outside the fence in cord frames, then split it when it goes into the shed when there is room.

Then we keep a week or so of wood on the front porch out of the weather, and a day or two worth stacked by the stove in the house. The porch and house wood gets cycled enough that we don't have rodent problems... I load up the golf cart or tractor bucket once a week or so to bring wood from the shed to porch, and bring what we need into the house by hand as needed - only about 15 feet or so...

 

[eddie48]

A lot of good ideas, so far.
Some time ago, when I was putting wood into my woodstove in the basement, I realized that I recognized the knot on a particular peice of wood; could remember cutting that particular tree, sawing it into 4 foot peices to dry, cutting into smaller peices to split, splitting, stacking, moving to the house and now putting it into the stove. I realized that I was handling the wood way too many times.

Since then, my goal has been to try to be more efficient. I use the tractor to hold the logs for cutting and put the split wood directly into a large dump wagon. Wood from the dump wagon is stacked under the back porch to dry (I can stack 2years worth of wood there). Right next to the wood stacks, I built a woodbox against the basement concrete wall and cut a hole through the wall to the inside, about 8 feet from the woodstove. I lift the lid on the woodbox (on the outside) and put about 1-1/2 days worth of wood inside, then close the lid. Then I can open a door inside and take the wood out to put in the stove, as needed. Saves lots of steps and time and, more importantly, I don't have to let in the cold air when I bring in wood.