Long 6 cord Woodshed....finished

[bcp]

Is the front edge of the metal roofing well over your head level? From the photos it looks like I would lose several ears per hour stacking wood.

Bruce

 

[MotorSeven]

Do you have any support down the center of your span? I'll be stacking heavy hardwood, and I think a 4' span might be a bit much for the weight I'll be putting on it. I also won't be splitting my pieces quite as small as yours, since my boiler will take pieces pretty much as big as (Ok....bigger) than I could possibly lift.

Your work looks great, and thanks for the idea.

Funny you should mention center supports. .......I'll post some pic's later today............

I have been hauling up a cord at a time from the pile and stacking it. I had one bin full and two bin's with half a cord in them so far. As I was stacking the new load I happened to look down and saw that I have had a complete failure of the fasteners(3" screws) on the joists of the full bin. 5 screws on one joist and 16 screws on another all sheared off due to the weight. I am not blaming the screws, it's my fault for not lag bolting it and putting in a center support. I have never had any failure of any type on any deck I have built, but my mistake was this is not a deck......each bin has to hold over a 2,000lbs of wood....that's 12,000+ for the entire structure. What added to the issue was leaving such a large space under the joists....if I had sat them on the ground I don't think there would have been a problem.

So I had to de-stack my two cords. After looking at the carnage, I am going to add center supports all the way across the middle of each bin, scab on 2x10x16's on both outside joist runs and lag bolt everything to the 6x6's. So, if I were doing it from scratch, double up your joists, and use 2x10 or 2x12s and and center supports and use lag bolts or through bolts. 2x8's are still fine for the spaced deck boards.

So every now and then, I just have to do go and do something dumb to keep me humble

 

[MotorSeven]

Is the front edge of the metal roofing well over your head level? From the photos it looks like I would lose several ears per hour stacking wood.

Bruce

it's over 7' tall...I made sure of that. Being 6'4" myself my melon takes a beating anyway........

 

[MotorSeven]

This on the front side is what caught my eye:

That was not so bad until I walked around and looked at the back side:

Wampyjawed:

And all unloaded{sigh}:

 

[tcreeley]

Is blowing snow a problem in the winter? When do you move the wood inside to burn? Great storage- enough storage for rotating wood -current wood and next year's wood drying!

 

[MotorSeven]

Not much snow here...5-6" at one time is about it and it will melt off in a few days. Yes, my evil:devil: plan is to leave this 6 cords alone until next winter or the winter after next then rotate it out.

 

[GLyford]

Looks good! One question though... I assume the posts are set in the ground? Does that technically mean you need a permit for it since it is now a "permanent structure?" I have been wanting to build something like that, and have been coming up with ideas to make it on skids to try to avoid the permit thing, but maybe I don't need to! I'd much prefer setting the posts in the ground. I guess I just need to call the county...

Do you need it to move? If you add angle braces at the top, and rest your wood deck on the ground, it should be pretty stable even just setting on blocks. I've had a wood shed up for a decade now standing on 5 "solid" concrete blocks (i've heard of people using large stones, too). Levelled them up with packed gravel, and put a piece of shingle under each post. Front to back, T1-11 sides brace the posts, and side-to-side there are angle braces at the tops (5 posts because there is a mid post on the back, but not the front, over a 10' span). Basic "pole barn style" with girts.

I used those cheap landscape timbers for poles, probably could have used local roughsawn just as well.

I have welded wire fencing on the back of mine, but that's more to keep the dogs in than manage the wood, being able to access from both sides would actually be easier for me.

Though speaking of rodents, I did have to concrete the floor under my wood bunks (more of those timbers) to keep the rabits from digging under and getting dirt on the firewood. Nothing fancy, since it's just to prevent digging. Mixed in batches as I went, screeded as I dumped it from the 'barrow. Was already set at the start by the time I got to the end, but it's good enough to rest my firewood bunks on, no more rabbits. (Chipmonks, on the other hand...)

 

[quicksandfarmer]

I have been hauling up a cord at a time from the pile and stacking it. I had one bin full and two bin's with half a cord in them so far. As I was stacking the new load I happened to look down and saw that I have had a complete failure of the fasteners(3" screws) on the joists of the full bin. 5 screws on one joist and 16 screws on another all sheared off due to the weight. I am not blaming the screws, it's my fault for not lag bolting it and putting in a center support. I have never had any failure of any type on any deck I have built, but my mistake was this is not a deck......each bin has to hold over a 2,000lbs of wood....that's 12,000+ for the entire structure. What added to the issue was leaving such a large space under the joists....if I had sat them on the ground I don't think there would have been a problem.

So I had to de-stack my two cords. After looking at the carnage, I am going to add center supports all the way across the middle of each bin, scab on 2x10x16's on both outside joist runs and lag bolt everything to the 6x6's. So, if I were doing it from scratch, double up your joists, and use 2x10 or 2x12s and and center supports and use lag bolts or through bolts. 2x8's are still fine for the spaced deck boards.

So every now and then, I just have to do go and do something dumb to keep me humble

I think a cord of wood is going to be more like 5-6,000 lbs, depending on species, stacking and how dry it is. If each bay is 1.2 cords you could have 7500 lbs in each bay. That's about 1800 lbs on each corner. According to this article (http://www.woodworks.org/wp-content/uploads/C-WSF-2012-Hereford-SW2W.pdf) the shear rating of a 1/2" lag bolt connecting 2x lumber to 4x lumber is 230 lbs, but you have to derate by 30% for outdoor use so it's 161 lbs. So you'd have to put twelve lag bolts on each corner to hold 1800 lbs. That's not counting a safety factor, I would think this is going to take a lot of abuse as you drop wood on it. (Interestingly a 16d nail has a shear strength of 154 lbs, two nails are stronger than a 1/2" lag bolt! Deck screws are about the same as a nail according to the article.)


I would cut a notch in the 6x6 and set the joist in it. Southern yellow pine can hold about 2,000 PSI without crushing, two square inches of bearing at each corner should be fine, you can easily get a lot more. A 2x8 is going to bend under that load but I don't think it would break. I would worry more about it twisting.

 

[bcp]

An ideal design is one in which each connection would hold the design weight, with no fasteners. Then the fasteners are only used to keep the parts together, not support weight.

Bruce

 

[quicksandfarmer]

An ideal design is one in which each connection would hold the design weight, with no fasteners. Then the fasteners are only used to keep the parts together, not support weight.

Bruce

Agreed.

Here's how I think that could be accomplished without having to take apart everything: at each end, run a 2x8 below the existing 2x8's, perpendicular, and set into notches in the 6x6's. The bearing area of the 2x8's crossing is 1.5x1.5=2.25 square inches, which should hold the load. If not, another 2x8 on the other side of the post would beef things up. With notches in both sides of the 6x6 you would be cutting away more than half of the thickness, but all the weight is below the cut anyway, and the notches are filled.

Next question is what the posts are resting on and whether they will sink into the soil...