Suburban woodshed, AKA 'The Wood Library'

Thought I'd post some pictures of my suburban wood storage solution. Here's a picture of my woodshed:



No, really! To clarify...





The four racks hold just over 3 face-cords apiece with the one space left open to avoid blocking the view from a basement window. 3/4 of this wood was scrounged, and much of it was bucked before I got to it so the lengths vary, but there's easily over 4 full cords here. The racks are eight feet tall, though; loading the top 2 feet isn't much fun.

In approximate order by amount, this is black locust, white oak, cherry, red oak, some junk slab wood left over from a delivery by a dishonest wood seller, mulberry, white elm, red elm, juniper, silver maple and a few bits I can't quite identify.

Trilifter7 said:

Do you have any cover under the deck above the wood to keep it from getting wet?

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No, and I'm on the fence about adding some. Even with the spaces between the boards, the deck seems to keep the wood surprisingly dry. In a light/brief rain, 85% of the water just stays on top of the deck until it evaporates. Even in a heavy rain, the water doesn't penetrate very far into the stacks, and in the winter I can shovel most of the snow off the deck before it ever melts and runs through. We got hit by those storms that blew across the state over the last couple of days, but the wood surfaces are already dry. Our street is parallel to a more-or-less east-west valley, so the stacks are lined up with the prevailing winds. It's surprisingly breezy down there, considering all the potential obstructions.

Forgot to mention -- with the window behind the stacks open, half the basement smells like firewood. It's giant air freshener.

Backwoods Savage said:

My only fear is who much drying you'll get if the wood was put in there right after splitting

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Yep, I'm wondering about that too but it's the best I can do on my lot. Mostly shaded, obviously, but it is surprisingly breezy. Will be interesting.

I like it too. Anyhow, this is why I keep saying, in various threads, that I don't have space for any more wood. Besides what you can see in these photos, there's almost a face cord of black locust up on top of the deck, speed-drying in a very sunny spot that's even kept warmer at night by heat radiating from the brick. At the other end of the deck is a row of unstackably short and ugly bits to be consumed ASAP when the weather cools. There's roughly half a face cord of white oak drying experimentally in the rafters of my detached garage. And finally I've got dibs on about a cord and a half of silver maple that I CSS on someone else's property; I invited that homeowner to give it to someone else, since I couldn't hope to take it until Fall, but he wants me to have it because I did so much work on it. Now that I have an idea of how much wood I'll actually go through each year (probably a little under 2 cords) I hope that I can maintain a usable supply just by keeping the racks full with a blend that doesn't include too much oak.

Ram 1500 with an axe... said:

I have a concern, my father in law says not to store my wood under my deck, he says it will attract termites and cause potential problems for the house. Do you or anyone else think the same thing? Or have any opinions on this.

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Recent thread on that topic

Backwoods Savage said:

We've stacked in total shade before and had no problem drying the wood.

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I hope that the reason you had no problem drying it in such conditions wasn't that you had 7 years to do it in...