Stack by species?

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Sinngetreu

Sinngetreu

Feeling the Heat
Nov 10, 2013
405
North Iowa
As I am gearing up to build my three year plan, I am trying to figure out the best ways to organize my stacks.
As I scrounge, I get smaller supplies of specific species. I have a larger amount of Ash and can stack that with no problem, but I am debating how to organize the smaller supplies of Osage, Apple, etc.
I have a corn crib that has one side that gets tons of wind but no sun. I am thinking about making smaller bays to stack the small scrounges in. Then I can label and date each bay easily and shouldn't have to dig through big stacks to get to the stuff when I want it. There's gotta be a better way though.

How does everyone else deal with the smaller scrounges? I know everyone doesn't have just one type of tree in their stacks.
 
My stacks are all mixed up. I like to have real dense woods separated and easy to grab for cold nights. If I find pieces of, say, oak and it will be a warm day/night I'll put it aside for cold weather.
 
I try to keep things separated at least by hardwood v softwood. I don't do go crazy though and things have a way of working out since as I split the individuals pcs tend to stay together naturally through stacking etc.

Find it useful to have the softwoods separate though and stack that stuff to one side of my little shed.
 
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As much as possible I like to stack same species together. I think more important is stacking stuff together that will be ready to burn at the same time.

I learned that lesson the hard way this year as I had to pull a few stacks apart and re-sort some not ready stuff mixed in w/ the good to go stuff.
 
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I stack by species, BL with BL, red oak with red oak, beech with beech, cedar w cedar......
This is my first full year so it's been easy to tell apart so far, I have been able to. Achieve my 3 year plan thankfully, but as I move on forward, I'm gonna have to come up with a better plan due to the way my yard is, I have batting cages, pitching mouds and wood all over, so I am gonna have to start dating my stacks......
 
I keep mulberry and locust and try with oak stacked separate.
The rest I'll mix. I sometimes run into having to reach over a
Green stack to get to my seasoned stuff. Poor planning. I'm
Working on that one. Ash and maple stack well together too.
 
EatenByLimestone said:
My stacks are all mixed up. I like to have real dense woods separated and easy to grab for cold nights.
Click to expand...

I do the same thing; this way there is a little "variety" in each load that I bring in, but the real kick-ass woods are kept seperate and that pile this year is now EMPTY!!
 
I have top shelf, medium and lower shelves. Oak alway alone for the eternity it takes to dry.
 
I stack em mixed, generally stacked together by readiness to burn. Then grab what I want as needed, often setting my overnighter stuff aside until I need it.
 
I'm usually gathering/splitting only one species at a time so it gets stacked in a somewhat sorted manner by default.
 
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A simple division would be light, medium and dense woods.
Oak seperate if you get alot.
I printed out Chimneysweeps BTU chart and highlighted all species I have. Everything gets stacked with similar btu rated species.
Sugar maple, beech, black birch, ironwood(dense).
Apple, pear, ash, black cherry, red maple, elm(med).
Gray birch, poplar, linden, aspen, box elder, willow(light)
So you can have three main piles. They generally dry about the same.
I try to make sure I have something to burn from each group every season.
Right now Im burning a blend of Red Oak with Aspen.
 
I usually stack alphabetically , starting with ash ,then beech , then cherry, then hard maple, then soft maple I don't have any oak on the property , so I don't need an O pile. I burn soft maple on Monday , Cherry on Tuesday , Ash on Wednesday, hard maple on Thursday , beech on Friday , Saturday and Sunday ,I mix , so I can keep the stacks even.
 
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I seperate my stacks when possible. I currently have white oak stacks, red oak stacks, beech, yellowwood, cottonwood, and sweetgum
 
I'm trying to figure this out as well since I'm just getting started. But since I have mostly maple and ash, I'm thinking it won't be as big of an issue until I start scrounging other stuff. I have a 30' by 15' cement slab doing nothing on my acreage, so I'm thinking one full length of maple on the south side, with a full length of ash right up against it on the maple's north side. 5' high stacks, that should give me 3 cords. I'm wondering though if I should put vertical supports in the middle or only on the ends.
 
gzecc said:
I have top shelf, medium and lower shelves. Oak alway alone for the eternity it takes to dry.
Click to expand...
That's pretty much what I'm gonna do, although right now everything is separated so I can get to the dry stuff; Don't have three years stacked yet. Once I get that, the Oak could be mixed in.
Bottom would be soft Maple, Cherry. Middle--White Ash, Sugar Maple, Red Oak. Top--White Oak, Pignut and Shagbark, BL, Dogwood, Persimmon. Probably should build a separate shrine for Hedge-apple....>> Like dmmoss said, it tend to separate itself somewhat as you cut different batches.
farmboy05 said:
I'm trying to figure this out as well since I'm just getting started. But since I have mostly maple and ash, I'm thinking it won't be as big of an issue until I start scrounging other stuff. I have a 30' by 15' cement slab doing nothing on my acreage, so I'm thinking one full length of maple on the south side, with a full length of ash right up against it on the maple's north side. 5' high stacks, that should give me 3 cords. I'm wondering though if I should put vertical supports in the middle or only on the ends.
Click to expand...
Heck, you should be able to get five 30' rows on there, with space between rows. That's six cords or more, depending how high you stack (I would only go about 4.5' though.) Put the slowest-drying stuff (Oak) on the prevailing wind side of the slab. That slab is going to be a very stable base; I wouldn't put any vertical supports, just put some splits crossways every few levels, on the ends of the stacks. The less work, the better. ==c
That wind you have is going to dry wood pretty quickly, compared to the rest of us....
 
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mark cline said:
I usually stack alphabetically , starting with ash ,then beech , then cherry, then hard maple, then soft maple I don't have any oak on the property , so I don't need an O pile. I burn soft maple on Monday , Cherry on Tuesday , Ash on Wednesday, hard maple on Thursday , beech on Friday , Saturday and Sunday ,I mix , so I can keep the stacks even.
Click to expand...
I'm trying to figure out...... If your being serious or not.....:p
 
mark cline said:
I usually stack alphabetically , starting with ash ,then beech , then cherry, then hard maple, then soft maple I don't have any oak on the property , so I don't need an O pile. I burn soft maple on Monday , Cherry on Tuesday , Ash on Wednesday, hard maple on Thursday , beech on Friday , Saturday and Sunday ,I mix , so I can keep the stacks even.
Click to expand...


This is WAY too complicated for some of us here Mark....you must've went to school to know how to do this ;lol :)
 
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Oak over here - all others over there. Once you get to 3+yrs it really is not as important because it will all be ready by the time you get to it(at least mine is) Oak is just so unique in its ability to test your patience that separating it makes life easier.

This is part of my "all others" - I wish I had that much oak!!
 

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mark cline said:
I usually stack alphabetically , starting with ash ,then beech , then cherry, then hard maple, then soft maple I don't have any oak on the property , so I don't need an O pile. I burn soft maple on Monday , Cherry on Tuesday , Ash on Wednesday, hard maple on Thursday , beech on Friday , Saturday and Sunday ,I mix , so I can keep the stacks even.
Click to expand...

see now if you counted and inventoried all your splits you could keep a well balanced equilibrium on a daily if not hourly basis
and terminate the (appearance of ) prejudicial discriminatory burning practices during the week
 
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I keep just about all species separate although I've been known to mix grey and golden birch together.
Red and white oak I double row stack on 42x48 pallets, other species are generally single row on home -made 8 foot skids as the amounts are much smaller .

Once inside I'll mix species together as I can toss any trouble-makers directly into the stove.
 
I do stack my oak and pine separate and what little maple I get goes in with the oak. Sassafras when I cut some also gets its own stack. First pic is 20' of oak then 20' of pineimage.jpg
The next is 12' of oakimage.jpg
Then the start of 40' of oakimage.jpg
Last pic is what's left of this years 4 cord of oak. This years pine is all gone. As you can see I am getting better at stacking. :)image.jpg
 
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Ram 1500 with an axe... said:
I'm trying to figure out...... If your being serious or not.....:p
Click to expand...
I usually number the splits too and only burn in order starting with 1 and so on. Then at the end of the season i know exactly how much I've burned , then I can figure out the total BTU'S then subtract the BTU'S that I've put into it , to give me a net BTU total.
 
mark cline said:
I usually number the splits too and only burn in order starting with 1 and so on. Then at the end of the season i know exactly how much I've burned , then I can figure out the total BTU'S then subtract the BTU'S that I've put into it , to give me a net BTU total.
Click to expand...
Great idea, and I would do it, but I'd be worried that the magic marker would poison the catalyst. I could number the splits with a wood chisel....
 
mark cline said:
I usually number the splits too and only burn in order starting with 1 and so on. Then at the end of the season i know exactly how much I've burned , then I can figure out the total BTU'S then subtract the BTU'S that I've put into it , to give me a net BTU total.
Click to expand...
Try an alpha-numeric system, A1, A2..., it will save you some ink and time. I'm considering getting a bar code generator/reader so I can enter the data associated with each split.
 
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