Wood Crib

Hey Everyone- I don't post much at all...mainly just like reading posts of what others are doing. Anyway, I wanted to post some pictures of the wood crib I build in the early summer. I have been wanting to do this for the last 5 years and finally had some free time to build it with the help of my father! We have a 14 acre hard wood bush with the house/shops smack dab in the center (1/2acre) of it and have always had issues with wood drying due to little air movement once the leaves are on the tree's. I also had the perfect spot for stacking which is a large cement pad that is 20x46' but realized after the first year of living here that it just didn't get enough sun/air movement. We typically burn 14 face cord per year (18-20" long pieces) so I wanted to at least build the crib to hold close to double that amount.

I first dug shallow holes for the footings down to the clay which I was lucky and was only at the most 16". I filled them up with a real dry cement mix. I then leveled them all out and stacked cinder blocks on all of them to create my foundation for the timbers to sit on. Next I had a bunch of old hydro poles cut in half and squared (Aprox 6" thick x 10-14" wide). The crib is 6' wide x 24' long. There are 4 timbers equally spaced on the base running the length of the crib. Once the timber base was constructed I proceeded to build the cage structure. It is made entirely out of Cedar 4x4's and I used 12" structural "timber frame" screws to put it all together. Once the structure was completed I used the thickest concrete wire mesh I could find. The pieces were 6'x12' so I had very little waste. All was fastened with 2" fence staples. Two doors were also made as I had the crib divided in two sections with a mesh center. The entire structure was stained (thanks to my father for spending a warm summers day doing that for me!). I didn't have time to complete the roof structure at the time as I was busy converting over an old bale elevator. I picked up the elevator for cheap but all the steel cross sections were either missing or badly rusted and bent. After talking to a few old timers about what I was wanting to do they recommended I make the slats out of some green White Ash which would be cheap to make and replace if needed down the road and I could also space them every two feet apart which would keep the chain well in tune! It worked amazing and I am happy I did it and spent the money on it. The wood for this year had been cut and stacked in log lengths for 2 years and most of the maple had the bark coming off and the ash being ash...looked like the day the tree's were cut but was almost down to 20%. We filled the cage in mid July and because the wood was mostly dry before cutting it is now well under 20%. I have yet to put a roof on it and plan to in early spring! Unloading is easy although possibly dangerous until the wood on top falls down but it hasn't been an issue as of yet and hopefully won't as I am the only one that is allowed to unload it. Overall I am extremely happy with it and how it has worked, the wood is dry, not dirty and the loose bark falls down to the ground. The crib is 6'x24' and 10' tall and is almost 2' from the ground to the mesh so it gets great air flow. On a day that has a nice breeze you can actually stand on the back side and feel the wind making its way thru which is really good! I hope to make the roof have a 3' over hang on all sides and plan on making the trusses out of the cedar 4x4's and be able to roll the elevator into the roof section and raise it up in order to drop the wood into the bin. I am still stuck on the roof material weather its black steel, clear fiberglass or something else?

Anyway, sorry for the long post. I have attached a bunch of pictures for everyone to see.

Ryan

Thanks guys....the roof is actually going to have enough overhang and slope and being built out of the 4x4's with horizontal strapping that I will be able to have 4' centers and actually be able to bring the elevator in against the crib below the roof line and crank it up and roll it inwards to the center. I have it all drawing out in ACAD and it looks like its going to work. If I have second thoughts I will make a roof with the same over hang but with dormers that could swing open on one side that would allow the elevator to roll into the top opening of the crib.
As far as not liking to stack wood? I actually do like it but I always found very inadequate air movement where I wanted to located the stacked rows. This crib being lifted high enough off the ground and open on all four sides and loosely filled there are spots you can see right thru the crib when filled even though its 6' wide and like I said above in my post...you can actually feel air coming thru the crib. The only draw back to loose filling it is I can't get nearly as much as you would stacked in it. Nicely stacked it would hold aprox 11 bush cord...I figured when we loaded it that it took 8 to 8.5 bush cords to fill to the top. Total time to process from cutting the logs to splitting and loading the elevator with 3 of us working was 2 days working aprox 6 hours each day.
When it comes to emptying it, its pretty easy...the door swings open with very minimal wood falling out, standing to the side with a 6' steel bar I just pry a few pieces and usually a large amount drops down and out the door...to the ground...throw into trailer and carefully drop more down..so far its only taken the removal of about 2 or 3 face cord before its fully open to the top and is save to stand inside and throw out the door. Overall I am very happy and I will be cutting fresh maple logs and refilling over the holidays so it will be interesting to see how it dries it out next year.

Ryan

back in the 80's my father actually seasoned his wood in large bins constructed of the same sized concrete mesh as I used. Wire tied them together and filled them up loose and he always had real good luck with it. Their is also a very large commercial firewood seller about 1/2 and hour away that uses something very similar to mine only its absolutely HUGE. 20' wide and at least 20' high and probably 100' long. Its emptied every fall and re-filled via a very large elevator and left to drive for the whole year before getting sold. The bin is open on either end and he drives in with a large front end loader and picks up and dumps in his tri-axle dump truck for delivery. Next time I am over his way I will snap a picture as its quite the setup
Ryan