How analy retentive are you when it comes to how you stack/organize your wood?

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CowboyAndy

CowboyAndy

New Member
Feb 29, 2008
744
Chateaugay, NY
This year burning was somewhat a last minute thing, and it being my first year I just needed to get wood. Next years stash is stacked better than this years. In the basement, it just kinda got thrown down there and stacked wherever. Now I find myself digging and moving stuff to find the size and type of pieces i want.

Next year I have it all planned out:

a section for my hickory (overnight burns only)
a section for small branches and small splits for getting the fire going
a section of soft/junk wood for spring and fall
a section for all other splits
a section for all other rounds


Am I nuts? My wife sure thinks so.
 
If I had the room I'd do it that way myself.

As it is I just stack in all wherever I can and dig for what I need, like your doing now.
 
Nope, makes perfect sense. I have a hardwood pile, softwood pile (shoulder season, daytime burning), an "uglies pile", that I use when trying to burn down coals.

Hardwood is expensive on PEI, I live on 4 acres of softwood (some over 40' tall), so when the wind gets 'em, I cut them up and use them. I have not bought hardwood in seven years.

I am constantly re-arranging and moving and sorting piles.

Nothing wrong with ya boy...
 
I have a hardwood pile and a softwood pile. That's about it. I'll move some "season appropriate" wood onto the porch soon before I decide I don't want to go out in a snowstorm every time I load the stove.
 
Very picky. Which is why I have 10 cord looking pretty and still don't have my furnace hooked up yet. I spray weed killer and bug spray at the bases of my pallets. Weeds ruin the look!
 
My nieghbors kids have nicknamed my "Billy Beaver" as they watch me grow my "stash". I'm am organized and anal. Learning along the way.
 
Nah, no OCD when it comes to stacking the wood . . . well not much anyways. Rounds, splits, hardwood and softwood . . . they all get stacked together . . . but who knows this may change next year when I build my woodshed.
 
10 cord piles and take one layer off at a time 3 piles and rotate between the 3
 
As a 100% scrounger, I tend to have a stack composed of smaller quantities of a wide variety of wood in a variety of sizes, at varying stages of seasoning. I just stack it, and try to remember what I got when, and how dead it was at the time. When the season starts, I do minimal reorganizing, but I do a little shuffling over the course of the winter if I need to get to something at the bottom of the stack. I'd need to use excel to really keep track though.
 
Mine is you get what you get.
 
we have a Good Hardwood pile of nice looking pretty splits for selling
and then 2 rummange piles that is composed of everything else. Rummange piles are Burn this Year/Burn Next Year but could burn this year if needed.

I burn out of the rummange piles and if I burn through that then I get to Burn out of the Good Hardwood pile.
Note the rummange pile is around 30% hardwoods just it is those that don't look pretty. or make it for easy stacking, Knot's/crotches/etc it is the good burning stuff I think.

in my storage location in the garage I have 6 rows of wood that is a mixed stack of buzz saw wood 5" or less small rounds and then big Chunks for overnight burns compose 3 of the 6 rows and then the rest is big splits/small splits of mixed hard wood and soft wood.

sublime out
 
I have seen the pics of some of the wood stacks and they are mind boggling. Mine must look absolutely appalling. I have 2 groups - long burn and short burn. On pallets, but no end posts to hold up the woods, no roof, no perfectly level sides. I split it, toss it on a stack. That's all the effort I have for stacking. I'd rather put the work into cutting more wood. I'd post a picture, but I'm too embarrassed.

Sloppy wood stackers unite!
 
caber said:
I have seen the pics of some of the wood stacks and they are mind boggling. Mine must look absolutely appalling. I have 2 groups - long burn and short burn. On pallets, but no end posts to hold up the woods, no roof, no perfectly level sides. I split it, toss it on a stack. That's all the effort I have for stacking. I'd rather put the work into cutting more wood. I'd post a picture, but I'm too embarrassed.

Sloppy wood stackers unite!
Click to expand...

I'm with ya my stacks don't due much in the pretty area but they got the functionaly part down which Is what I care about.

sublime out
 
I am a scrounger. It all gets stacked together. No sorting. If I run into a nice piece of hardwood thats too much for the shoulder season I will work around it. But in the end, I am a weeknight and weekend burner with a small firebox so I am not looking for long burntimes.
 
I have 25 cord cut and stacked. No special rime nor reason to it. it all gets burnt anyway. Just stack it and cover.
 
Backpack09 said:
I am a scrounger. It all gets stacked together. No sorting. If I run into a nice piece of hardwood thats too much for the shoulder season I will work around it. But in the end, I am a weeknight and weekend burner with a small firebox so I am not looking for long burntimes.
Click to expand...

quick threadjack/question, hows your 142 with an 18" bar? I have a 142 as well, came with a 16" low kickback safety chain. I downsized to a 14" with a stihl non safety chain and cuts like buttah! I mostly use it for limbing and felling smaller trees, but once I bucked an entire 24" 65' sugar maple with it.
 
Third year burning and finally getting ahead of the game.
I'm only picky to the point the stacks don't fall over. So far, I'm good on that.
Before I started this seasons burning, I had 1 face of maple, 1 face of pine, 1 face of popple, and 4 2/3 cords of red oak in the front yard. Covered.
5 2/3 cord in the back field with plenty of sun and wind, so next years wood should be happy. Plan to get another log load in the spring, but having trouble deciding if I should get a 10 cord or 20 cord load dumped. Last year was 20, but 1/2 went to my brother. My ten was hard enough to get done, while also finishing the pole barn and cutting up about 3000 bd ft of pine. I'm semi retired, so I don't know how you guys that are still working get all this done.
PapaDave
Edit: faces are 16 - 17"
 
LOL When I saw the title, I figured I could win the prize or maybe come in a close second to Highbeam and his laser aligned rows.

I stack my wood in my shed over nine feet tall, so I have to take care to keep it level to not topple. The rows line up with a straight edge on the floor and with vertical lattice I have on one side and I constantly tap the row into alignment as it goes up. I also try to maintain a good variety of sizes throughout the piles but sometimes have to re-split some to suit the need. I top off every row with the knotty, odd shaped and odd length pieces that would otherwise mess up the stacking.

I create a separate row away from the rest for larger pieces that were closer to the ground and therefore have more moisture in them. I draw from that for large overnight burns.
 
I have my stacks separated by wood species then by length for N/S or E/W then color coded for age. OK i don't but I wish I had the time to.

Soft wood
Hard wood
Short splits for N/S
 
LLigetfa said:
LOL When I saw the title, I figured I could win the prize or maybe come in a close second to Highbeam and his laser aligned rows.

I stack my wood in my shed over nine feet tall, so I have to take care to keep it level to not topple. The rows line up with a straight edge on the floor and with vertical lattice I have on one side and I constantly tap the row into alignment as it goes up. I also try to maintain a good variety of sizes throughout the piles but sometimes have to re-split some to suit the need. I top off every row with the knotty, odd shaped and odd length pieces that would otherwise mess up the stacking.

I create a separate row away from the rest for larger pieces that were closer to the ground and therefore have more moisture in them. I draw from that for large overnight burns.
Click to expand...

this is a sickness. you should seek treatment. or come and stack my wood to work it out of your system. Of course, I'd just mess it up in a week.
 
I also scrounge a lot of wood,if I find a lot of one species I will stack it by it self if not then I will mix with other that have similar BTU value for example.

Aspen with Cottonwood
Black Locust with Oak
Elm with soft Maple,Cherry and Birch
Pine by it self
Then I have a pile of just punky wood to burn on days I have time to feed the fire.

I was able to scrounge over 10 full cords this way over the last 3 months,every time I would find a batch of wood I would bring it home and cut , split and then have my wife and kids help stack it as soon as possible so I would have a clean area to work for the next batch.
 
caber said:
LLigetfa said:
LOL When I saw the title, I figured I could win the prize or maybe come in a close second to Highbeam and his laser aligned rows...
Click to expand...

this is a sickness...
Click to expand...
Ja, I know. That's why I'm here. Hoping to get professional help, maybe from Highbeam on what kind of laser he uses that can be seen outdoors from 96 feet way!
 
Oh, and I forgot to mention... I have a stash of select straight grain, no knots, no punk, Black Ash seasoned about 5 or 6 years, that I reserve for splitting into kin'lin. I split my kin'lin into 1/2 inch to 3/4 square strips 20 inches long. I usually split enough in one session to fill a 5 gallon bucket. Now and then I go on a spree and do up maybe 3 buckets.
 
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