Where do city dwellers store their wood out East?

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Lumber-Jack

Lumber-Jack

Minister of Fire
Dec 29, 2008
2,007
Beautiful British Columbia
Plenty of people out West here heat with wood, even those who live in small city lots. Of course the problem with living in a small city lot and heating with wood is that of wood storage. The advantage we seem to have out West here is that we mainly burn softwood, and the availability of dry softwood out here is vast. What this means is that if you are a new wood burner, or you burn every last stick of wood from last winter you'll have no problem finding enough dry wood for next winter in the months leading up to it, you don't need to plan years ahead, and you don't need to stockpile 2-3 years supply ahead of time.
So for city dwellers out West, or those of us who just live on lots with limited space, heating with wood and the subsequent storage of enough wood for a winter is a lot more feasible, because we only need enough space to store one winter's supply.
I currently live on a lot that is 70ft x 100ft which seems to be typical of an average size of a city lot around here, and I had to do a lot of thinking to find the right space to store enough wood (plus a little extra) for one winter. I can't fathom where I would be stacking three times that amount if I had to stockpile 3 years in advance!
The previous places where I lived and heated with wood always had acreage, so this cramped lifestyle is kind of new to me, however it's still enough room to store one years supply of wood without blocking the driveway or stacking on the front lawn.

I've seen plenty of pictures of you guys from out East with huge piles of wood sitting out on your acreage or in the middle of your forested wood lots, but how do you city dwellers out East do it?
Pictures would help?
 
I think that for those few who do burn, they do what you said - - store what little they can with little hope of getting ahead, and be diligent about getting seasoned wood. I have seen posts on DC craigslist looking for wood storage space, but my guess is those are from a firewood dealer, not a city dweller with a woodstove. Could be wrong. In a high density area, you also have to consider the complaint factor from the neighbors due to the smell/smoke of burning wood. I have a colleague who lives in a typical suburban (not even urban) subdivison who likes to complain about the smell coming from one of his neighbors chimneys. For all I know his neighbor may be burning unseasoned wood. Or maybe he's burning cherry or hickory and my colleague has no sense of what is good or bad in the world. Or maybe my colleague is just a nancy. Regardless, I think you have to be very dedicated to be an urban burner.
 
Up until this season my stove was a secondary heat source and I never had more than a cord on hand at any time. Now I burn 24/7 and fgure I'll burn 6 cords tths year-so far a little over 3 cords burnt. I have hgh hopes of a new stove in another year or 2 but will not even start looking until I have plenty of seasoned wood.

'm thinking about cutting pallets in half and stacking wood on them all around the fence line in my back yard. I will keep the height right around 4' with the height of the fence and keep my fingers crossed.

I just started running a chainsaw and know thats got to piss off some people so I lay everything out and stick the smaller branches n the woodpile to trim them then cut the rounds and get the saw shut down. Worked pretty good yesterday and my closest neighbor offered his truck if ever need it to get wood!
 
Ja, I think lots of them burn wood before its time or else are hooked in with a good just-in-time firewood guy. Others basically sacrifice most of their yard and neighbor's good will.

I can store a two year supply of wood in my 10'x20' shed but I could never season Oak in it. I burn mostly Ash which seasons much quicker than Oak. Ideally my wood sits out in sun and wind for one Spring, Summer, and Fall, then goes into the shed for the Winter and another Spring, Summer and Fall, to be burned the following Winter. Sometimes it didn't work to plan and I ended up burning some same year wood which really sucked. I've vowed to just run the furnace if that ever happens again.

I also have the luxury of space to process my firewood on my property. Now it happens that the processing is done at the front of the property near the road because that's where the grapple truck drops off the load, but it isn't really my front yard given that the house is set way back from the road. I cannot imagine processing firewood in the front yard or driveway of a city lot, nor could I live beside or across from someone who did. Heck, I can't live beside or across well mannered people either which is why I live out in the bush.
 
Thanks for the replies so far guys. I thought the wood storing dilemma might be a limiting factor for Eastern wood burners who live on small lots.
Although I don't live in a city proper, I do live in a relatively high density community of some 300 houses where most of the lots are around the same size as mine. There are 6 other wood burners a stones throw (literally) away from my house and plenty more spread out around here. Yeah you can often smell smoke in the neighborhood, but I much prefer a little wood smoke to the automotive smog smell of bigger cities.

Archie I think maybe your colleague must be a Nancy, but I know one guy who's like that too, and her lives out in the country on a 10 acre lot, and yeah it sounds like it's takes a lot more dedication out East compared to here.

Hareball, I try not to do much of the wood cutting around my place, not too worried about the saw noise, but I don't like all that sawdust shavings blowing around here. I try to do as much of the cutting as I can out in the bush where I get the wood. Sounds like you are still working on this wood storage problem, how big is your lot?

I'd sure like to see some pictures of how people out East, who have been burning for a few years, store 3 years worth of wood on a lot my size. Must be a few???
 
Just have to make use of the vertical space. I have a corner lot and split right along the side street, heap 12' high, then store under two house overhangs 10' high. I can get 8 cord in one and 10 in the other, 5 cord of rounds in the splitting area and 10+ in the heap when it is at capacity.
 

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CL--My lot is 65x100. My home is pretty much centered on the property. The house is in this photo but well shaded by the White Oaks in the back yard. :)
 

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My neighborhood is similar to Hareball, and I have found the HH stacking tecnique helps in having lots of wood in a smaller "foot print".
 
Thanks for the aerial pictures of your place Hareball, yep looks like suburb living alright.
Here is a aerial shot of my place with me circled in green and my closest wood burning neighbors circled in red.

myplace.JPG


Adrpga thanks for posting your wood pics. How big is your lot? The pictures are kind of deceiving, it looks like they could be taken out in the country somewhere.
 
I've got a 12ft single row, stacked about 4.5 ft next to my porch, and about a face cord around the corner from that next to my chimney. I'm working w/ my dad to convince him to allow me to store some of my wood for next year at his house (he has a bigger yard, and not as picky of neighbors). Next winter, I'll probably stack some wood along the other side of my house where my garden is. I'd need to move it or burn it though before spring planting time, can't keep it there to season.

I'm in a subdivision w/ a nanny-state HOA. I'd MUCH rather be out in the country!

K
 
I'm in the x-burgs and have enough land to store as much wood as I can handle. But there is a lot of postage stamp size lots in the county. When I had the County code inspector out to check out my new installation, I asked him if he had many wood stove permit inspections. He said that he gets very few, most houses that have fireplace appliances are getting natural gas fireplaces. No natty in my neighborhood though. Not too many people in my area are serious woodstove types, probably 1:100 are serious 2-3+ cord burners, maybe 1:40 are weekend/evening burners, 1:20 sometime burners. More upcounty in my area then down-county in the denser areas. It is probably because of the amount of work involved combined with the busy lifestyle that seems to dominate this area. However, I'm glad I have my wood burning hobby/lifestyle.
 
CL--Thats how it used to be around here in the 70's with wood burning. Now the neighborhood has matured and many homes have been sold to slum lords renting the homes out to idiots. I don't even put my scanner on anymore...Too depressing hearing all the police activity.
 
It is especially tough to juggle enough room if you happen to harvest a species that will take longer than 1 year to season.

I rarely process any wood at home and if I am able to I usually season the firewood at the place of origin where it is cut and try to limit wood that will take two years to season to no more than half of the available space at home.
 
Well I gota tell ya, I'm really surprised that there aren't more Easterners who live in confined lots space jumping in this thread. I new it would be challenging, but I didn't think it would be such a stonewall.
If all the wood burners out East (except for the most dedicated) live on acreage, and almost none live in cities or in high density population areas, it must severely limit the total numbers of those who use wood to heat their homes out East, which is kind of funny because this forum is made up of pretty much all Easterners???? Go figure!
 
I'm a city dweller in the East - and am kind of lucky since my lot is a bit oversized for the city (64 x 180 feet). Even though our backyard is larger than that of many other people in this city, it can still be a challenge to store the amount of wood that is required while still having a nice yard with veg garden and other landscaping and such (I don't want the primary focus of the yard to be wood storage). Not that our yard is finished at this point but we pretty much know what we want it to be like.

As such, I will pretty much be building a woodshed in the spring, in the furthest corner of the yard, since a few cords of wood can be unsightly for the neighbors and the wife. I hope to have 1 to 1.5 years of wood on hand in that shed (with a footprint of approx. 10 x 15 feet, perhaps a bit more) with a bit more in process stacked neatly close to the shed. I would also have a processing area back there - there will likely be a few trees strategically placed to help make it less visible.

I've pretty much reduced my initial expectations on the quantity of wood I would have at one time. I think 6 cords will be pretty much maximum, although the yard could store much more. Otherwise the wife will complain too much that our lot looks like an industrial wood processing yard or something. Frankly, given what I know now, I would probably not make this sort of wood burning investment on a city lot any smaller than the one I have now.
 
I have a 1/4 acre lot about 40 miles up the Hudson River from NYC. My lot is just about 100x100. I scrounge all my wood. I unload and, if necessary, cut the wood to length in my driveway. I stack the rounds in a single row along the far side of my 20x50 driveway. I split in the driveway and wheelbarrow the splits to the back yard where they are stacked on pallets, 3 rows deep X about 4'-5' high along most of my property line. I can store two seasons worth in that fashion. My neighbors tease me that I am too cheap to buy a fence and pile wood instead.
Rounds stacked along the driveway.
fredrick4.jpg

09/10 stack in September 09
DSC05874.jpg

10/11 stack in September 09
fredrickcss2.jpg

I might start one more row along the edge of the front yard if I have good scrounging luck this year.
No complaints from neighbors, just a little extra wood moving.
 
Funny I've never really thought about lot size in terms of ft. I can see how this would pose a real problem for some. Looks like a lot of folks have found inventive ways to deal with it though. To the the best of my calculations my lot is 14,400x14,400.
Joe :)
 
There is nothing more cramped than living on lake frontage in the "poorer" sections of the lake. My lot is 50 ft wide 200 ft deep with only 40 ft of the lot being flat which for the most part contains my house/garage/storage building/outdoor deck and the rest of the lot is on an 80 degree slope not conducive to storage. I don't really have a yard at all and don't own a lawnmower. With the limited space I have I still seem to have enough room to store about 2 cords under the eaves of my house on the porch borrowing that idea from the firewood house on woodheat.org and along the 16 ft of west fenceline and lower stack on the west side of my deck.

Fortunately scoring wood isn't quite as competitive here as it is on east coast so I don't have to jump on every opportunity and as stated before if possible I try to leave as much wood as possible at the cutting site to season.
 
urban burner here, big ole suburb of Detroit, 2nd year burning with an insert and I bring the wood home 2 cord at a time once fall hits. Until then it sits in northern MI, Irish Hills and a neighbor's place where in all 3 places I worked wood over the last two years. Storing 1 cord on the deck, 1 cord on the ground right next to the deck, me and my 14 year old carry it in as we need to load the stove. Have not burned through the 2nd cord yet, once its gone landscape trailer is full is with the next 2 cord and we bring er home and unload. Works pretty good, burning clean so smoke is only on start up, many other neighbors burn open fireplaces and smoke every minute they are burning.
 
I got ridiculed in another post by cuttin paranoid...(the guy who is more than ok with "borrowing" wood along the road without asking permission from the owner) for suggesting this but... one fellow was saying he had absolutely no more room for storage and was considering stacking inside his house...I made the suggestion instead of maybe ruining his house or inviting in a bunch of insect friends, to go to one of those storage rental places...around here they only charge like 20 bucks a month for a pretty good size unit that you could easily fit 4 cords or so stacked to the ceiling. and as you burn up your wood over the winter you replace it out of the storage unit. Now I wouldn't suggest that for long term storage but for three to six months it would be a lot cheaper than buying oil or propane. And if you get your wood for free you would still only spend a 100 or so to keep your supply dry and easy to get to till you burn up your wood at home. I wouldn't do it , but If I had no more room except for my living room and hallway( I have a wife...never gonna happen) it sure would beat having to run out of wood half way through winter and paying the oil man. Maybe I am just cracked you tell me.
 
Many folks just count on their wood supplier to bring them another load.
 
Carbon_Liberator said:
Thanks for the aerial pictures of your place Hareball, yep looks like suburb living alright.
Here is a aerial shot of my place with me circled in green and my closest wood burning neighbors circled in red.

myplace.JPG


Adrpga thanks for posting your wood pics. How big is your lot? The pictures are kind of deceiving, it looks like they could be taken out in the country somewhere.
Click to expand...

My 1 acre lot backs up to 300 acres of open park land over a stream behind the HH. Hence the allusion I have land. lol I wish. As long as I don't look left or right out my back door and look straight ahead I can pretend I'm Quads or one of the other Land Barrons on this sight.
 
adrpga498 said:
My 1 acre lot backs up to 300 acres of open park land over a stream behind the HH. Hence the allusion I have land. lol I wish. As long as I don't look left or right out my back door and look straight ahead I can pretend I'm Quads or one of the other Land Barrons on this sight.
Click to expand...
ONE ACRE!!!
YOU ARE A LAND BARON,,,, compared to me. :long:

Actually I've been reading some of the replies and thinking about their lot sizes, and some of them, like Flatbedford who has a 100X100 ft lot, I think that that is only slightly bigger than my 70x100 ft lot, but then I think about how that extra 3000 sq ft could come in real handy for storing some extra wood. That's 20X the size of my wood shed.
Boy when your lot size gets down to a certain point you really got to plan well. :-S

Thanks for the replies and pictures gentlemen.
 
I live in the suburbs, but got all the land left over (the woods). Even though I have all the land I find that I like making the majority of my stacks close to the house for ease in bringing it into the house. Also this is about the only site that has any sunshine, the rest is all tree covered. I imagine alot of people with land still end up putting most of the wood near the house, we just don't have to worry about what the neighbors have to say. I would recommend to city dwellers building a 10 foot Holtz Hausen. You could get atleast 4 cords in a small space and give your neighbors something to look at.
 
I live in a 100+ year old suburb of Boston. Our lot is about 100x65, and it's one of the biggest on the street. On the other side of the street, they don't have any backyards at all!

Previous to getting the woodstove insert, I burned only about 1/2 cord per year in the fireplace, and I built a 12x2x5 woodshed alongside the driveway about 10 feet from the side door of the house. It holds almost a cord, if I can stack it tightly.

Now that we got the insert this year, I'm on track to burn about 3 cords this season. At the start of the season, I had the shed full, and another small stack next to it. Now I have 3 pallets (loaded 4x4x5) of semi-seasoned wood next to the fence, as well as another small pallet next to the wood shed, so a total of about 3 cords on hand. And I have about a week's worth on a small rack on the covered front porch. It's enough space to buy green wood in January to use year, but not enough to season very much in the small space.

I'm thinking of building a new woodshed, perhaps 12x4x6, in place of my existing shed. That would hold almost a whole season's worth of wood, and then use 3 or 4 pallets to hold green wood for the following season. And I liked the idea of using rounds as a fence line, I might do that...
 
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