Bad wood pile

[Backwoods Savage]

That's an impressive amount of lean for a still standing stack of wood!

What a pain frost heave must be. Does it cause issues with structural things like buildings? Or do the codes factor it in and force you to over-engineer accordingly?

That wood looks great to me too, do you term it "junk" wood because it is less BTU's compared to what you burn in winter?

With buildings, the foundations all go below frost level. Even more of a problem is frost going down and freezing water lines. Especially where water lines go across a driveway. Driving over the area tends to send the frost deeper. That is why we have all our water lines 42" deep or deeper.

 

[LLigetfa]

Frost heave is another reason...

When I was stacking outdoors, I laid down a base of 5 foot long junk wood. That way all three rows move together as one. I also laced in some 5 footers at both ends to tie the three rows together.

Now I have a 10' by 20' concrete slab to stack on. There is a one foot grid of rebar in the concrete but the slab still cracked from the frost. The poles of the shed go below the frost but the frost has been grabbing them by the sides and jacking them up year after year.

 

[savageactor7]

Well you're both right about engineering solutions to overcome frost heave, sure there's always a work around. But I'm not willing to make that sacrifice for shoulder season wood.

That’s an impressive amount of lean for a still standing stack of wood!

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing when Savage mentioning frost heave... I've been keeping my eye on it sometimes the stacks will return to somewhat normal. If it recovers I snap a pic in April.

 

[TreePapa]

Frost heave is another reason we got away from stacking and went to piling. The only wood we stack is our junk shoulder season wood...almost hate to call it junk cause it works so perfectly. Anyway this pile was perfectly stacked before winter.

would be interesting to see how long that wood can defy gravity!

Peace,
- Sequoia

 

[savageactor7]

^I've been watching that all winter wanting to do something about it. Trouble is when the frost resettles the stack can fail because of the correction you make.

Usually by this time of years we're already got almost half that pile burned cause of all the mild days we have. This year there were no mild days and the snow stayed the entire winter. Whatever happens I'll post a pic since enough of you are curious.

 

[karri0n]

Photoshop


Seriously, that's a cool pic. I'll be interested to see if it rights itself or topples. My money is on topples, but luckily by that time my money won't be worth anything even if I'm wrong.

 

[LLigetfa]

I use a hand tamper to nudge a recalcitrant stack back to plumb.

 

[Apprentice_GM]

^ "recalcitrant"

What a wonderful word! Totally off-topic, but our former Prime Minister, Paul Keating, used this to describe someone (I think it was an overseas leader) and all the journo's had to go and look it up, then most of Oz got hit with it from every media angle for a week! Now we all know and use it liberally

^I've been watching that all winter wanting to do something about it. Trouble is when the frost resettles the stack can fail because of the correction you make.

Usually by this time of years we're already got almost half that pile burned cause of all the mild days we have. This year there were no mild days and the snow stayed the entire winter. Whatever happens I'll post a pic since enough of you are curious.

I'd like to see what happens I hope it re-settles back to where it was! If you prop a stick against it, will that stop it falling? Then when it corrects the stick can just fall over.

 

[savageactor7]

Frost heave is another reason we got away from stacking and went to piling. The only wood we stack is our junk shoulder season wood...almost hate to call it junk cause it works so perfectly. Anyway this pile was perfectly stacked before winter.

Here's a recent pic that shows the heaving stack recovering a little from the frost heave...it could fully recover or come crashing down. March is a tricky month as the frost moves threw the ground...

...plumbers will tell you around here more underground pipes will freeze now that's it's getting mild than when it was below zero...go figure!

 

[LLigetfa]

That pile obviously got pushed back toward plumb and didn't get that way by itself.

 

[karri0n]

That pile obviously got pushed back toward plumb and didn't get that way by itself.

As the pic below scientifically demonstrates, I'm calling shenanigans. There is now a "step" effect where there was none before, while below the step the angle remains the same.

 

[fossil]

Leprechauns stabilized it in the middle of the night. There's nothing the little people hate more than a tumbling wood stack. Rick

 

[johnn]

You mean this one?

So thats what this means?

 

[savageactor7]

I swear no shenanigans on my part...I got a full plate playing clean up to National Grid. They cut tons of trees through their 1500' right away.

Besides we know better than to mess with any stacks suffering from frost heave. Haven't touched one of those logs since they been split last summer. I take another pic this afternoon and we'll see how it's doing.


edit to update 5:30pm

Like I said usually that pile is mostly gone but this winter didn't have any mild days in store for us. That other side could still collapse too.

This is another reason why we don't stack anymore but since it's shoulder season wood and does have some punky wood we have to stack it for a maximum burn.

 

[savageactor7]

Well all you posters who suggested the wood pile was manipulated were correct.


Since I posted that last pic the wife noticed we were burning shoulder wood. Instead of re-stacking I'm just gonna burn that fallen wood up. Anyway I mentioned that yeah I'm taking it from a pile that collapsed behind the garage. She said HUH? she thought that side would have rid out the frost otherwise she would have fixed that side too. WTF?

Apparently she was out with the dogs one day and just decided on her own to shore up the row on the right and never told me about it. So that's the skinny on that.... sorry to mislead you guys.

I should have been convinced by karri0n photo shop but NOoooo!...it's always about me, I'm the only one that does anything around here.

...reason #47 why she's a keeper.

 

[Shipper50]

Savage,

You live on a golf course? I must be the only one who thinks your yard looks like a fairway. And I haven't golfed in close to 6 years and thought that.

Shipper

 

[savageactor7]

Hi Shipper, no I don't live on a GC. But everything you see past those dwarf apple trees is a fairway cut. We have about 7 or so of those 6' WalMart bicycle flags stuck in the ground...all less than 100 yards apart. We practice the short game for recreation, every hole is a par 3 and you're considered holed in when the ball is withing the length of the club.

Generally speaking if I hit a 6 and can't see the ball sitting up pretty...it's time to mow.

 

[LLigetfa]

I've been watching my stack of rounds that are waiting to be split and noticed part the first row starting to lean. This morning as I was leaving for work, it was at its worst and I wondered if it was going to go down or not. This thread came to mind. When I got home the whole bloody row was laying down in the water soaking it up through the end grain.

 

[karri0n]

Well all you posters who suggested the wood pile was manipulated were correct.


Since I posted that last pic the wife noticed we were burning shoulder wood. Instead of re-stacking I'm just gonna burn that fallen wood up. Anyway I mentioned that yeah I'm taking it from a pile that collapsed behind the garage. She said HUH? she thought that side would have rid out the frost otherwise she would have fixed that side too. WTF?

Apparently she was out with the dogs one day and just decided on her own to shore up the row on the right and never told me about it. So that's the skinny on that.... sorry to mislead you guys.

I should have been convinced by karri0n photo shop but NOoooo!...it's always about me, I'm the only one that does anything around here.

...reason #47 why she's a keeper.

To be honest, this is actually what I suspected. I believed you when you said no shenanigans on your part, so I figured someone else must have played shenanigans and you didn't know about it. Wife was the #1 culprit

 

[ChillyGator]

Just a question out of curiosity - what is the problem with snow through the stack? Wouldn't the warm air just melt it and it drains away? What is frost heaving?

It's a Yankee thing.....u don't want to go there.

 

[LLigetfa]

Looks like the next row is getting pushed by the frost now.