Does anyone have a good system or tips...?

[dave7965]

Please tell me the best way and method for handling your firewood through the winter. I get a lot of snow and high winds. I've basically been using the tarp to cover everything and digging out after it snows. I fill a few trash barrels at a time and keep it by the backdoor. I then bring in a dozen or so pieces and store near the stove until ready to use.
Anyone have some secret tips ?

 

[ohio woodburner]

Not a secret but the wood i plan on using for the year i cover with plywood. I dont have any luck with tarps. Then i just fill a wheel barrow up with splits and push it to the back door. Alot of people here have wood sheds' .... not me though

 

[dave7965]

it must get very wet without a tarp. Does it ?

 

[westkywood]

I called a roofing company and got 3 truckloads of free rubber they were tearing off a roof. It's heavy so it stays put "unlike a tarp" and can it be cut into strips just wide enough to cover the top of the wood for seasoning or can be cut big enough to cover it all. It aint purty, but it works like a charm and it's FREE....

 

[Ronmbucket]

I cover just the top of the wood pile with a tarp weighted down with bricks.Its quick and easy to uncover when they call for several days of dry weather. My stack is less then a cord.

 

[Lumber-Jack]

I can't see any way to improve on my system, got my wood in a wood shed, got my wood shed as close as possible to the stove.
27 ft from stove to shed,,, about 10 paces.

That's my TIP. ;-)

 

[fossil]

Wood shed ~30' from the house. From there to a covered porch, then in to the stove. No more tarps for me, I hated that routine. I season the wood split/stacked in the open for 2 or 3 years, then move what we'll need for the burning season into the shed during the summer. All the wood in the shed is ready to burn, but continues to season in there. It's well ventilated. I also have seasoned wood stacked under roof on the north side of my workshop...sort of a shed "annex". I retired my tarps. Not really even sure where they are. Rick

 

[wood spliter]

I put a tarp over the wood pile and keep about 2 weeks worth of wood on my porch. The porch is covered.

 

[golfandwoodnut]

I have been keeping about a 1/2 a cord in the garage (semi heated) and a 1/2 cord in the heated basement. As it runs out I bring it in by the wheel barrel load, only about 30 feet from the garage. Sure beats going outside and lasts about a month while it drys out even more in the heat. I bring up about 2 days worth to a loop by the stove.

 

[dave7965]

Hey Carbon Liberator, doesnt your wood get all wet in the shed when it rains ? Do you have a secondary place to move it to dry it out ?

 

[Dune]

Best is a shed, doen't have to be much, mine is just a roof hanging off the back of my garden shed. Wood rack inside near stove holds a wheelbarrow full. Wife lets me bring wheelbarrow into stove room. Just figured out she probably doesn't realize I don't really need to do that but it sure saves a few motions. Burning without a shed is a needless struggle IMHO.

 

[mayhem]

I store about 2.5-3 cords in the basement and about that much more in an area under my deck, right near the walkout basement doors. The stuff in the basement dries out nicely and as I clear off an area I take some spare time and haul in some more from outdoors...while that dries I burn from another pile.

 

[Lumber-Jack]

Hey Carbon Liberator, doesnt your wood get all wet in the shed when it rains ? Do you have a secondary place to move it to dry it out ?

The bottom couple rows will get a little wet from the back splashing of the rain as it runs off the roof, but it's not significant problem as they dry out just as quick. If it happen to be raining when we go to bring wood in, and those splits are wet, we just grab some from higher up on one of the other rows and give the lower ones a day or two to dry out again. Any wood we bring in from the shed is always dry, but we do have a box by the stove where we'll keep a day or two worth of splits.
The shed is new, last year we were still using tarps on the top of the wood. Besides the PITA of uncovering the wood stack to bring some in and re-covering the stack again, I didn't like hillbilly look of our wood stacks covered with tarps in my driveway. (actually I used heavy clear plastic). The wood shed looks so much neater and tidier, and, since you were asking, the shed keeps the wood drier in the rain than the tarps did, not that it was a significant problem with the tarps either.

 

[Summertime]

Wood shed ~30' from the house. From there to a covered porch, then in to the stove. No more tarps for me, I hated that routine. I season the wood split/stacked in the open for 2 or 3 years, then move what we'll need for the burning season into the shed during the summer. All the wood in the shed is ready to burn, but continues to season in there. It's well ventilated. I also have seasoned wood stacked under roof on the north side of my workshop...sort of a shed "annex". I retired my tarps. Not really even sure where they are. Rick

X2

 

[wood spliter]

When you guys store wood inside do you bring in bugs? I was thinking about the garage but bugs and rodents are my concern

 

[quads]

I don't cover anything. I keep one month's worth of firewood on the porch and take a day's worth in the house. I keep the area plowed around the woodpile that I am burning from and when my porch needs refilling, I haul it up from the snowy woodpile. I don't mind spending only a couple hours each month in the snow, pulling splits from the woodpile.

 

[velvetfoot]

Hey ohiowoodburner, I've never done the plywood on top of the pile thing - how does it work when you use up the stack? You have to slide it back as you get wood from the end?

This year I had a cord and a half covered with a tarp on the driveway. It reminded me how I hate the whole tarp thing.
I'm lucky enough to have a 3 car garage and one of the bays is filled (almost) with wood.
I have a cart that's aesthetic enough to live in the house and it's very easy to move the wood from the garage through the enclosed breezeway tna then into the house.

I remember thinking what a drag it was piling the wood in the garage last summer, looking over each piece, brushing it, and prying away the loose bark (attempt to keep bug action down), but it's pretty nice now. I haven't any problem with bugs so far, knock on wood.

 

[firefighterjake]

Well I'm not sure how good of a system this is . . . but it works for me.

Last year I did the tarp thing . . . and it worked fine for a year . . . but at the end of the year after digging out the wood from under the snow and ice I decided I wanted a woodshed . . . and I can say already that I am more than happy with my woodshed.

My seasoned wood goes into the woodshed . . . maybe 25-30 feet from the house. Every weekend I have my regular "woodstove" chores: I empty the ash pan, clean the glass and clean up the area around the hearth (although truth be told I usually end up doing this during the week as needed.) My final chore is to load up my "porch" wood . . . this is a small stack I keep on the covered porch . . . about 1 1/2 week's worth of wood. It may be a bit of a pain moving the wood from the shed to the porch and then from the porch to my woodbox (the daily wood I use) . . . but this system works for me . . . namely because I know that even if I am deathly sick for several days either myself or my wife can easily get the wood off the porch . . . and since I get home after dark in the winter it means I don't have to trudge out to the woodshed in the dark every night for wood.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Cut wood in winter. Split and stack in spring. Cover wood piles in late fall or early winter with old galvanized roofing.

Early winter bring wood to porch inside carport.

Come February 1 no more wood will be brought to the porch as that should be enough wood to last until May.

 

[basswidow]

I stacked all my wood in the garage. I was concerned about bugs and rodents, but so far, it's a non-issue. I can't begin to say how great it is to just open the door and bring in a load of wood. I am equally happy with the electric fence collar on my lab. I just open the door.

Last year, we struggled with tarps and snow cover.

 

[gerry100]

I'll ask my wife and get back to you.

 

[madison]

I can't see any way to improve on my system, got my wood in a wood shed, got my wood shed as close as possible to the stove.
27 ft from stove to shed,,, about 10 paces.

That's my TIP. ;-)

carb,

the other week, i was salivating over some pictures of your "shed" in another thread, and printed them up and was getting prelim approval from the sig other. And was curious if you constructed this "on the fly" or could you give some more details, drawings, pictures from other angles, what you would do differently etc. ie Height, width depth. Foundation/footings etc. "Siding" or slated behind all that wood? A friend of mine had something similar at his place in west yellowstone, it was made from lodgepole.

If I recall, there are four - 8 foot long "sections", which I think you said held single rows, 1.5 cords each?

Thanks a ton. I really think your "shed" is the most practical, though BB's is up there and has great curb appeal.

I always find myself searching the "wood shed" threads for great wood storage pictures and ideas. I have got the sh&*(ts of tarps and restacking fallen stacks.

 

[Lumber-Jack]

carb,

the other week, i was salivating over some pictures of your "shed" in another thread, and printed them up and was getting prelim approval from the sig other. And was curious if you constructed this "on the fly" or could you give some more details, drawings, pictures from other angles, what you would do differently etc. ie Height, width depth. Foundation/footings etc. "Siding" or slated behind all that wood? A friend of mine had something similar at his place in west yellowstone, it was made from lodgepole.

If I recall, there are four - 8 foot long "sections", which I think you said held single rows, 1.5 cords each?

Thanks a ton. I really think your "shed" is the most practical, though BB's is up there and has great curb appeal.

I always find myself searching the "wood shed" threads for great wood storage pictures and ideas. I have got the sh&*(ts of tarps and restacking fallen stacks.

Hey Madison
Thanks for the compliments on my woodshed. BB and other's on this forum were motivation for building my shed as well.

In my case I was trying to make maximum use of the small space between my driveway and the fence line, which was where I was stacking my wood anyway.
I didn't take a lot of pictures of the construction sequence, but I did find a video clip of the fence post before pouring the post pads and curb. If you watch the video you can see just how narrow a space the woodshed actually occupies.


Here is a pic of the shed a couple weeks ago before all the snow melted.
There are two rows in each 8ft wide section which hold about 1 cord each.

And this is an interior shot showing the beams and little trusses that comprise the roof section.
The roof is over built %-P

This is what the backside looks like from the neighbor's yard. I would have liked to have built the shed taller, but it would have looked strange from the neighbor's yard haveing a fence much taller than that.

Hope that helps, let me know if you have any more questions.

 

[madison]

carb,

many thanks for taking the time and effort for the pics, exactly what I was hoping .... to get some other angles etc.

Is the base concrete or loose gravel within those 2x6's? Now I can see that you have two rows of splits so the depth is ~ 4 feet? And the Height ~ 5 feet? And if each section is 8 feet, total length is ~ 48 feet?

Again, thanks for sharing the info.

 

[Lumber-Jack]

carb,

many thanks for taking the time and effort for the pics, exactly what I was hoping .... to get some other angles etc.

Is the base concrete or loose gravel within those 2x6's? Drainage rock
Now I can see that you have two rows of splits so the depth is ~ 4 feet? 4 feet with the roof overhang, 36" underneath to the curb
And the Height ~ 5 feet? closer to 6ft, higher on the left side lower on the right, the roof line is level, the ground slopes
And if each section is 8 feet, total length is ~ 48 feet? Nailed it ;-)

Again, thanks for sharing the info.