My three types of stacking methods and which seems to work best

[maple1]

I go double stacks. One pallet wide, not two. With 18" wood, that leaves a couple inches in the middle for some airspace. Layer of tarp on top then one more layer of wood. Have never had any tip overs. If I see a spot looking like it's starting to get a bit out of shape, a couple whacks usually fixes that.

 

[St. Coemgen]

I stack in the round. Not a complete holz style as the top is left flat. But works the best for me. No need for supporting structures as the round stacks are self supporting.

 

[St. Coemgen]

I have reservations about how dry the center of a 12ft Holz will actually get.

Personally, I leave a hole in the center of my round piles. They dry fine.



And a 12 foot holz is pretty big. No need to go that large if you have the space.

 

[St. Coemgen]

I was always curious as to how you get the wood off the top in an easy manor? I move a weeks worth of wood up every Sunday. Just seems awfully high to have easy access.

Historically, holz houses were for only drying wood. That is, the wood cutter went into the (black) forest, cut the trees down, split the wood and stacked the wood on site in the form of a round holz house as the round structure was self supporting. The wood cutter then left, and came back a year or two later with draft animals after the wood had dried and hauled it out of the forest. Dry wood was easier on the draft animals to move since it lost its water and was lighter. Then the wood was then sold and put into covered wood sheds.

In other words, you do not take wood off a holz house every week. It is really only for drying wood, and does not really substitute for a wood shed. But that being said, if you do take wood off a round pile, you have to do it in a circular manner so that you reduce the size of the pile equally. Removing from just one side, for a very tall pile, can result in collapse if you are not careful.

 

[sportbikerider78]

I double stack on plastic and wood pallets. I have to keep an eye on them in the first 6 months because they seem to dry so quickly the stack warps and they fall over. Now that I know to look for that, its a non-issue. A few taps here and there when out on walks.

 

[Woody Stover]

The holz is 12ft round on 9 pallets, to make pallets successful you need to make sure the ground your stacking on is level and solid so the weight gets distributed equally.

That's the problem I may have with trying the Holz...finding some level ground. If it's almost level I can probably make adjustment to the pallets. I've been stacking on pallets, with 6 concrete blocks under each pallet, two blocks under each longitudinal rail. I would probably do the same with the Holz for better air flow. Lately I've been using your method #2, three-wide rows on pallets. You are scaring me a little with you finding wet wood in the middle of these, as I have about half my SILs' wood for next winter stacked three wide. It is dead White Ash so if we get normal hot, dry weather, maybe it will get dry in the middle row.
Kenny, where are you located? I hope in a place where it takes longer to dry wood than it does here.

 

[kennyp2339]

This is my winter wood in the driveway, I'll use the stuff under the tarp 1st, this is 3 wide, the other one your referring to was 4 wide.
I smartened up with this one, made the middle stack higher that the outsides so the water simply rolls off, ill use the 1st row first, then dissect the middle row, by then I hopefully won't have to worry about the rain and it will all be snow.
I'm located in NW New Jersey

 

[Woody Stover]

the other one your referring to was 4 wide.
I smartened up with this one, made the middle stack higher that the outsides so the water simply rolls off,
I'm located in NW New Jersey

Good idea with the ridge down the middle for drainage. I have some 3'-wide mats that I'll use on some of my uncovered stacks, two mats wide and I'll over lap them along the center ridge. Yeah, after I posted I saw your zip code. It was a little extra work to track you down, though.