Newbe here

[tigeroak]

Hello all , I have been reading the posts here for about a month and have read most posts going back 30 pages and have learned a lot.
Now I am not new to burning wood but still have learned a lot reading posts here.
I have almost 3 years of wood c/s/s . I put 5 cord in each stack and this years is covered. Still have about 3-5 cord yet to split by maul. If I can't split it I cut it up. Don't have a log splitter as of yet. I am a bit of a wood collector and get all my wood at the city wood pile, very , I mean very seldom do I have to go out of town to get wood. I get a lot already cut to size , all I got to do is load up bring home a split. The wood I have got just this year is apple, cherry, hedge, walnut, mulberry, white oak, black oak, pine,locust,elm[red], hackberry, maple, sweet gum, hard maple and maybe a couple I forgot. The black oak is a VERY LARGE tree, trunk is over 5 foot across. I got most of the limbs and they wre about 2-3 foot. Nobody around here will mess with the big stuff. Where I get my wood, there is right now about 5-7 pickup beds full still there and it has been there most of the year.
One Question -- I see a lot of you use pallets, do they hold up very well and what about termites?

 

[bogydave]

One Question -- I see a lot of you use pallets, do they hold up very well and what about termites?

Sounds like you have a never ending wood supply

No termites here, but I put down landscape cloth under the pallets to stop weeds & grass.
Should work for termites.
Could always spray the pallets before putting them down.

Hold up as well as any wood & last a long time if they stay fairly dry.

 

[basod]

Welcome to the forum. It helps by adding your location in you profile as far as pest issues go.

If there are termites in an area, they will inevitably wander into pallets and your wood pile - thats how they work.

I've dealt with excessive amounts of them down here, and this past summer while visiting my folks in Cape Cod(A place I'd least expect to see them) they had a grade stake sort of holding up a tomato plant. It was leaning against a garage with cedar shingles. The termites had made their home all the way up through the stake and under the shingles - my folks had no idea they were there or what to look for.

The best way to avoid them is a ground barrier treatment(chemical) in wood stacks. Pest treatment companies are starting to come around to the idea of colony control as opposed to barriers.

I use bayer advanced(carpenter ant &termite) treatment in wood stack areas and have no issues - this is prevention only. I had my house retreated with a colony killing product along the lines of Termidor.

As far as laying anything down to stop termites, asides from a solid concrete slab you're fighting a losing battle. and a tiny crack will still let them in

 

[Wood Duck]

Where I live (Central Pennsylvania) termites aren't much of a problem. I have never seen a termite in my firewood, and only occasionally have I ever seen a termite here. Instead we have Carpenter Ants, but those mostly live in standing trees os sometimes a big down log. When I find Carpenter Ants in firewood I split it small so that I bust open most of the ant chambers, scatter the wood out in the open for a week or two, and the ants abondon the wood. Carpenter Ants have never tried to live in my firewood stacks even though they are very common in the woods just a few feet away.

I also don't have a log splitter. i think if you're willing to hit the tougher pieces a few times you don't need a splitter. It would take a lot of splitting for me to make up the $$ a splitter would cost, plus splitting is my favorite part of the firewood process.

 

[firefighterjake]

. . .One Question -- I see a lot of you use pallets, do they hold up very well and what about termites?

No termites here in Maine that I've ever seen or heard about . . . I get a few years out of the pallets before I either cut them up for kindling and/or toss them on the brush pile for burning.

 

[peakbagger]

I get lazy and put the pallets down directly on the ground and usually in abotu 2 years they are rotted. If I put some rocks underneath them at the corners to get them up off the ground they last several years longer.

No termites for me but plenty of carpenter ants.

 

[12pack]

I use pallets for stacking my wood. I put 2x4 on sides about 6' high with a slanted plywood roof. I put cement block under the pallets to keep them off the ground. work great. I get it all from my construction jobsites, dont cost a penny

 

[Ralphie Boy]

I spray my pallets with Thompson's weatherproof or any product like it. I also use a base of plastic sheeting or landscaper's cloth, or whatever they call it and whichever I can get on the cheap. But the first thing I do is put down carpenter ant/ termite killer, generally a product something like that is made by Bayer. I get most of my killer and waterproofing from the local farm supply store as they are way, way cheaper than the “big box stores”. They generally sell “generic” bug killers, weed killers and water proofing as opposed to the name brand stuff. They all have the same active ingredients and work as well or better. Don’t have ants or termites but cockroaches are a whole other nightmare!

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Welcome to the forum tigeroak.

Sounds like you have a wonderful way of scrounging wood. Better that you get it than it goes into chips. As for the pallets, I don't like them but only because I do not like the looks of them. Then there is the other problem of sometimes people walking on them and they break and could cause you some bad injury. For stacking, we simply cut some saplings and lay those down to stack wood on. You can also sacrifice some of your small rounds or splits and lay those down to stack the wood on.