I’m prepping for next season now.......

[soupy1957]

I'm bringing home pallets, to store my 3 cords of wood for next seasons burn. I'm figuring on 8 standard sized wood pallets, knowing that a portion of the wood (perhaps a half cord) will be put in the garage, as a "step up" to bringing it in the house in arm loads.

Think 8 pallets is ok for stacking? I know of course, that a cord is 4x4x8, but I'm thinking I'll go slightly wider and higher.

-Soupy1957

 

[BrotherBart]

I stack two cords on six pallets. That is twenty one feet long, 60 inches high, 16 inch splits with air space between the two rows.

 

[fossil]

I'll stack ± 7½ cords in my woodshed, couple cords under roof outside my shop door on a concrete slab, couple or three cords stacked in the open on 2x4's over gravel on the south end of the shop building, and I got ~6 cords stacked in the round out in the open on gravel for future processing. Right now I s'pose I've got 15 cords on the property. I don't use pallets, but plenty of folks do, and to good effect. Good for you for thinking well ahead. Rick

 

[northwinds]

I'm bringing home pallets, to store my 3 cords of wood for next seasons burn. I'm figuring on 8 standard sized wood pallets, knowing that a portion of the wood (perhaps a half cord) will be put in the garage, as a "step up" to bringing it in the house in arm loads.

Think 8 pallets is ok for stacking? I know of course, that a cord is 4x4x8, but I'm thinking I'll go slightly wider and higher.

-Soupy1957

If this is seasoned wood, 8 pallets should be fine for stacking. For seasoned wood in my pole shed, I stack a cord per two
pallets. Stack carefully, and you can go pretty high. My pallets tend to be 48" x 40."

 

[Beetle-Kill]

Soupy, don't forget to waterproof them. Why? 'Cause I don't want to be the only one who does/did.

 

[soupy1957]

Thanks gang.........

Beetle-kill: if by "water proof" you mean to cover them, yep..........here in New England we can have some really harsh winters. I'm figuring on going out to Lowe's and getting some tarps (the blue nylon ones, perhaps), and covering the wood. I'm concerned about letting the wood breathe, but at the same time, I obviously need it to be dry.

-Soupy1957

 

[Skier76]

I'm doing things a little different this year. I'm single row stacking on pallets. Yeah, there's a lot of empty space, but I was as much sun and airflow as possible. I'm also leaving the wood uncovered until the snow flies. I'll take pics this weekend and post.

 

[soupy1957]

"Leaving the wood uncovered" obviously helps the wood age, by exposure, .............but wouldn't I want to keep the rain off the wood?

-Soupy1957

 

[muncybob]

My exposed stacks don't get covered until the end of autumn/start of winter and even then I like to throw someting on top of the stacks so that air can move under the tarps. Hopefully this year I'll have my wood shed built in October so I'll be "tarping" less!

 

[soupy1957]

Perhaps we could (if you are willing) explore this aspect of wood storage a bit more. Coverings, Air and compromise. Instead of having 50 people describe the WAY they do it, perhaps that same 50 people might talk about the "why" of it.

How much moisture can I afford to get on my stack of wood outside, before I have a situation where the wood is unusable this year? Sounds like some of you are saying (and I believe I may have read comments such as this in other threads), that you don't CARE if your wood gets wet. Why?

I wanna let the wood breathe this summer, because that makes sense. but it's kinda like the Jeep Wrangler I owned until recently. When I had the top down and the doors off, I constantly had to watch the weather and go out when rain was imminent, and cover her. I guess I'm destined to that kind of care of my wood pile, til I get a more permanent shelter type, eh?

If I could (and it ain't gonna happen) I would put all the wood in my garage. Then all I'd have to do is open the door for airing the wood in good weather, and close the door when it rains or snows.

-Soupy1957

 

[kbrown]

I leave my stacks uncovered until the first snowfall. I learned from everyone here on the forum that any moisture on the wood is just surface moisture and quickly evaporates; it's the moisture that is inside the wood fibers that you are looking to dry out and I am in total agreement that it's the amount of good air flow and wind exposure that will accomplish this. Putting the wood in the garage, IMHO, would slow down this process since there would be no wind or sunlight to help & you would be totally reliant upon the relative humidity levels to season the wood. Unless the wood is punky, it's not going to absorb the rain that normally falls unless it's constant day after day after day rain. I did test this by taking a split off the top of a stack that had been rained on for two days; (moderate to heavy periods of rain) split it once more and found there was no moisture penetration other than a very thin outer layer which BTW did dry right out two days later. Stack the wood bark side up and you now have the natural protection to further keep any moisture from the wood; most of my supply had the bark fall right off once I was ready to burn it this past winter leaving nice dry, seasoned wood. Keeping the piles uncovered also kept the insects off since birds and such could get the stacks and picked them nice and clean. I have a full cord left from last season and first thing I did this spring was to take off the tarp and let 'er breathe! BTW, even when covering the stacks, I only use tarps that are 24"W x 16'L; just looking to shed the rain/snow off the top and upper sides. Again, it was a forum member that pointed my to an online supplier of tarps that makes these specifically for covering wood stacks. Very cheap and worked great!

 

[oldspark]

I echo the same as heatit and others who do not cover until fall, the wood will season better if uncovered and you can find info backing that fact up on some sites but others think it needs covered. Been burning wood for 3 decades and never cover until fall after a period of dry weather. I am in Canada right now for my job and I am amazed at the number of people who go to the effort of covering their wood with plastic.

 

[willworkforwood]

+1 on the post from Heatit. I cover in the late Fall, and do tops only. But, cover or not, most of us are still curious what kind of difference there is (if any). So, I'm going to run an experiment that won't take a huge amount of time. The test will be to take some number of rounds (50 or so), and split each in half. One half goes to a "covered" stack, the other goes to the stack with no hat. The halves will be split to a size that will allow one more good re-split later at "checkout" time; and also as close in size to the other half as possible. At least 3 wood species will be in the mix. The 2 stacks will be separated but side-by-side - same sun and wind. The cover will be 8 mil of clear poly on top with sides open, which should be the most "helpful" cover. Then on a nice October day everything will get re-split and measured. The average MC of both stacks will be the result. I'll say upfront that it doesn't matter to me how the test turns out - I'm a year ahead, and will continue to go sans lid. Going out now to ask for 50 volunteers who want to be a part of the test.

 

[soupy1957]

"Stack the wood bark side up........" This is an interesting statement, considering that the wood I get will be split already. In order to stack the wood "bark side up" I'm going to assume you mean the top layer. From the base to the top, it would be precarious to try and stack in criss/cross patterns with the points facing down, would it not?

-Soupy1957

 

[kbrown]

Not every split will be a perfect pie or wedge shape simply due to the size of the round that the splits came from. Because of this you can build your stacks very stable by selecting the various pieces. On smaller rounds, the splits sometimes are half moons which lay nice a flat on the face of the split. Really, the main point to all the replies is that you don't need to worry about covering your stacks until the snow is here.

 

[iceman]

I leave my stacks uncovered until the first snowfall. I learned from everyone here on the forum that any moisture on the wood is just surface moisture and quickly evaporates; it's the moisture that is inside the wood fibers that you are looking to dry out and I am in total agreement that it's the amount of good air flow and wind exposure that will accomplish this. Putting the wood in the garage, IMHO, would slow down this process since there would be no wind or sunlight to help & you would be totally reliant upon the relative humidity levels to season the wood. Unless the wood is punky, it's not going to absorb the rain that normally falls unless it's constant day after day after day rain. I did test this by taking a split off the top of a stack that had been rained on for two days; (moderate to heavy periods of rain) split it once more and found there was no moisture penetration other than a very thin outer layer which BTW did dry right out two days later. Stack the wood bark side up and you now have the natural protection to further keep any moisture from the wood; most of my supply had the bark fall right off once I was ready to burn it this past winter leaving nice dry, seasoned wood. Keeping the piles uncovered also kept the insects off since birds and such could get the stacks and picked them nice and clean. I have a full cord left from last season and first thing I did this spring was to take off the tarp and let 'er breathe! BTW, even when covering the stacks, I only use tarps that are 24"W x 16'L; just looking to shed the rain/snow off the top and upper sides. Again, it was a forum member that pointed my to an online supplier of tarps that makes these specifically for covering wood stacks. Very cheap and worked great!

could you post the website for the tarps please?

 

[Skier76]

Here's my logic on keeping things uncovered....

It rained early Saturday AM in Vermont. The rest of the day was humid, with a bit of a breeze. I was outside in the morning, leveling some ground to lay down some pallets and stack more wood. By 11 or 12, the wood that had been rained on was dry. I figure the extra exposure helps over the long term with drying. Any rain is just surface moisture and eventually dries off in a matter of hours.

Edit:
I'm also stacking my 2010-2011 season wood in a single row. We're lucky, we have the space to do that. Again, my logic there is air flow and sun exposure.

I'm going to order my 2011-2012 wood this summer. I don't have the room to single row stack that. However, it should have enough time to dry. And when I'm done burning this year, I'll move all the wood for next season to the single row area.

This forum was on the money, the first season is the hardest...once you can get a year ahead, life becomes much much easier. Plus, it feels darn good to look off your deck, and see your entire heating source stacked neatly againest your property line...and it's only June.

 

[firefighterjake]

Here's how I do it . . . and why.

Wood that is cut down, bucked up and split gets stacked in the Fall on pallets . . . no coverings. It gets covered in snow, rain, sunlight, etc. In the Fall, after nearly 12 months of being outside it goes inside my woodshed . . . where most likely it will sit for another 12 months or so since I am a year ahead.

So here's the why . . .

Why do I leave the wood uncovered for the first year? A) I want maximum exposure to the sun and wind. B) Since this wood will not be used for more than a year anyways a wee bit of rain will not make much difference to the moisture content. C) Perhaps most importantly, last summer I realized that even after a day of heavy rain the rain only penetrated down a foot or so into my stack . . . and this was uncovered . . . and within a day of sun/wind the stack was entirely dry again . . . just surface moisture.

Why do I move the wood into the woodshed? A) It continues the drying process since my sides are slotted to allow wind to move through the structure. B) I like the security that comes in knowing that while I may not use this wood for more than a year, if for some reason the winter is really, really bad and I use up more wood than I anticipated I can easily start digging into this pile of wood . . . without having to remove tarps or dig through a pile of snow.

 

[kbrown]

I leave my stacks uncovered until the first snowfall. I learned from everyone here on the forum that any moisture on the wood is just surface moisture and quickly evaporates; it's the moisture that is inside the wood fibers that you are looking to dry out and I am in total agreement that it's the amount of good air flow and wind exposure that will accomplish this. Putting the wood in the garage, IMHO, would slow down this process since there would be no wind or sunlight to help & you would be totally reliant upon the relative humidity levels to season the wood. Unless the wood is punky, it's not going to absorb the rain that normally falls unless it's constant day after day after day rain. I did test this by taking a split off the top of a stack that had been rained on for two days; (moderate to heavy periods of rain) split it once more and found there was no moisture penetration other than a very thin outer layer which BTW did dry right out two days later. Stack the wood bark side up and you now have the natural protection to further keep any moisture from the wood; most of my supply had the bark fall right off once I was ready to burn it this past winter leaving nice dry, seasoned wood. Keeping the piles uncovered also kept the insects off since birds and such could get the stacks and picked them nice and clean. I have a full cord left from last season and first thing I did this spring was to take off the tarp and let 'er breathe! BTW, even when covering the stacks, I only use tarps that are 24"W x 16'L; just looking to shed the rain/snow off the top and upper sides. Again, it was a forum member that pointed my to an online supplier of tarps that makes these specifically for covering wood stacks. Very cheap and worked great!

could you post the website for the tarps please?

www.tarpsonline.com
The ones I have are the green, 3x18, not the size I quoted in my earlier post. Green is the only color it comes in, but it's a dark green and looks nice in our suburban lot. At just over $4 each, it's the most economical method to cover our stacks.