I need to build new wood sheds this spring... ideas welcome.

[Poindexter]

We had a series of storms this week, #iceageddon2021 if you belong to that website.

23 inches of snow ( a month's worth) 1-2 inches of freezing rain ( an entire winter's worth), wind gusts up to 50 mph - unusual down in town, and about 12 hours, I think it was 12-26, with outdoor air temps above freezing. At one point about 40% of town was without electricity. All this in the course of five days. 21/22 is a winter we will be talking about locally for the rest of our lives.

My kilns are decimated.

 

[begreen]

Man, that sounds awful and stressful. Hope things settle down for the rest of the winter.

 

[Poindexter]

There is just too much snow in my back yard to seriously consider refilling these before the snow melts. You can see the first of four empties going off to the left in the picture. To get to the four with fuel in them, the right of above pic, I am using the snow thrower to blow snow over to in front of the empties.

Option one is to get new plastic membranes now, pile all the green wood I can in the driveway, and then restart the kilns in probably May when I can get out there to stack wood and replace membrane. I don't like it.

As built, mine usually hold together in winds up to 30 mph, but about every five years the plastic gets ripped up by winds above 30 mph. I am sending a lot of plastic sheet to the landfill. I have to explain to the local government every dang year that the kilns are an effective way to season cordwood.

 

[Poindexter]

Man, that sounds awful and stressful. Hope things settle down for the rest of the winter.

January just started about 13 hours ago, there is a ways to go yet this season.

 

[Poindexter]

I am thinking about building more traditional style drying sheds that can stand up to the weather better and not go through so much plastic sheeting.

I will be poking around this website looking for ideas. I need to keep them small enough to be reasonably portable so the tax man can look elsewhere. I need to build for 55 psf snow load. If you have something that works good for you feel free to drop a link while I am using the search button.

For now my best current idea is to build like these ones: https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/2020-woodshed-design-mark-1-is-built-and-filled.181504/ . I was just texting with the owner of these this morning, he got through the storms with no visible damage to these sheds, he is thinking about raking the snow off the roofs. We are up to now 21 psf snow load.

I would have the option to staple up much smaller pieces of plastic on the side walls for summer 2022 if I am late getting them built and filled. My typical sized splits I can get air dry in one season without the kilns - if I have them stacked in March.

Thanks for your inputs.

 

[mar13]

@Ashful ( I hope all is well) posted the design of his "portable" sheds a few years ago. He'd use a tractor to move them. The EPA has added a picture of someone's alterations to their basic shed, which seems like a significant improvement.

 

[clancey]

I would get some kind of a used trailer on wheels--cheap as you can find and work on it from there to reinvent it to hold wood and get sunshine in at the same time...clancey

 

[Osage]

We were in Fairbanks back in 1978. I have some cousins living there,they have a boat shop on the Chena. Fell in love with that town.

 

[NorMi]

Wow there are so many wood shed ideas I don't know where to even start. A few things thing you could try on your existing gothic arches - one is to convert them to double bubbles. Use the 5 year UV plastic, two layers, with ratchet straps laid over the plastic at each support. ends and bases gets seam folded and sandwiched between boards that are screwed or stapled. Inside you use a small blower and a tube between the two sheets to puff up the "pillow" and it's super strong with the plastic under tension from air pressure and squeezed between the frame and ratchet straps at all times, plus the snow sluffs off much better. Downside is you need to run the blower on a battery/backup for storms. You can also convert to twinwall polycarb, but pricey! 4x8 sheets of coroplast(corrugated plastic sheets for signs, etc) are sometimes fairly cheap and surprisingly strong once attached to framing as well.

 

[Ashful]

@Ashful ( I hope all is well) posted the design of his "portable" sheds a few years ago. He'd use a tractor to move them. The EPA has added a picture of someone's alterations to their basic shed, which seems like a significant improvement.

I have four of these wood racks right now, each 4 cords, and a fifth that's only 1 cord. I call them "racks", because I designed them to be a scant 4 sq.ft. under my township's threshold for requiring a shed permit, and thus dealing with setback variances in their chosen location. Each is set on a foundation of dry-stacked concrete block, leveled with the aid of a little quickcrete or mortar (whichever I happened to have on-hand when placing each shed), and I can easily pick one up and move it with my tractor. They weigh about 3000 lb. when built, so size your tractor accordingly, although they probably lose nearly half that weight in their first year, as the pressure treated lumber dries. The last one went into a more precarious than usual spot, so I moved it before installing the roof, which made lifting and moving it much safer, but then meant I had to do the roofing work away from my shop and tools.

I can't say enough good things about this setup, I have them placed in a neat row, so I can just pull my wagon down the line to the shed from which I'll be pulling wood. Not having to walk into a deep wood shed was one of my criteria, as I was using nearly 10 cords of wood per year, and always short on time to move it.

But one down-side to this setup is its low efficiency storage. Four "racks" is only 16 cords, which really isn't very much wood. To store the ~30 cords I used to always keep on hand, I'd need 7 of these sheds. Cost to build used to run me $1k, but the last one was almost $2k with COVID material pricing. Not the most economical solution ever conceived, but I can frame one up by myself in a single day, and roof it the following day.

I'm going to experiment with running just four of these racks for a few years, and see if I can make it work well enough, by hoping wood dries a little better in 2 years under a roof and maybe cutting back on my usage a little more to balance. I've been getting a bit lazy about loading two stoves the last year or more, happier to keep just one going most of the time, and saving the second for weekends only. I haven't been doing that long enough or consistently enough to really see its impact on my usage, but I believe it should cut my old 8-10 cords per year down by 25%, to maybe 6 to 7.5 cords per year. That means 16 cords in those racks, plus maybe another 1.5 cords in the small shed + wagon, would amount to 2.3 to 2.9 years, or three summers and two winters CSS'd, if I manage it well.

 

[brenndatomu]

I have four of these wood racks right now, each 4 cords, and a fifth that's only 1 cord. I call them "racks", because I designed them to be a scant 4 sq.ft. under my township's threshold for requiring a shed permit, and thus dealing with setback variances in their chosen location. Each is set on a foundation of dry-stacked concrete block, leveled with the aid of a little quickcrete or mortar (whichever I happened to have on-hand when placing each shed), and I can easily pick one up and move it with my tractor. They weigh about 3000 lb. when built, so size your tractor accordingly, although they probably lose nearly half that weight in their first year, as the pressure treated lumber dries. The last one went into a more precarious than usual spot, so I moved it before installing the roof, which made lifting and moving it much safer, but then meant I had to do the roofing work away from my shop and tools.

I can't say enough good things about this setup, I have them placed in a neat row, so I can just pull my wagon down the line to the shed from which I'll be pulling wood. Not having to walk into a deep wood shed was one of my criteria, as I was using nearly 10 cords of wood per year, and always short on time to move it.

But one down-side to this setup is its low efficiency storage. Four "racks" is only 16 cords, which really isn't very much wood. To store the ~30 cords I used to always keep on hand, I'd need 7 of these sheds. Cost to build used to run me $1k, but the last one was almost $2k with COVID material pricing. Not the most economical solution ever conceived.

I'm going to experiment with running just four of these racks for a few years, and see if I can make it work well enough, by hoping wood dries a little better in 2 years under a roof and maybe cutting back on my usage a little more to balance. I've been getting a bit lazy about loading two stoves the last year or more, happier to keep just one going most of the time, and saving the second for weekends only. I haven't been doing that long enough or consistently enough to really see its impact on my usage, but I believe it should cut my old 8-10 cords per year down by 25%, to maybe 6 to 7.5 cords per year. That means 16 cords in those racks, plus maybe another 1.5 cords in the small shed + wagon, would amount to 2.3 to 2.9 years, or three summers and two winters CSS'd, if I manage it well.

View attachment 289438

Sir, where have you been?! IIRC there was a full blown Hearth.com search party assembled for you!

 

[Ashful]

Sir, where have you been?! IIRC there was a full blown Hearth.com search party assembled for you!

One particular new moderator was editing or deleting a lot of my posts, accusing me of promoting one particular brand, every time I answered any question asked about that brand. Since I couldn’t really contribute by answering questions about other brands I’ve never owned, I figured I didn’t really have much to offer, here.

Of course, like nearly all users of this forum who aren’t industry folks, I only have experience with one current model of stove… the one I own. Occasionally questions will come up about another very old stove I once owned, and I always try to answer them as best as memory will permit, but that happens less now that stove has been out of production for so many years.

 

[brenndatomu]

One particular new moderator was editing or deleting a lot of my posts, accusing me of promoting one particular brand, every time I answered any question asked about that brand. Since I couldn’t really contribute by answering questions about other brands I’ve never owned, I figured I didn’t really have much to offer, here.

Of course, like nearly all users of this forum who aren’t industry folks, I only have experience with one current model of stove… the one I own. Occasionally questions will come up about another very old stove I once owned, and I always try to answer them as best as memory will permit, but that happens less now that stove has been out of production for so many years.

Hope the trigger happy moderating has subsided...but either way, good to see you back around again!

 

[Ashful]

While tooling around this afternoon, trying to do some work in the freezing rain we had all day, I remembered one other reason I liked these long shed rows: Each "rack" has four bays of 1 cord each. The minute I empty a bay, I can start refilling it with fresh splits, so the seasoning can begin. I've seen many others here with sheds that must be emptied, either completely or a full years' worth, before you can start refilling. I like to do as much of my splitting as possible while the ground is frozen, as I'm busy with other yard things spring and fall, and don't love gearing up to split wood in July. This system allows me to (mostly) do that.

 

[ABMax24]

I'm definitely curious what this yields, I'm also in need of a good wood shed or two. I have a small 2 cord shed at my house in town, but the rest of my wood is stored at my parents place in open stacks against a page wire fence. This year I lucked out and my wood is 15-20%, but last year that wasn't the case, and I don't want to chance that again.

 

[SpaceBus]

While tooling around this afternoon, trying to do some work in the freezing rain we had all day, I remembered one other reason I liked these long shed rows: Each "rack" has four bays of 1 cord each. The minute I empty a bay, I can start refilling it with fresh splits, so the seasoning can begin. I've seen many others here with sheds that must be emptied, either completely or a full years' worth, before you can start refilling. I like to do as much of my splitting as possible while the ground is frozen, as I'm busy with other yard things spring and fall, and don't love gearing up to split wood in July. This system allows me to (mostly) do that.

I like that rotational stack/use schedule. I'll have to incorporate that into future wood storage.

 

[mar13]

@Ashful ( I hope all is well) posted the design of his "portable" sheds a few years ago. He'd use a tractor to move them. The EPA has added a picture of someone's alterations to their basic shed, which seems like a significant improvement.

Here's the @Ashful thread I was referring to:
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/drying-in-4-row-stacks.176494/

Not sure if it'll help @Poindexter with the price of lumber in Fairbanks, but for others it does contain the cut-list and diagram for ashful's racks.

 

[peakbagger]

A hint is that snow load is usually only an issue with a long span. If you stack the piles and then continue up to the roof joists it cuts the span in half or in thirds. Since the beam stress had L cubed in the formula, dropping the span in Half reduces the stress to 1/8 of the prior stress. Its the same concept of putting temporary posts in a camp.
Obviously not very good if you leave them piles half empty but might be a good option. My local ground snow load is 90 PSF and the less than 1/12 pitch 2 by 4 roof rafters have held up to 4' of snow using this approach for 30 years. I just need to remember to repack the supports in after summer of drying when the stack settles.

 

[Poindexter]

Appreciate the inputs. A friend of mine is starting 20 weeks of 5 days per week chemo on Monday, so I will have some reading to do in the waiting room.

 

[Osage]

Appreciate the inputs. A friend of mine is starting 20 weeks of 5 days per week chemo on Monday, so I will have some reading to do in the waiting room.

Hope it goes well for your friend.

 

[walhondingnashua]

My shed is not mobile but a great feature that I like about mine is that I left both sides open so I can stack or remove from both sides. Granted, I have 4 cords in one bay and I usually won't burn all of that in one season. May not be as big of a deal if your sheds are smaller.

 

[Woodsplitter67]

@Poindexter .. sorry to see your kilns broken. I dont know your area well, but with a shed your open part of the shed needs to face the summer prevailing winds. the overhang in the front needs to be at least 20 inches, the back and sides should overhang at least 8 inches. My larger shed is up off the ground by 1ft the flooring is 4x4s with 5/8s x 6 pressure treated decking with a 1.75 inch space between boards. My shed dimensions are 30x 4.5x 7.5 average height. The backs and sides are vented to allow aire movement through the shed. the back is removable if needed. you can open up the shed fully in summer then fall put the backs on to prevent winter winds blowing snow/rain on the stacks. All my sheds have asphalt roofing. this 1 shed holding over 7.5cords the shed is stacked 3 rows deep allowing air to move through freely this setup dries wood pretty quick