Made a log chute

[DeanBrown3D]

Hello all, I finally got around to making a log chute to get wood into my basement. It runs through one of the windows around 6 feet above the ground. I put the other end on a box so that the logs fall off and don't block the way.

Its 3 pieces of wood, all 12' long. The base is 1x12" and the sides are 1x4", screwed on to the base. Then a 12' length of 20" galvanized steel sheet roll (home depot) was cut to length and centered down the slide. Pushed down in the middle, and nailed onto the side, then duct tape to take off the sharp edges. Works like a charm. Only took me about 2 hours to make.

Dean

 

[DeanBrown3D]

Here's another pic from the end:

 

[Roospike]

Awesome , I'll be right over to help!

(I swear it has nothing to do with the wine rack in the back ground of the first pic )

 

[MrGriz]

That should do the trick! I would stick to loading wood into the basement with that and carry the wine down by hand ;-)

 

[Roospike]

That should do the trick! I would stick to loading wood into the basement with that and carry the wine down by hand ;-)

WOOD? LOADING? ..........what wood ?

< eyes already glazed over >

 

[MrGriz]

MrGriz - 28 November 2006 12:27 AM
That should do the trick! I would stick to loading wood into the basement with that and carry the wine down by hand

WOOD? LOADING? ..........what wood ?

< eyes already glazed over >

Oh, what was I thinking...Those are corks, not tiny rounds...Wonder if they burn?...Well, you'd have to empty the bottle first...See, burning leads to more joy!

 

[Roospike]

MrGriz - 28 November 2006 12:27 AM
That should do the trick! I would stick to loading wood into the basement with that and carry the wine down by hand

WOOD? LOADING? ..........what wood ?

< eyes already glazed over >

Oh, what was I thinking...Those are corks, not tiny rounds...Wonder if they burn?...Well, you'd have to empty the bottle first...See, burning leads to more joy!

Buddies coming out of the woodwork already to "help", LOL

 

[DeanBrown3D]

Interesting. How many splits are you able to deliver prior to the assembly (box and chute) getting filled?? What are the dimensions of said box??

No, I rest the end on a box and the splits fall off onto the floor and roll away. Hopefully my wife will help me out by pushing them out of the way when I do the 6 cords this weekend.

 

[Rhone]

I would probably not put as many cords in the basement, wood has moisture, mildew, mold, fungi, bugs, etc. I think a normal house and occupants can handle at most a cord stored inside, 6 cords is going to overload your house with spores, etc. and invite health problems and may have a potential to introduce and sustain dangerous mold/mildew, the risk is higher the more moisture in the wood. One of the things I read somewhere.

 

[Eric Johnson]

I used to routinely put 8-10 full cords in my basement and had no problems, other than the humidity in the house got noticeably higher for about a week. After that, any moisture injected into the living environment was a welcome addition. As long as you have a source of heat in the basement (i.e., your furnace), you won't have any problems with mold or decay or smell.

Of course, nobody in my family has allergies, so that's something to consider. But we did it that way for about 8 years with no problems. And that's a range of wood from dead green to nice and dry, depending on how my wood procurement efforts went the previous summer.

It'll dry a lot quicker at 60 or 70 degrees and low humidity than it will in sub-freezing temps outside Dylan, I can assure you of that.

 

[babalu87]

I put about a half cord of Red Oak in the basement last Winter

Honey, whats THAT SMELL!

 

[Eric Johnson]

It is hard to describe the satisfaction you get from having your winter's fuel supply all tucked in next to the thing you're going to burn it in. No question about that.

I don't know about the relative humidity, but isn't it lower in a heated building in the winter, simply because the cold outside air can't hold as much moisture, so that when it enters the house, it's relatively dry? Isn't that why people put kettles on the stove, pans of water on the radiators and spend the winter rubbing moisture cream into their hands?

For drying purposes, I'll take any humidity at 70 degrees over even very low humidity at below freezing temps any day. I know this is true because some of my wood from the same batch that wouldn't fit in the basement one year, sat under a roof but at the outside ambient temps all winter, and by Spring it hadn't dried at all. The wood left over in the basement, on the other hand, was dry as a bone.

In my experience, as I said, the house cools off slightly and becomes slightly more humid for about a week after the basement is loaded up. After that, it's simply knocking back some of the dryness as the water migrates out of the wood and into the atmosphere. Turn up the thermostat for the first week. As to airflow, DeanB has a wood-fired forced-air furnace, so I think he's going to have very good airflow in the basement. If the wood is green or very wet, best to leave some space between the rows or stacks. If it's pretty dry, dead stack the living daylights out of it.

 

[Rhone]

I put about a half cord of Red Oak in the basement last Winter

Honey, whats THAT SMELL!

Red oak does stink Especially after it gets wet. The worst thing I've done, was chip up some red oak branches, wet them down, put alfalfa in it, and made a red-oak chip compost. The smell was so bad, it was like, red oak smell x10, you could smell it down the street and I was wondering if the neighbors would be calling the cops.

I put some dry wood in my basement last year (only about 6 arm fulls) and when I went to burn it this year, I found out my basement has a lot of moisture because the stuff wasn't dry anymore, it was way too wet to burn. Which, caused me to investigate and I see patches of mold/mildew growing in my basement. I've isolated the issues to improper handling of drainage from the back porch, lack of back gutters, water proofing of the foundation (or lack I should say), back splashing, and 4 leaky windows and one leaky door on the side the rain blows into. Can anyone tell me when the pain will end!?

 

[Andre B.]

My dad has a wood room in the basement, about 12 by 16 feet, cement block walls on all four sides with just a doorway at one end to the main part of the basement. Also on the same end is a small door at outside ground level thru which a chute is used to drop the wood in but that is closed up when not in use.
That room gets packed wall to wall floor to ceiling every year, takes him a month or two in the fall to fill it up, bad back so he only does a load every few days. They have not had a problem, old house and lots of air moving in and out.

I am thinking the problems with mould are do mainly to the people writing the building codes forcing people to make the house too airtight, looking only at energy without regard to other factors, it should be left up to the homeowner on how much he/she is willing to spend for heat, politicians are not engineers and the engineers they listen to are being paid by someone with profit in mind.
Another problem I see is people building new houses with concrete basements and not letting them cure and dry for a few years before they "finish the basement", there is a lot of water in those walls and it does not disappear in 30 days.
____________
Andre' B.

 

[Rhone]

Andre' B., you sound like the authors of my energy books! They're saying similar, they're trying to get houses built today where the air infiltration/exchange is thought of like the plumbing system. Plumbing systems don't depend on random variables like natural moisture penetration, etc. You have total control of when you use water in a house, where, and exactly how it exists. They want the exact same thing with air in houses where, you make a house air tight and efficient but you depend on a venting system (natural or otherwise) that lets you have total control of the air exchange in your house, where it's used, and when it operates. That lets you use exchangers, so the air you exhaust can preheat or precool air coming in, you can filter it, control humidity at the source, etc. The one thing that drives them nuts, is people depending on "natural air leaks" for the air circulation or moisture control in the house, they say you shouldn't depend on them else you may run into the house too tight problems if you're exhausting more than your house can leak air naturally, or potential health problems if there isn't enough ventilation. They're trying to get air ventilation systems incorporated into houses as part of a house system. Wonder how much such system would cost...

DeanB, sounds like no one has had problems storing a lot of wood inside like I thought.

 

[Eric Johnson]

The one big caveat about stacking wood in the basement is that you have to have a heat source down there, or the wood will turn into a science project. That's why I always filled the basement about the time I cranked up the boiler for the season. By the next spring, any wood that remained was so dry that it could sit there over the summer and still be good to go in the fall.

And I never had a problem with bugs, either--other than the fleas the cats brought in.

 

[laynes69]

I had hickory that was green I just split. I brought it in to check and see what kind it was. Within 3 days it was really cracking on the outsides of the wood. I have had 2 cords in our basement, and dad has had probably 10. I run a dehumidifier in ours and I have a woodfurnace in the basement. The wood does dry (Not Season) Fast. And if the wood has been drying a few months then it comes in and when the seasons midway through I will burn it. Our house is 150+ years old, and we havent had an infestation or mold issue in the home. Plus its very nice when its 10 degrees out and you walk down there in your undies and throw some wood on the fire. Toasty!

 

[pistonslap]

My wood furnace is in my basement. I keep a 24 hr. supply outside my basement door. I got about 5 cords from a friends property that was on the ground for about 2 yrs. So I usually bring in enough to heat my house for the evening and overnight. I work evenings and my son brought in enough wood for about a week when I was at work. The next day my basement was crawling with carpenter ants!

 

[kevinmoelk]

I just wanted to add my 2 cents in since I'm completing a basement finishing project. I live in an older house (1940's vintage) that has been updated over the years. I suspect my house has its fair share of "natural" leaks. As far as mold is concerned, I used a masonry sealer on the walls, Drylock brand. It was also suggested to me by a general contractor friend of mine to use pressure treated sills and moisture resistant drywall... all to reduce the chance of mold. Furthermore, there are tiny weep holes top and bottom in the drywall, unnoticable unless you are looking for them, which was done to allow any moisture that may get through the drylock to essentially "air out".

If mold with a stack of firewood is a potential problem for anyone, I'd suggest using drylock. An enclosed room with forced ventilation would also seem to be a good idea in my opinion. You could simply by a $40 bathroom fan and set it on a lamp on/off timer to air out the room say at 1/2 hour intervals twice a day or longer obviously. I would think these measures would be simply safeguards in preventing mold.

There is also the silica gel packets that come in all sorts of packages. I always save these and add them to my tool boxes. Home Depot sells the same thing in a larger form that may be suitable for mold prevention in a basement. Just some ideas.

As for bugs? Well, what can you do about that?