My first real/correct wood pile

[PunKid8888]

So I have been burning casual for about 7 years, at my moms house and last year in my house. I have always burned less then a cord a year. I usually buy a cord every 2 years and mix it in with the random wood I get form the yard and friends.

Needless to say my wood storage has been sub par, some years I would just throw a tarp over the pile in the driveway, I also had a very small wood shed I build from tarps and 2x4 and pallets. It was wrapped to tight to and did not allow any air flow. It only held a face cord so it was very useless.

So after moving in last spring I wanted to get my wood storage in better shape. I never found the time last year So I ended up with about 4 or 5 small stacks throughout the yard in different stages (seasoned/split/rounds/4ft lengths).

So this weekend I had a buddy help as I made a 14ft 1 row wood stack (little over 1/2 cord). Its off the ground by 8" cinder blocks and I used land scape timbers as the base. I also put all the barks down under the stack, to hopefully kill the grass and keep more air moving underneath it. I really like the simplistic approach of a very open stack. This week is going to be nice and sunny so I plan on leaving the tarp off it. Afterwards I will just put a tarp on the top and let it season all summer. I want to set up another stack the same way for future wood, and set up a smaller more enclosed designed close to the house for the winter months.

On the left is 1 year seasoned mix hard wood, in the center is 1 year old ash that I just split yesterday, and on the right is spruce that was cut up during and ice storm in December and just split yesterday. Also the camera is facing north, so it should get plenty of sun throughout the summer. I also have a big field to the left and another in front my house (my house is directly behind me in the photo) so I should get plenty of wind to help the wood season.

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[mtarbert]

Fine looking wood (fuel) pile. You may want to string a cable or ratchet strap between the ends th keep it from pushing apart. Again, nice pile and a good start.
Mike

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Excellent work. You might want to rethink the tarp deal though. I never cover wood in its first year until after summer is over and usually wait until the snow flies before covering the top only. I do not worry about the pile getting rained on as that dries very fast. It's the sap we have to worry about rather than some rain. But perhaps in your area you might cover sooner in the fall than we do if you get lots of fall rains. Either way, you can be proud of what you did.

 

[Jags]

Now you've gone and done it. It just gets worse from here on out.

 

[PunKid8888]

Well I just experienced some serious shrinkage, haha.

Right after those first photos I got a couple more pieces and topped it off. And I will admit I let my not so Handy buddy (while drinking) stack the wood. I build a perpendicular similar structure along that rock wall and I have that about 1/3 full. I checked on my now 2 week seasoned wood and all that stringy ash is already brittle and has settled a ton. so much that I was worried about the pile toppling over as it had a bad lean to the back. So I slowly jiggled, pushed, shoved, and tapped all the splits until the pile seamed straight. I could not believe how much the wood has shrank/settled in just 2 weeks. haha. maybe give your wood pile a quick once over.

Other then that I am up to 3/4 cord. I want 2 cords before July, if I don't I will have to buy a cord.

 

[savageactor7]

Very nice start...it will season more if you didn't tart it until Nov. Once wood is off the ground rain doesn't crimp the seasoning process.

 

[PunKid8888]

I have heard both side of the whole tarping issue. and my new plan is a hybrid of both schools of thought. I will leave it untarped until mid July. this will hopefully remove some sap and allow maxium sun. I will then wait till a nice dry spell and right before it rains I will put the tarp only on the top. So for the second half of the summer it will stay a little bit drier.

Another side note, I had a bunch of under 4" dia 4ft long young ash that I wanted to cut up and season unsplit. I found a couple guys on here made jigs to hold a bunch of small logs at once to quickly cut them. I ended up using something I found when removing a kitchen cabniet. it was box made from 2x4s to space the cabniet up. I screwed it to one of my wood piles and it worked great. I will have to take a photo of it so you can actually understand what I am talking about.

Now I am search craigs list to find some more free wood. need to get these piles filled

 

[Backwoods Savage]

That sounds interesting. We'll be looking for the photos.

 

[joshlaugh]

I learned the hard way not to stack wood while drinking....stack fell over a few days later. Lesson learned.

 

[PunKid8888]

Went wandering around the yard cleaning up some brush and ended up finding some branches and dead small trees, I was able to get 3 wheel barrels worth. Hey I'm not picky I will take it.

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Topped off first rack, and new rack with some wood from my uncles.

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small amount of wood from the yard, also you can see my little contraption to cut the really small stuff to stove length in bundles

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in the left section: far left is punky wet wood, going to see how it dries, middle left is extremely dead and dry, going to take it camping, and then right is good wood that just need to be split once to help season. I also had some stuff that was real small so I just added it to the right section to use as little rounds.

 

[xman23]

I like the cinder block idea, keeping the base off the ground. I do heave duty pallets, 2 rows with space between them. as I stack I put stringers between the rows to tie them together. This makes the rows very stable. The biggest issue is the tarps don't last very long.

 

[fishinpa]

take the tarps off.

put them back on if it's gonna rain or snow just before burning season. let the weather get to the wood. from what I understand, that's about the best way to season it.

note: I'm still learning too.

 

[PunKid8888]

So my cousin told me a neighbor of his had two trees come down and take out the shed and the power lines. the power company came and cut some of the tree and replaced all the power lines and utility pole. But he talked to his neighbor to leave it for us. he burn wood 24/7 in the winter and already has a pretty good supply so I hope I end up with a couple truck loads.

So I went to help yesterday.

But this picture shows how big the wood is

so far we have only made it too the shed with our cuts and we are already bigger then our chain bar (18") so by the time we get to the truck it will be closer to 24" dia trunk. I am so use to 6-10" dia stuff. So I will be busy the next few days. I will post some more pictures as we go

I also counted the rings, looks to be about 46 years old. I am glad he has a wood splitter, we are just hualing it around the corner to his back yard to split this weekend.

 

[stee6043]

Nice looking wood. Those are some big rounds compared to what I usually see. We're you guys lifting those things into the back of the truck single handedly? Those things look heavy...

 

[SolarAndWood]

Its too bad the fence survived...looks like you could have backed right up to the trees.

 

[PunKid8888]

I used a dirt bike ramp tol roll them up. But the last couple big peices were getting more dificult. I was surprised tho the logs are not as heavy as you would think, I mean they are still extremly heavy, but the size to weight seamed light. I can't wait to start spliting and see how much fun it will be getting these onto that splitter.

As for the fence we actually removed one section while cutting up the tree just to make sure the peices did not fall on it. and my truck is literally right on the other side of the fence so it was not too bad rolling the logs to the truck

 

[Wet1]

I can't tell from the pics (and my crappy monitor), is that poplar? If so, that would explain why it's lighter than it looks.

 

[xman23]

A month ago I bucked and split a big red oak that came down in dad's back yard. It must have been 3 1/2 ft dia. at the base. The pieces were so heavy I split it all in place with the splitter turned vertical. Never used the splitter like that before, but I quickly realized this is why they made it turn vertical. It worked great, moved the splitter to the logs. Now the problem is hauling the splits out of the lower yard. He has a small JD lawn tractor and trailer, but it's been so wet and it doesn't look like it's going to dry out anytime soon. When I get it to his driveway I will rent a truck to haul it to PA, about 70 miles. I've done this before when I have a lot of wood, rent a large trunk. I asked for large 22 ft. big diesel truck. I didn't tell the rental place what I was going to haul, just said it was heavy. The problem was I had no idea how much weight we had on it. We stopped throwing in wood when the rear leaf springs looked like they loaded. Any one got a good way to calculate the weight, as I would like to get all I can on.

 

[gzecc]

Punkid, Take some more pictures of the rounds after you split them. Unless you already know what kind of wood it is. Show us the leaves if you have any. It looks like different trees to me.

 

[PunKid8888]

My cousin says its all locust. all the leaves in the photo are actually from a small tree in the yard that it just missed as well as some vines, the actual top of the tree with all its leaves was another 20ft out into the road past the fence. I will find an actual leaf from the tree and take some more photos today.

 

[gzecc]

I was going to say locust, although the picture in the p/u didn't look like the same tree. Locust is great firewood. It should however be very heavy and a slight greenish yellow wood.

 

[gzecc]

If its black locust, you can easily burn it this coming season if you split and stack it this month. Black locust has the highest btu with the lowest moistures content! It looses very little moisture when 20% dry because it only begins with 30%!

 

[ansehnlich1]

first thing i thought when i saw it was "that looks like locust"

 

[sublime68charger]

A month ago I bucked and split a big red oak that came down in dad's back yard. It must have been 3 1/2 ft dia. at the base. The pieces were so heavy I split it all in place with the splitter turned vertical. Never used the splitter like that before, but I quickly realized this is why they made it turn vertical. It worked great, moved the splitter to the logs. Now the problem is hauling the splits out of the lower yard. He has a small JD lawn tractor and trailer, but it's been so wet and it doesn't look like it's going to dry out anytime soon. When I get it to his driveway I will rent a truck to haul it to PA, about 70 miles. I've done this before when I have a lot of wood, rent a large trunk. I asked for large 22 ft. big diesel truck. I didn't tell the rental place what I was going to haul, just said it was heavy. The problem was I had no idea how much weight we had on it. We stopped throwing in wood when the rear leaf springs looked like they loaded. Any one got a good way to calculate the weight, as I would like to get all I can on.

rule of thumb is that a cord of oak is 4000lb and that it is 128 Cubic feet to store that.

Take your truck box Length x Width X Height will give you the cubic feet of storage.

and if its oak your looking at appx "4000/128" 31.25 pounds per cubic foot of storage . if stacked on the truck ir your just throwing the wood on there you go with 21.87 pounds per cubic foot of storage. the 31.25 * .7 for lost space of the loose piled wood.

hope this helps you out on the amount of weight your loading on the truck.
also hoping I got the math correct on that.



sublime out.

 

[xman23]

Subline, Thanks for the numbers. I now think I had a 26 ft bed. I did a loose thrown in pile down the middle. I was concerned a stack could shift. My guess it was about 24 x6 wide X 5 high, 720 cubic ft x 21.87, Wow 15,746 Lbs I could tell it was loaded. I'll have to check the capacity of the truck before I try this again this year.