Should we store wood in the house?

[Backwoods Savage]

In the past I have not touched on this subject much because I know a lot of folks feel strongly about having wood in the house all the time. Some store lots of wood in the house, some just an overnight amount etc. Some store in bins, boxes or plastic containers while others store on the hearth. We even see wood racks, such as would normally be seen on a porch or deck or even in the attached garage.

Now comes the argument on the bug issue. Some claim there is no harm and no bugs. Some even spray for bugs while others stack the wood outside the house and get an armload as needed. Although I do allow my wife to bring in enough wood for the next load.....but only at night, I hate stacking wood inside the house. Why? I'm glad you asked.

For years we have dried our wood out where it will get wind or sun or both or wherever we happened to stack it that year. During the fall I then moved maybe 1/2 cord or more of wood on the back porch which also happened to be part of the carport. On the east side I always hung a tarp during the winter because when we get snow, most times the wind is of an easterly direction which would blow the snow right on the wood and porch. This kept the wood dry even if it rained. It worked great as it was just a very few steps to get the wood.

Now for the problem and why I do not like wood in the house. Simply put; bugs. No matter how long the wood has dried there can always be bugs in the wood.

Last year, we finally put up a barn and one end has been reserved for wood. We burned about a cord of 7 year old wood and then had to break into our newer stacks. This meant we were burning wood that had been stacked in April of 2009. Yes, it burned good.....but not as good as the 7 year old stuff. But the real point is the bugs. Yes, I found bugs when I moved the wood into the garage and got rid of all I could. Yet we would occasionally find a bug or two; even a hornet.

So this spring when we needed a fire only to take the chill off, I would go to the barn to get 3 or 4 splits. What would I find? More bugs.


I know the prevailing theory is that once the wood is dry you will not have bugs or ants. I highly disagree and therefore, we will not be stacking wood in the house and will always suggest that others follow that same rule. My guess it that this is one more reason a lot of folks try burning wood or even hear about before trying to burn wood. After all, how many want bugs in their house?

 

[PapaDave]

In years past, I noticed a ton of teeny little (is that redundant?) bugs crawling all over the splits.
This past winter, I didn't see a single one of those little buggers. I'm hoping it's because the wood was dryer than it's ever been.
I have seen some bugs in the wood though. They meet their maker on the way out of flueville. :lol:

 

[Backwoods Savage]

The big problem is that you do not see them on the wood but they will hide or hibernate in any little nook or cranny they can find and even under the bark if it is the slightest bit loose.

 

[RNLA]

I'm unsure of the results that will come but, I'm finding that if I C/S/S within 2-3 days of taking the tree down there seems to be less bugs in the stacks. I have also seen a drastic improvement with the wood being higher off the ground. I use a 6x6 timber then the opposite direction with a 4x4 type stock. I only go two pieces end to end and then standard end cribing... Short version, so far there is less bugs, but it is only the first year I have had wood this far ahead...

 

[rottiman]

Move about a half cord from the shed onto the screen proch in winter for ease to get. Have a built in field stone wood rack along side of the fireplace where we have one stove located. It holds a one day supply. Always amazed to see the occasional mosquito flying around the house in the middle of a december snow storm. Proves why I wouldn't want to keep any more inside. You are right on Dennis.

 

[CTYank]

My wood spends its last week or two indoors near the stove for final drying. Never have had problem with bugs coming in with any species, over 35+ yrs.

Maybe it's partly because the wood drying outdoors is kept covered, and essentially is not re-wetted. (Storms do blow some spray into loose enclosures.)

So it's not "should we" but "works fine for me" and assume nothing.

 

[snowleopard]

Also may depend upon your stove and your surroundings. Hearthstone warns users not to put very cold wood into the stove--that the thermal shock can damage the stove. I also find that the fire is perkier with room temp wood than it is with wood that is -20, -30, or colder. Granted that there may be--probably were with the damper stuff I had to use towards spring--buggers in there, but with one or two exceptions, they stayed put until immolation. I was a little concerned about migration of bugs into my houseplants, but saw no evidence of such.

My rack was off the floor, and I swept out any debris each time I reloaded the inside rack--generally two or three times a week. I think that the wood was more inviting to any critters than the tile floor. Also, the biggest bug threat here is carpenter ants, and they would be happiest staying put in the wood. If I lived in the land of termites, or wdifhere there were hatch-outs of creepy-crawlies, or if I lived in a warmer climate and didn't have such a severe temperature differential, I might choose differently.

The other factor that made this helpful was that I was so busy last year--trying to keep the house supplied with wood, adjust to heating with wood, work a full-time job, and function as a parent. The mornings I could come downstairs to a full woodrack of dry, warm wood made me feel like I was going to pull all this off. Amazingly, I did.

Next winter I anticipate things being even easier because I will have a more accessible, better prepped supply of wood. Just step out the back door, load my sled, pull it into the house and up to the rack, off-load, repeat, and I'm set for a few days. I smile just thinking about it.

As long as that's working for me, I'll probably carry on.

 

[Woody Stover]

Just step out the back door, load my sled, pull it into the house and up to the rack

Wow, you must keep it pretty cool in the house if you can pull a sled around in there. :lol:

 

[snowleopard]

Just step out the back door, load my sled, pull it into the house and up to the rack

Wow, you must keep it pretty cool in the house if you can pull a sled around in there. :lol:

My cargo sled is an invaluable tool for working with wood--I'm still using it to pull wood across the lawn and over the trails around my property. Last winter I had been admiring people's portable wood racks and wheeled carts and such for moving wood inside, and thought, "That would be handy, but it sure would be in the way most of the time." I'd been using the sled to haul the wood in from the stacks to my under-deck storage area, restack the wood, and then would haul it in by the armload into the house (three or four armloads equaled a sled load). One day I was pulling a load up to that storage area, looked at the door width, looked back at the sled width, and kept right on going. It slid across the threshold and over the tile floor as slick as a whistle, and I've never looked back. Easier on the arms and shoulders, and gets the job done in a third of the time. Also when I clean up any dirt and bark off the previous load, I just sweep it up with a foxtail and dustpan, dump it in the sled, and then dump that outside. Low tech, but gets 'er done just fine.

Kept an eye on the floor, and it's not showing any wear and tear. Sled lives outside when it's not in use (although it served a brief stint this spring by bringing it into my sunroom to put all my plant starts in it so that I could water without getting the floor wet, and repot in it without having to clean up spilled soil. It bravely endured the ignominy).

ETA: my sled is a Jet Sled Jr., and it holds about as much as I can comfortably pull. Short enough to take the twists and turns on my trails, and tolerates the abuse of my tossing wood in it even in extreme cold. Highly recommended tool.

 

[PapaDave]

Just step out the back door, load my sled, pull it into the house and up to the rack

Wow, you must keep it pretty cool in the house if you can pull a sled around in there. :lol:

Nah, no biggie.......the tractor handles the load just fine. :cheese:

 

[Backwoods Savage]

My wood spends its last week or two indoors near the stove for final drying. Never have had problem with bugs coming in with any species, over 35+ yrs.

Maybe it's partly because the wood drying outdoors is kept covered, and essentially is not re-wetted. (Storms do blow some spray into loose enclosures.)

So it's not "should we" but "works fine for me" and assume nothing.

You do better than I as we've heated with wood for over 50 years and if we store wood in the house, we also find that we store some bugs too. No sir, we'll keep the wood outside and not take chances.

I also think too many folks tend to look at a piece of wood and see no bugs so think there are no bugs. That may or may not be so! Why take chances? Bugs belong outdoors around here and so does wood until it is ready for the stove.

 

[Singed Eyebrows]

My wood spends its last week or two indoors near the stove for final drying. Never have had problem with bugs coming in with any species, over 35+ yrs.

Maybe it's partly because the wood drying outdoors is kept covered, and essentially is not re-wetted. (Storms do blow some spray into loose enclosures.)

So it's not "should we" but "works fine for me" and assume nothing.

You do better than I as we've heated with wood for over 50 years and if we store wood in the house, we also find that we store some bugs too. No sir, we'll keep the wood outside and not take chances.

I also think too many folks tend to look at a piece of wood and see no bugs so think there are no bugs. That may or may not be so! Why take chances? Bugs belong outdoors around here and so does wood until it is ready for the stove.

The picture in your avitar would get me fined out of existance here. Wood can never be piled on the ground here. In the rich suburbs they pile wood on the ground. I guess in the ghetto, rats just make a beeline for the wood pile. I'm going to need to store wood in the basement as I've done before, without bug problems, Randy

 

[Cascade Failure]

I keep 3-5 days worth near the stove. Haven't noticed any bugs. The rest stays stacked behind a detached garage. The only downside is having to keep an extra path shoveled out.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

My wood spends its last week or two indoors near the stove for final drying. Never have had problem with bugs coming in with any species, over 35+ yrs.

Maybe it's partly because the wood drying outdoors is kept covered, and essentially is not re-wetted. (Storms do blow some spray into loose enclosures.)

So it's not "should we" but "works fine for me" and assume nothing.

You do better than I as we've heated with wood for over 50 years and if we store wood in the house, we also find that we store some bugs too. No sir, we'll keep the wood outside and not take chances.

I also think too many folks tend to look at a piece of wood and see no bugs so think there are no bugs. That may or may not be so! Why take chances? Bugs belong outdoors around here and so does wood until it is ready for the stove.

The picture in your avitar would get me fined out of existance here. Wood can never be piled on the ground here. In the rich suburbs they pile wood on the ground. I guess in the ghetto, rats just make a beeline for the wood pile. I'm going to need to store wood in the basement as I've done before, without bug problems, Randy

Singed Eyebrows, the wood you see in that avatar is wood that has just been split. The stacking starts immediately after the splitting is done and it gets stacked on poles or landscape timbers or whatever. I"m sure you've seen pictures of some of our wood stacks as I've posted them many times. If you look at those stacks you will find they are not stacked on the ground.

However, we have stacked wood directly on the ground many times and the reason we can get away with that is we are on yellow sand and on high ground. The only problem we have when stacking on the ground is that the bottom layer gets frozen in. So in the spring we have to get these out and those get stacked to burn the following winter.

 

[Singed Eyebrows]

Dennis, I've said the same thing to neighborhood services. Matter of fact I've just been written up. I have a large pile of wood 12" off the ground & I put a litttle bit of wood on the edges. I'm in violation now. I'm glad your laws are more reasonable there. Eventually I might need all pallet racking, they seem to like that. I'd like to try the concrete block suggestion though, Randy PS, If you would stack that entire bunch of wood within 24 hours you would probably be ok here too.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

WOW!! That sounds like pure bull to me to have laws such as that. It does make me feel blessed to live where we do. Shoot, I could have a stack of wood like that for years and nobody would be bothered. Heck, the neighbors would not even see it. But we are blessed to live on a dead end road and there are only 3 of us on this road; my wife and I, a widow lady and a young family with 3 children. We do not have neighbor problems, in fact, we help each other.

Our township is attempting to institute a blight ordinance but wood stacks is not on the list. Right now they are just trying to get rid of junk cars and some real crappy looking places. I highly doubt they would ever go after wood piles but then, in our township we have one little village and that is right in one corner. The rest is mostly farm land and some wooded properties which is what we live on.

Here is that stack of wood that is in the avatar:

 

[Singed Eyebrows]

Dennis, that big pile would be capital punishment here. We have groups of citizens that walk down the sidewalks with I believe 1 bld. inspector. They are looking to see how many violations they can write up. They are absolutly nuts over this area where I live here. The inspectors themselves(that come out for a complaint) are really decent, their just doing what they are told. I need to go out to my wood pile now with a tape measure & be sure it's 12" off the ground instead of 10, Randy

 

[HollowHill]

Dennis, that big pile would be capital punishment here. We have groups of citizens that walk down the sidewalks with I believe 1 bld. inspector. They are looking to see how many violations they can write up. They are absolutly nuts over this area where I live here. The inspectors themselves(that come out for a complaint) are really decent, their just doing what they are told. I need to go out to my wood pile now with a tape measure & be sure it's 12" off the ground instead of 10, Randy

Until such time as these citizens were paying my property taxes, they would not be telling me squat as to what I should or should not do on my own land. The unmitigated gall would just be my starting sputter, it would go downhill from there.

 

[Singed Eyebrows]

Those few rounds that have spilled out on the large pile is a serious violation. I probably need to reflect back when I decided to live a life of crime. Hollowhill. I knew a farmer that had your philosophy, he spent over 1 year in jail on zoning violations. I pick my battles carefully & just do as they say, Randy

 

[snowleopard]

You know, Randy, joining the Midwest is not exactly the same as enlisting in the Army. There are other options. When you post about where you live, you sound the way a panther pacing its cage looks. Not that it's any of my business, but I usually don't let that stop me . . .

 

[Singed Eyebrows]

You know, Randy, joining the Midwest is not exactly the same as enlisting in the Army. There are other options. When you post about where you live, you sound the way a panther pacing its cage looks. Not that it's any of my business, but I usually don't let that stop me . . .

Enlighten me then, what would you do about fines that can range up to $10,000 per occurance? I know all about court battles, been there & done that. A friend of mine is paying off a $6,000 fine because he thought he could just ignore citations. Same thing with the IRS, a farmer again just said taxation is illegal & didn't pay for 7 years. I heard when the IRS was done with him he was literally shaking. You do like your big cats don't you, lol, Randy

 

[snowleopard]

Enlighten me then, what would you do about fines that can range up to $10,000 per occurance? I know all about court battles, been there & done that. A friend of mine is paying off a $6,000 fine because he thought he could just ignore citations. Same thing with the IRS, a farmer again just said taxation is illegal & didn't pay for 7 years. I heard when the IRS was done with him he was literally shaking.

I'm not recommending that you tangle with the law, nor ignore regulations that govern the place that you live. I know a fellow who became persuaded of the same thing your farmer friend did, and ended up $80K in the hole. But there are places where you can live and stack your wood any way you please, and no-one, not building inspectors, nor nosy neighbors will be marching over with a measuring stick. You strike me as someone willing to share what you know, and you know a lot. You seem like you work hard, live frugally, and plan for the future. There are other places in the country, and the world, where you'd find a little more elbow room and more appreciation of your qualities as a neighbor than you seem to be finding there.

When you have family, friends, property, a job, etc., it can be hard to walk away from that, and you just make do the best you can, but even if you could get a few hours away and find a little more privacy and peace, it might be worth it to you.

You do like your big cats don't you, lol, Randy

;-)
Guess so, hadn't thought about it that way. I adopted the snowleopard moniker years ago because they were improbable survivors, and I admired that.

Saw a black panther in a zoo when I was a kid--he threw sparks, never seemed to tire of walking the perimeter and snarling. Some people are just born with a yearning to be someplace that they know must be out there--and that's what I see in your posts.

As above, truly not meaning to overstep here, but life is short, and so are we. Sometimes instead of trying to change the system, it's better to find a different system. There's always going to be conventions when people live together, but most of us are not living with your restrictions, and they would leave a lot of us pacing the walls of the cage, I suspect.

 

[velvetfoot]

Now Dennis, didn't it take a lot of effort to toss up all those splits from your seated position to make that split mountain?

 

[Singed Eyebrows]

Enlighten me then, what would you do about fines that can range up to $10,000 per occurance? I know all about court battles, been there & done that. A friend of mine is paying off a $6,000 fine because he thought he could just ignore citations. Same thing with the IRS, a farmer again just said taxation is illegal & didn't pay for 7 years. I heard when the IRS was done with him he was literally shaking.

I'm not recommending that you tangle with the law, nor ignore regulations that govern the place that you live. I know a fellow who became persuaded of the same thing your farmer friend did, and ended up $80K in the hole. But there are places where you can live and stack your wood any way you please, and no-one, not building inspectors, nor nosy neighbors will be marching over with a measuring stick. You strike me as someone willing to share what you know, and you know a lot. You seem like you work hard, live frugally, and plan for the future. There are other places in the country, and the world, where you'd find a little more elbow room and more appreciation of your qualities as a neighbor than you seem to be finding there.

When you have family, friends, property, a job, etc., it can be hard to walk away from that, and you just make do the best you can, but even if you could get a few hours away and find a little more privacy and peace, it might be worth it to you.

You do like your big cats don't you, lol, Randy

;-)
Guess so, hadn't thought about it that way. I adopted the snowleopard moniker years ago because they were improbable survivors, and I admired that.

Saw a black panther in a zoo when I was a kid--he threw sparks, never seemed to tire of walking the perimeter and snarling. Some people are just born with a yearning to be someplace that they know must be out there--and that's what I see in your posts.

As above, truly not meaning to overstep here, but life is short, and so are we. Sometimes instead of trying to change the system, it's better to find a different system. There's always going to be conventions when people live together, but most of us are not living with your restrictions, and they would leave a lot of us pacing the walls of the cage, I suspect.

Yes, leaving is an option, with my paid off house & finances, one I can't take though. I'm here for the duration & will just snarl & bite a few people from time to time. You sound like a fellow meditation man, rest assured, a bunch of restrictions won't cage me. Randy

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Now Dennis, didn't it take a lot of effort to toss up all those splits from your seated position to make that split mountain?

Yes and I don't mind saying I was mighty tired by the time that was finished. I will say that it definitely was not done in one day! I no longer work like that. Same goes for the stacking. I don't recall how many days it took but it was many. With my body, you work when you can for only as long as you can. Weather holding you back? In my case that does not bother me at all as it just means waiting one or two more days and my body appreciates the rest.
;-)