Storing wood at the house

[badbowtie]

I live in a rural area and I have all my wood stacked down in the yard and use 14x29 harborfrieght tarps to keep it covered. I normally only heat the garage but this year will be heating the house with wood also. I am looking for some ideas / pictures of what is cheap and easy to build from pallets or anything cheap. I would like to beable to lift it with my forks on my tractor drive down to the wood pile and load about a weeks worth of wood up and bring it up to the house and set on porch to be ready to burn. My porch is uncovered so what you guys do.

 

[gzecc]

I think you have two options. Stack green wood on pallets to start and wrap them with some permeable plastic fence material, to prevent collapse. When seasoned, you can bring the entire pallet to your house.
Or you can do what I do and, stack conventionally, then load a 5x7 trailer with seasoned wood and park the trailer at the house.
Pallets you can get for free with some looking on craigslist.
Wood burning is very labor intensive, we need to limit the amount of times we touch the wood!

 

[badbowtie]

I thought of about the same options I even have a 3x5 dump trailer that I may even load that with wood and bring it up to the house and park it full of wood and keep it covered will have to try a couple things. I always just take my tractor about every two days and fill the bucket with wood to bring it up the garage.

 

[SolarAndWood]

This guy has a pretty sweet setup.

 

[gzecc]

This guy has a pretty sweet setup.

If I had forks for my tractor, I would probably palletize non oak (in unseen locations) and stack oak in visible locations.

 

[badbowtie]

I also have another question I just found another place to go cut firewood how much wood can I get on a 20 foot car trailer i have that has 3500 axles and empty is about 2,000 So how much wood can I get with the 5,000 pounds I have available. I also have a 36' triaxle gooseneck that I could put almost 12,000 on but is not going to be easy to get in were I need to get to get the wood. I would love to see some pictures of how much wood equals 5,000 pounds. I know it is going to depend on what kind of wood. It is going to be a mix a of oak and I think elm.

 

[gzecc]

Unfortunately wood is very heavy. A cord of green oak is approx 7k lbs.

 

[Stegman]

Good chart here showing the various weights of cordwood green and seasoned.

http://www.consumerenergycenter.org/home/heating_cooling/firewood.html

 

[badbowtie]

Okay that link is perfect and I know some of the trees have been blown down atleast 5 years so not fresh wet wood. I also have a 1 ton dump truck that has a bed that is 8'wide by 9' long with about 24" sides so I am thinking I can fill it and then take the samll trailer with the four wheeler and trailer to get it home.

 

[SolarAndWood]

I would probably palletize non oak

Yep, the pallets would rot before the oak was dry.

 

[My Oslo heats my home]

I would probably palletize non oak

Yep, the pallets would rot before the oak was dry.

I like solars original pallet picture with the ready to go stacked wood. Imagine prepping all this seasons wood and covering the individual pallets and just picking them up and moving them when the time comes. That was a great picture idea...

 

[SolarAndWood]

I'd like to do that but haven't found a cheap way to pick it up yet. My loader won't touch it and 3 pt forks to handle that kind of weight are spendy.

 

[Hass]

Okay that link is perfect and I know some of the trees have been blown down atleast 5 years so not fresh wet wood. I also have a 1 ton dump truck that has a bed that is 8'wide by 9' long with about 24" sides so I am thinking I can fill it and then take the samll trailer with the four wheeler and trailer to get it home.

If you fill a 20' 7k GVWR car hauler up... Make sure you video it.
Something will break... although I'm not sure what will break first.
I'd say no more than 2/3 of a cord of wood is the limit.

 

[badbowtie]

Well I went and got my first load of slab wood with the gooseneck trailer I wish I new how much all this weighed. But I have 6 bundles I have just the back three cut and stacked wich are smaller than the front. But the three back bundles all stacked made three rows 12 feet long and 4 feet tall.

 

[madrone]

I would probably palletize non oak

Yep, the pallets would rot before the oak was dry.

Oak dries?

 

[badbowtie]

I am not sure if this wood in stacks is still considered cords but I ended up with four rows 25 feet long and 3.5 feet tall and them added togehter it equals 6 feet wide. So it is just over 4 cords of wood. That is allot of wood for one load. It took two of us almost 11 hours to cut and stack all this.

 

[maple1]

I would probably palletize non oak

Yep, the pallets would rot before the oak was dry.

If someone is going to building and using pallets, build them out of PT wood - or put the Pentox to them. You'll be glad you did in about 4 years - might as well do it to last.

 

[PapaDave]

I would probably palletize non oak

Yep, the pallets would rot before the oak was dry.

Oak dries?

Sure it does. Did you say you'd like to buy some swamp land?
J/K
But, seriously, it does take a lonnnnnnnggg time.
I've thought of palletizing the wood in the drying field(?), but have no way to transport the pallets. They'd need to be the plastic ones.

 

[maple1]

I would probably palletize non oak

Yep, the pallets would rot before the oak was dry.

Oak dries?

Sure it does. Did you say you'd like to buy some swamp land?
J/K
But, seriously, it does take a lonnnnnnnggg time.
I've thought of palletizing the wood in the drying field(?), but have no way to transport the pallets. They'd need to be the plastic ones.

You need bigger toys!

(lol)