Under deck (wood shed) storage question

[mustash29]

I built this place in '96 and have been burning since fall of '97. Wood from outside goes directly into the fire. Sometimes a day's worth is brought inside.

The area under the deck used to be sand. I added pallets and stack 2 - 4 cord under there for the winter. All that sand got tracked into the rec room. In the spring the wood dirt was easy to clean up with a lawn rake since it floated to the top after a rain.

I built a frame out from the house foundation and boxed the area in with pressure treated 2 x 6's attached to the deck posts. Then it was filled with 6" of 3/4" gravel. No more sand splashing up on the house. No more sand tracked inside. Better drainage too.

I did not like the idea of the gravel getting "contaminated" with wood dirt. I added pallets and covered them with 3/8" plywood to contain the dirt and prevent frequent foot traffic from breaking the pallets.

Today I removed everything. After 8 - 9 years, the pallets were getting rotten. I junked them. The plywood is getting a little soft, but isn't quite dead yet, so I shot it with 50% bleach, scrubbed it with the broom & rinsed the mildew off.

For the future.....

I think I am going to skip the pallet idea, put the thin plywood down and stack directly on it. Leaves get under the pallets and are hard to blow out. Mice nest under there too. The deck sheds most of the rain off. We shovel the snow off all winter long. The wood is top covered with tarps. Tarp weights are lengths of 3/8" transport chain connected with shower hooks.

Sound like a good plan?

 

[wdenton]

Looks good to me

 

[Montanalocal]

I also stack part of my wood under a deck. I put cedar fencing boards directly on the ground. Nothing can get under them, they do not take up a lot of room, they seem to last a long time, and getting seconds they are cheap.

 

[CountryBoy19]

Seems to me that the under-deck area is a heavily used area, almost like a patio. Why not just get concrete poured and eliminate the problems entirely?

I think it would be a great multi-use area and the one thing that's really keeping it from becoming a great multi-use area is a solid, level floor.

Concrete is cheap, installation is also cheap when paid with beer & pizza (assuming you can find some friends that at least know a little about a simple patio install like that).

Just my opinion...

 

[Sconnie Burner]

I stack wood under my deck too! I don't have a walkout so we hand it in through the window. I built 2 racks that hold about a weeks worth each. So every 2 weeks we reload the racks. Not to much of a pain, and beats trudging through snow with reloads of wood! My rows come out to 12 long by 5 high (about a months worth per row). I can fit 7 rows easily and usaully only use 5 and a half to 6.

 

[mustash29]

I contemplated pavers, also thought about poured concrete. My fear is that wood in constant contact with them is going to stain them over time.

Besides wood, the tractor, leaf sucker & splitter live under there.

In the pics I posted, each rank is 20" x 5' high x 18' long. 3 ranks fit nicely, a 4th will fit and still leave a good 2' air gap to the house. The flowers never did well in the shade near those double windows. If necessary I can fit 4 more pallets (2 cord) outside those windows. It is paramount to have enough at the house once it snows. My seasoning stacks are in the hilly back yard, and the one wheel drive tractor sucks in the snow.

 

[Poindexter]

I have landscaping cloth with 6" of gravel under my deck. I am about to move the bicycles and most of the grills out from under there into the tool shed. Ill put bare pallets on the gravel, then this years wood. As i burn it Ill take the pallets out so I dont trip on them...

I think we have the same landscaping timbers down to contain the gravel. Too humid under mine to season wood under there over a summer.

 

[kennyp2339]

If I had that setup I would be looking at stained stamped concrete.

 

[CountryBoy19]

I contemplated pavers, also thought about poured concrete. My fear is that wood in constant contact with them is going to stain them over time.

Get a darker colored concrete...

Make no mistake about it, no matter what you do the "wood trash" is going to get up mixed in with your stones and as it builds up and decomposes over time you'll have to scoop out the compost/stone mix, figure out what to do with it, and replace it. Concrete will make it a LOT easier to keep the wood trash mess cleaned up. Staining would be the least of my worries... but then I'm a utilitarian type person. Aesthetics don't bother me too much as long as something is useful...

 

[mustash29]

Several years ago we added some topsoil, peat moss & mulch in an attempt to make a flowerbed. Being the shady north side of the house, nothing grew here very well except moss. Our 9 week old Sheltie puppies loved to chew on the mulch.

Saturday we dug down to the sandy foundation backfill & removed 5 cart loads (about 1.5 yards) of stuff and spread that on a scabby area in the yard and re-seeded it. We put down a fresh layer of weed block and added 1.5 yards of 3/4 gravel.

I like the "drive through" approach to loading wood under the deck. Now I won't get my butt chewed whenever I drive over the "weeds" that used to be under the double windows, and I won't have to add mulch here ever again.