The biggest lesson one can learn in terms of seasoning firewood is the fact that it never really starts to properly season until it split open.....logs laying down have a hard time of drying out. In PA, the best dead trees are the ones that are standing. They season out thanks to the help of gravity, yeah it sounds crazy but I truly believe that the gravity helps. Blowdowns seem to hold water and rot out. So if your planning on using the sands of time to season firewood, you're going to have to speed it along by splitting it, especially if you're wanting to use said wood in a 2-3yr timeframe.
Hey guys I have started cutting my felled trees to length and stacking them on site. I cannot split them on site as i would need a generator for that but i'm cutting them in bar lengths (16 inches right?) so from past experience those do dry somewhat. Not as much as split of course but i will split them next year and season them for another year. The place where i fell trees is obviously surrounded by trees but it is somewhat open and quite windy. I have elevated my stack with small spruce poles so i think i'm doing everything i can for this year. I need ideas for covering the top of my stack for the winter since it's out there in the open, show me some pictures!
If you are stacking in single rows, I would suggest 24 or 36 inch wide polyethylene sheet. Apply small patches of duct tape as reinforcement and staple through the duct tape into the rounds. This will leave the sides of the stack open to breathe. If stacking 2 or 3 rows, you'll need wider poly. I stack 3 rows wide and use the woodpile tarps from Northern Tool. Roughneck 3.4-Oz. Heavy-Duty Woodpile Tarp Brown/Green, 4ft. x 18ft. | Northern Tool + Equipment They start leaking after a couple of years, so I put poly sheet on first, then the woodpile tarp for mechanical and uv protection of the poly.
Looking good. After thinking about this a little more, billb3 may be right. Since the wood is green and bark intact, rain will just run off. There may be no advantage to top covering. As an experiment, top cover some of the stacks and leave the others uncovered. See if there's any difference come spring.
I can also be lazy. If it was birch I'd want a cover on birch rounds or at least several courses of something else on top of them. It's usually the top three or four rows of splits and rounds in a stack that are constantly getting wet. At least in non-severe weather.
I was thinking of using something like that, i do have a few pieces lying around. We'll see what i come up with, might just go buy a blue tarp and staple it on top
Btw, very cleaver use of pallets and planks on your corner pieces, sure beats destroying a cedar post trying to hammer it in the ground deep enough. I may go get a bunch of pallets and do exactly that! If not i will use trees as the edge posts like you did!
If you want to build a wood rack/shed with pallets, maybe look at these.... The back panel comes off, once rack has 2 full rows in it, just helps keep first row straight. This rack holds a measured 1.3 cords full This is a 2 cord rack we built.
Making progress and looking good! If you are only leaving them for the cold weather than they should be okay like that. Insect and fungal activity is mostly dormant in the cold. Get em split, stacked and covered in early Spring and you should be good to go. Ive left wood in the forest like that. Even split it and left til later.
Pallet Pete would be Positively Proud If you're going to stack in single rows, which I kind of recommend, just use the trees as end posts.
We still get rain at this time of year but it shouldn't be long before snow shows up. I will cover this specific stack with something but the next one i will pile will be under large spruce trees and should not get nearly as much rainfall. Is it bad if the whole stack ends up covered in snow? (Spoiler alert : it will)
With split and dry(ing) wood, I would be concerned that continuous contact with melting snow might cause water to penetrate more than superficially. Not so much with green wood in rounds with bark intact. I would recommend stacking in single rows to maximize air flow and drying during fair and warmer spells.
No sir, we usually use a couple 2x6x6 on each end as uprights, 3-2x4x10 as rafters and a few 2x4x6 cross pieces to fasten metal roofing panels to. Thought I had a better picture of the roof, maybe you can see what I mean...
Not sure if anyone mentioned it above. If you're stacking birch rounds, it would be a good idea to zip the bark with the chainsaw to help it to dry
