I've been storing wood at my Dad's place which is about 7 miles away. We have 40 acres of woods there but I have some woods here as well. Just wanted to have something close and nice here to store firewood. I had a a barn that was totalled in a windstorm and decided to fix it up with some wood storage in mind. Never had a concrete floor in it so I did that as well. Stronger and nicer than it ever was now. Being kicking ideas around in my head and this is what I came up with. Recently rebuilt/fixed my old barn up from being totaled by a windstorm. Took about 2 years to redo and poured a 6 inch thick concrete floor in it with 1/2" rebar. I want to have some wood storage in there so I decided to use some shelving I had. This is the type of shelving that you see in the big box stores. I want to have it so firewood does not touch the wood posts and beams. That way I won't have to rick the ends, I can just stack against the metal. It'll keep the bugs at bay and will help save the barn too. Grinding all the welds out to have single posts and will anchor them to the floor. These were right at 20 ft tall so I cut them in half. 10ft high is more than enough for height. Here is everything cut to length and cleaned up. Top halves need bottom plates to bolt to the floor so I made some up. I'll weld them to the uprights. For the sidewalls, I just let the stock length of the crossmembers dictate where it ended. The backwall needed to be shorter on one section so I need to cut 7 of them down. I just used a chop saw for this. Cut the end plates off and I'll reweld them on to the shorter sections. All done and ready to go Shot a line and started setting posts and putting the crossmembers in as I went. I left the bottom rail about 6 inches up so I can sweep under it. I'm going to use the cattle panels you see on the floor here to fill in the gap. They will still let air pass through and will hold the wood.
I drilled into the floor and secured the posts at the bottom with anchors. I also attached the posts to the upper wood rails to hold them plumb. Just used the U bracing steel I removed from the sections and welded angle iron and flat steel on the ends for attachment. Horizontal rails are spaced so edges of 4 ft cattle panels are supported and 2 rails will be the middle. I used wood blocks on the bottom to keep the panels in place while banding them on. For the top sections, I used 2 pulleys with ropes and hooks to hold them up and adjust as I was working by myself. I'm using Band-it band clamps to hold the panels on. Really strong and smooth so nothing will catch on them. These are really nice to use and have a lot of clamping power. These are 5/8" wide and .030 thick. This should be really nice and strong. I have 4 support posts in there so I used 4 posts and cut panels to protect those as well. Plenty strong enough to stack against and they too are lagged at the top via brackets.
The post closest to the door I tried to move them toward the center as much as possible. This will give me more room to back a truck from the center door to the inner bays. Anything that cuts out steps is a win to me. On the tops of the posts, I'm using high tensile wire to help hold the outward force of the stack. Sides connect to each other over top the center. The end wall posts connect are run to the top of the outside post. Just trying to distribute force. Ratchet spools allow tightness/pull to be adjusted. On the top of the beams where the wire rides and forces down, I used sections of pipe lagged into the beam. Keeps the force from cutting into the wood and binding of the wire. All done now and I'll finally have some nice indoor storage here at the home place. With it stacked 8 ft high, it figures out to holding 56 cord. With no ricking and no fall overs to deal with, it should make it easier.
Pretty much everyone on FHC agrees that the wood pen I cobbled together using some old pallets is the gold standard, but what you’ve done here is nice too. Really impressive, Kevin in Ohio. I can’t wait to see it starting to fill up!
Maybe this will hold you over. We had 80 cord in this one. We had 170 cord total under roof at that time. LOL
Holy hoards, thats a lotta wood. Good thing i dont have a building like that. Under cover of a structure kind of a luxury for my stacks. Between a couple locations i can store maybe seven cord under a covered structure. Working on another that will hold at least four cord. Hopefully by Spring.
Thats an understatement! Im a "jigsaw puzzle" stacker myself. Been trying to not be so OCD when i stack but old habits die hard.
You now have the ultimate drool worthy pics to help you design your setup. Kevin in Ohio - absolutely outstanding work, pics, and descriptions! As usual, when you post a project, you nail it!!!
I go through an average of 13-14. Dad burns 9 -10. We cut stuffdown to at least 2 inches and all varietys. Fence row stuff and deads. I even burn honeysuckle in the shop stove as it's quick heat. LOL We were 8 - 10 years ahead.