I want your input on storage.

These are old pictures but the set-up still works well. No stacking, piles only. 12’ deep, 30’ long, as high as I can throw it so about 11’-ish at the peak. Plastic pallets keep everything off the ground, let some air flow from the bottom up and will last forever if I take care of them. No idea how many cords, it’s a 3 year rotation(wish I made 3 holes), with the old Fisher. Wood stays outside either in the shed or on the porch, then arm load at a time inside to burn. MC between 12 to 15% in wettest part of winter. Used to have a huge drying rack inside downstairs but it didn’t make enough difference so I dropped to a small vertical wood box inside for when I sometimes get lazy at night and don’t want to go get an arm load.

Before the shed we used real truck tarps, PVC roofing and pond liner membrane to cover the piles. They all lasted really well and we get a lot of wind also.






Owl

 

If you aren't going to stack it, that's how you do it

 

*not my stacks*
But this dude's in the pile camp.
Seen this on my way back from a job today

 

The side of the house has a hot spot. I like the not 4 sale signs

 

Stretching fur

 

I have not seen his. Eventually I would love to be able to cover. But it takes time and $

 

Holy cow your right looks like a previous chimney fire. Gotta drive by again, 1 more load to finish this job, gonna try to get an eye on his chimney, looks far from code/safe

 

He is obviously burnin wet wood too...look at that slobbery mess running down the side of his house...but some of that may be from an improper chimney too.
As much work as they put into that pile, it would not have been much more work to just stack it and top cover...done.
Not much to emulate there...

 

It will take no time at all to pack bark and wood “dirt” into those stones and they will loose that ability to shed off water. We’ve experienced this at my parents, pretty quickly considering his gravel was pretty small. They laid stones in an area to park the travel trailer they once owned. Last couple years he’s used pallets. So I’d say don’t rely on that drainage idea.

 

Yessir, I have my eyes on a potential pallet score for spring when the big wood migration. Begins

 

Prett

Pretty sure this guy is splitting now for this winter. Not good. All his piles look fresh. Might not be able to see in picture but he has a couple attempts at hozernhousen or whatever that word is

 

I have a few wood piles and several stacks. The stacks take up less space but the piles dry faster....

 

That's nice with the skids under.
You need about 15-20% more space vs stacking

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They do make big tarps. I have two I used to cover my whole roof when I replaced the shingles.
I would absolutely have to cover any piles in the Winter to keep the snow/slush/rain out or it could easily be a frozen gloopy mess with a typical northeaster we get here. But same with stacks. I've played the knock-froze-splits-out-of-the-stack with a sledge hammer. No thanks.

 

He has enough wood there that I wonder if he is trying to get ahead now (since he is obviously NOT selling it! )
Either that or their stove and house are really inefficient!

 

The top part maybe...

 

Air has an easier time getting into and through a pile because of the large air spaces. My big pile right now is on gravel and it is very dry. I threw a tarp over the top to keep most of the rain off. We just loaded a bunch and took it to my brother's place and we got a full cross section of the pile, top to bottom. It was very dry. The very bottom pieces are probably a few percent higher mc, but plenty dry to burn.

 

Hmm...ok, well glad it worked out for you, but that certainly hasn't been my experience at all...anything within a foot of the ground is just plain wet...unless maybe picked up during the driest part of the summer, and even then its not that dry internally.

 

we live on an OLD gravel bar, from when the river was MUCH bigger. Wood dries much faster here from what I have learned on the firewood forums. The grvel here is about 20 feet deep with 2 feet of sandstone under it. The topsoil is 1-2 ft thick and then about 1-2 ft of sand, then the gravel starts. We get plenty of wind and that helps a lot with drying.