Wood Pile Setup and Design

Awesome setup you have there and that’s great to know you haven’t had any issues with the wood under the deck. One of our dogs will follow his nose until it’s pressed up against whatever he’s smelling and the other has that little dog syndrome where she’ll go after whatever, just because she can. So attracting snakes into their “territory” is something we’ve been cautious about. Fun story, she has a thing against the Amish and their horse and buggies for some reason. Shortly after moving to this house, we were sitting on the deck when a horse and buggy came down the road and she bolted from the deck, down the driveway and onto the road after them. They eventually had to stop the horse so we could come scoop her up. Now anytime we hear one coming we have to pick her up and preferably get her inside, she still flips out like all 10lbs of her fluff are gonna scare a dang horse

 

Awesome setup, I wish I had the space for something like this at my house. I could do something like this on the farm but being an unsupervised location with constant trespass issues I’ve become leery of stacking too much over there. Keeping all the “stations” close to each other though is something I could probably do on a smaller scale. Thanks for sharing!

 

I’d be interested in knowing the verdict on what effect the orientation has for you, if any. That’s something I’d like to start playing around with more at my place, if I can find a couple good spots to do some tests.

 

Thanks for tips! Stacking the bottoms logs in the front row is a great idea that never really crossed my mind before, they just typically ended up on the top for me but I’ll definitely be leaving additional space for them up front from now on

 

I would like to as well haha. I am trying this due to the extra wind exposure. I'll find out next year how much of a difference it made.

 

You can do multiple rows just leave some air space between rows. Tightly packed may invite mold growth and not dry very well. I learned the hard way. Because i hoard more than i sell im always reinventing my main storage area.

My stacks have no specific direction as im storing 25+ cords on a "postage stamp". They get decent sun when no leaves but in the warm weather only one area gets good sunlight.

In a perfect world i would stack North/South direction so both sides get even sun. Since most of my wood gets sold i store it where ever i can.

 

Yes, my main stack is oriented N/S with the property line. Not sure how much N/S vs. E/W makes a difference. In the AM hours one side of the pile gets sun, PM the other. My splits are 21" and as mentioned, 2 wide. Plus your primary wind direction would effect how quickly you could get your stack to dry, if you're looking for that feature. I'm now about 6 years ahead so time is one thing I have plenty of. Another benefit to the long row, it's on the edge of our property line so it acts as a privacy fence. Not that I have neighbors close but I do live on a well traveled road. It blocks the view of passers by.


Not wanting to extend the main any further, I had to find alternate locations.



As you can tell, I like to crib ends. I try and split into rectangles or squares as much as possible.

 

Thank you, it's a work, at best, in progress. Quite a bit is sorted by type with 4 totes of hedge something we don't get much of around here.

 

I just read a fella on here can knock off a couple percentage points while pulling a trailer full of wood down the highway. I’m thinking I’m going to be taking my wood for a ride from now on !

 

It works in the back of a pickup too
Poplar on parade

 

Some recent stacking showing gaps. 36" pallets spaced a couple inches. Ive been knwn to let a split hang over a couple inches on the edge to be sure there is an gap in the stack. I sometimes triple row on a 48" wide pallet and the 2' overhang creates the gap.

 

Very nice, and a good looking dog too. I like the privacy fence idea, wouldn’t mind doing something similar along the road here but it’s a terrible setup for that. There’s pine trees all along the edge of the road but he previous owner limbed up the bottom 8(ish) feet of all the trees, so now they don’t provide any privacy and they’d block all the sun from hitting the pile. No clue what they were thinking

 

Man, everyone’s got such nice looking stacks, I need to up my game with my next setup. Thanks for the the air gap tip, good to know but now I’m afraid to check my oldest red oak stack. I didn’t pack them all that tight but I never left a purposeful gap between each row either.

A little off topic but I noticed you seem to be the resident Stihl expert and I was wondering if you’d mind lending me your opinion on something? I’ve been wanting to add a bigger saw for those times you just need one but definitely don’t want to buy new since it won’t get used a bunch. I found a local(ish) guy selling a MS 660 Magnum with 25” bar and chain, asking $675. Says he’s only selling it because he retired and it runs excellent (of course). I don’t know much about the used saw market and prices, so I was just wondering if you could tell me if that price is high, low or average for what I’ll assume is a “good shape” saw and not excellent. Thanks!

 

In that regard N/S would make the most sense, if you have the ability to stack in the middle of large opening/field. I unfortunately don’t have that ability with how my property is setup, unless I stack in the middle of my front yard. I have long and narrow property (N/S) on the south side of a mountain, surrounded by trees. If I keep them along the property line and run my stacks N/S then only one side will really be getting full sun exposure and only for part of the day, except for winter, whereas if I go E/W at least the one side will be getting sun exposure the majority of the day. At least that’s how I’m thinking about it? As far as wind goes, are you talking about stacking in a spot that just gets wind in general or are you stacking so that the wind predominantly flows in between the rows or against the face? Thank you for your insights.

 

$675 for a 90cc class saw, in good condition, sounds about average to me. If it were in excellent condition, would be a good deal. Quick search produced this:

 

Thanks for the kind words.

One of my criterias for the wood i scrounge is how nice of a split it will produce, thus making a nicer stack. I guess you could almost call it an OCD thing with me. Gnarlier chunks will get noodled or turned into nuggets and go into the nugget bins.

A 660 is a big saw at 92cc. Most guys use that size for cutting stumps/felling big trees. $675 sounds okay for a saw like the one wood wolverine posted. They seem to bring more around here but 75% of the ones is see for sale are lightly used.

Best to determine the average sized wood you will be cutting. For a typical user a 60cc saw with a 20" bar will fill most of their cutting needs. For most of my life i was a one saw guy. Ran a 16" bar on it and it served me fine.

 

My advice is to stack where its convenient and out of the way. So it doesnt get good sun or wind, but stacked off the ground, top covered and it will dry. If you eventually get on the three year plan its a non issue. Ive been pulling splits from a year old stack that gets little sun and most of it is under 20% moisture content. One stack is behind the shed and gets no sun and some wind coming up from the ravine.

 

You must not be all that far from me

Thanks for the help. I agree, that size is more than I’d need but if it were a good deal then I’d probably make the drive to look at it and see where we could land. I currently have a 50cc with an 18” bar and it’s done everything I’ve asked for probably close to a decade. It’ll still be my go to for pretty much 99% of my stuff but there’s just been a few times where we’ve had some big oak trees come down on the farm and it would be nice to have something a little bigger instead of cutting one side, then jumping to the other and playing that game. One of those days was today while trying to cut up a white oak and then next weekend when I start on a red oak. I got down to the crotch of the white oak and wasn’t able to get through without jumping back and forth, so the last bit is just going to be a slow go is all. Any recommendations on something in that 60cc range?

 

I’m in Adams County and have a Gettysburg address.