I have yards and yards of white, heavy duty tarp. Came from damaged shelters. I would love to cover my stacks with the material, but want to spare my neighbors the blinding white visuals. Is there any way to stain them to make them blend into the natural background? Also, what's the best, cost effective tape to use on tarps?
Dunno about blending into the background but RIT dye makes products for different fabric(s). Rit Dye I would use a bucket, NOT a washing machine ( or at least not one you own). Some laundromats have a machine designated for dyeing .
Can you run latex stain through an ordinary garden sprayer and spray them? I assume they are cloth? I can only use green or brown tarps on my stacks.
Do you have access to any black walnut or other type of nut husks? I know it's not the right time of year but they sure work good to stain my traps.
I live in the burbs and probably have 20-30 cords of wood stacked around the place. I really want to avoid coming up at the township meetings and visits from code enforcement officers. Brown tarps that melt into the background aid in those objectives.
im in the same boat. Only my landlord and 3-4 neighbors across the river can see the wood piles. Once leaves are out only he can. He requested i use either green or brown. Come Spring im buying a 100' roll of thick clear construction plastic. Luckily for me his house and yard are dumpy and wood is not visible from road. Best of luck!
After hearing what it is like out in that area (my son lives near Reading) I understand what you are up against with the township. That really is a shame that people let it go that far. They are being too strict with things that do not concern them.
Here, here! They were debating requiring permits for cutting any trees larger than 6" in diameter! I was horrified. But it got my azz in gear, and the results were, plenty of firewood for the next 5 years or so! The story has a somewhat happy ending, they compromised by only requiring permits for "historically significant" trees, which is defined by a pretty large size (can't remember how big), and if it's dangerous, the permit is easy. I don't think they are enforcing it much anyway.
The biggest problem is that people don't want to attend monthly meetings. Shoot, we have a problem just trying to get someone to run for office! I've practically begged people to run, even for my office and promised I'd even vote for them. Trouble is, I'm still in office and really don't want to be.
I've found the best officials are reluctant to even be there. It's been the ones who really want to be there that seem to cause the most trouble.
Here's a suggestion, put your white tarps on the stacks, but on top of them, lay some cheap green or brown tarps. It won't matter if they degrade fast, because the white tarps are underneath doing their job.
Thanks Midwinter! I love your idea, so much that I've been doing exactly that with the few brown tarps I have! It actually works awesome, because it not only blends in, but also protects the white tarps from the sun, which breaks them down. So the white tarps actually last way longer. Alas, I don't have nearly enough. And buying more violates my spending rule. So, I'm always on the lookout on garbage day. And holes don't matter a bit with this system.
One of my neighbors bought me a real nice photo realistic camo tarp from the sportsman's guide, because he was justifiably tired of looking at the blue tarp near his driveway. I caught him trying to swap them out, and we had a laugh and a nice conversation about it. I actually really appreciated it. Well, unfortunately the camo tarp faded in the sun to a bright yellow. Probably still less obnoxious than the blue one, but it's debatable.
