Brad, my uglies, shorts, and crooked ones all go to the campground near my house - I give it away. They think I'm some kind of hero, and they are doing me a favor. Everything else gets top covered mid October to mid June, as we live in a temperate rain forest, but have a dry summer. Stacks are a few inches apart, and the whole stack is sloped (Highest on one side and gradually lower toward the other side.) Then it goes into the barn and or up to the woodshed.
Well, now, wait a second Brad - there are other people who swear a round pile is better, faster, even easier. I suspect Rainking63 might be able to tell us a thing or three about the infamous Holz Hausen. (Rainking63... your turn!) This is just a stock picture I grabbed off the internet.
I'll never say it's better, faster or easier. In fact I'll even say building a proper holz hausen is more time consuming. My holz was an art project. Truly creative expression. The majority of my firewood is stacked in conventional rows.
Thanks for the replies guys. Unfortunately I do not have the luxury of a 3 year or even 2 year cycle since I moved here pretty recently. The trees were cut, bucked and stacked between august and november of 2019 and split and stacked in my field in the last week or so (not quite done but approaching roughly 5 cords now). This is aspen so I'm told it dries pretty quick once split but I'll do everything I can for it to dry as much as possible!
This is new this year and my plan is to wait till the leaves start changing then poly it to keep the leaves outta it. Not a perfect plan but pretty sure it will help with the drying. Wont need it for a few years so thinking it will be fine without anything packing in and staying wet. No intention of stacking it as there is 2 more out back and seem fine with the one i'm putting in the carport right now that is 2 years old.
I never top cover and dont think I ever will.... im 3-4yrs ahead and have been for 4-5yrs. I rarely get a piece that shows rot, and when I do, I cant be sure it wasnt already on that path at the time of splitting.... this is primarily oak species... soft wood like maples only get 1 summer from me usually anyways, sometimes two... same with beech. Again, the hardier woods like oak, no issue.... the make barrels out of it lol
I had oak stacked outside for 5 years uncovered and it was definitely showing signs of going bad. My issue was that I had 10 rows stacked together and the inner rows held a lot more moisture. The outer rows that got more sun and air seemed fine but I’ve since moved it all under a roof anyway.
I'm curious how these types of piles work out over time. There's a tree service company down the road from me that has massive piles of splits all haphazardly thrown together. When I see a huge convoluted pile I think either that guy doesn't care or I'm working harder than I need to!
Its not that i dont care Eric its the point i have 200 ft of stacked wood and i kinda had to blitz the 3 piles. I'll take a picture tomorrow of the 2 year pile tomorrow and you can see the middle of it as its dark and the outer stuff that the sun hit is grey. Now ya got me thinking about the middle stuff so i will split one and measure tomorrow just to be nosey. No leaves are in the back 2 and on gravel.
