The slow road back

I remember a verse from a poem by Robert Browning, Andrea del Sarto, that our history teacher made us memorize...
"A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for"...
I think that's a good one to live by...I know I fall short every day of getting everything I wanted to get done...but it motivates me for the next day.

I don't want to be like the old guy when his wife asked what he was going to do today, he said "nothing", she said that's what you did yesterday, he said I wasn't finished...

 

Thanks to the recent warmup I was able to see part of one of the red oak log piles I have waiting to be processed. It's at the back side of a small side parking area off my driveway so gets some snow (and corresponding debris) pushed up to (and on) it. The amount of dirt on the front logs would make those 'dirt conscious' folks cringe. Mud and dirt just goes with the territory here. Walked around the side of the pile and had almost forgotten how much was there. Will be good to eventually get that processed.

 

Just knock off the big stuff and let the rains clean them the rest of the way. I had some muddy logs I brought out a little while back that have since cleaned up nicely.

 

That's what I usually end up doing. I use a large shop broom to get the bulk of the dirt off (when it's dry) and then let Mother Nature handle the rest.

 

Question for Backwoods Savage; reading through your posts over the years, I know you are (or were) in the group that says good airflow/wind is more important to drying stacks than a lot of direct sunlight. I'm currently going round in circles trying to figure out where to stack a good amount of this abundance of firewood I have in log form, and the location I am leaning towards falls into that category (airflow/wind over direct sunlight). In the last 16 years here, I've never had this much firewood on hand in the queue waiting to be processed, and the snow and upcoming mud season isn't helping anything. I stopped using where I used to have multiple stacks in the past because although they got direct sunlight, they were at the opposite side of the house from where I process everything and just somewhat of a PITA to haul everything over to stack and then eventually move everything a couple years later to the wood shed.

What I would like to do is add four or five more 1-1/4 cord stacks in the area shown below between the red lines (top pic is from today, bottom pic is from 6 years ago but gives you a better birds-eye view). Can't do anything until the snow is gone, and there's about a good-sized dump load of large boulders there right now that need to be moved (they were put there a couple years ago from a previous project). The stacks would go 90-degrees from the current stacks to the right.

As you can see, because of the way the trees are that area doesn't get a ton of direct sunlight, however I get a lot of wind coming through there. Unfortunately that location is the last spot in my yard to have snow, so that gives you an idea as to the location in relation to direct sunlight. The splits that would be going there wouldn't be used until 27/28 at the earliest, and nothing that would be going there is from live trees anyway (almost all caterpillar killed red oak).

So what are your thought about the location? I would obviously prefer a location with more sun, however that's just not practical at the moment unless I go back to stacking a good distance away from where everything is processed. Where I had thought about putting the stacks off the driveway, as noted in a previous post in this thread, I ended up vetoing that idea as I don't want my hard-earned firewood that close to the road. While I'm on a private dirt road with only a handful of homes (and only four permanent residents), and crime isn't a major concern here, now that the non-resident out-of-staters turned the last home on the road into an (insert expletive here) (insert another expletive here) AIRBNB, I just don't trust the riff-raff coming up and down the road.

Also welcome any other forum members thoughts on this. I know buZZsaw BRAD has mentioned he has at least some stacks in shaded locations and it has worked for him.

 

EODMSgt I stack my split wood close to where it gets split, even tho it may not get the best direct sunlight. I keep it in those stacks for 12-18 months before moving it to my wood shed where it will finish drying for the next 2+ years before it gets burned. I am on the 4-5 year plan.

 

I have stacks in the shade...it works just fine...they do get a good breeze though too.

 

My stacks are in partial shade/partial sun. The south facing stack ends get blasted with direct summer sun, while the mid and especially back sections (facing north) never get any direct sunlight. The wood dries just fine. When I first moved into this house, a coworker was selling his house and offered me his wood stash. I went over and saw that all of his wood (mostly oak) was stacked directly under a stand of large white pine trees. No direct sun whatsoever, regardless of the season. The wood in question which had been there about 2 years at that point was ready to burn, much to my surprise.

 

The majority of my wood racks are under tree canopy, when the trees leaf out. Lots of summer shade. Wood still dries just fine with the breeze blowing around the racks.

 

I’ll add majority of my stacks are along a tree line my skinny lot is about 400’ by 3,000’ where I split and process is affectionately called the back 40.. so call it 100’ by 300 running mostly North to south with only 100 feet wide E/W SO maybe 4 hours sun a day. But the wind blows and the wood dries.
Said all that to say get it off ground. IMO top covering leads to best results and you will be fine

 

One section of my stacks gets great sunlight and those dry the fastest. The Westward exposed row in the "wood shed" gets afternoon sun and good wind as it has open yard to let the wind blow over. IMO either will suffice. Just keep the logs off the ground of course.

 

I have two woodyards approximately 400 yards apart. One is under canopy all summer, one gets sunlight for 70% of the day. The stuff under canopy dries faster because of it's elevation. approximately 200' higher (and further from the river). Lower yard is only about 35' above water table. It absolutely makes a difference. How big a difference I could not quantify. Ambient humidity can slow drying process.

 

I learned my lesson about that several years ago when I was splitting in my processing area (where all the rounds were staged) and then bringing the splits to the other side of the house for stacking. Didn't really mind it back then but am trying to avoid the extra work now (at least until I run out of room in the wood lot). That was quite a few years ago when I was closing in on having 20 cords CSS and was running out of stacking room. Ideally, the splits that will be going in this 'new' area will have two or more seasons to dry before anything goes in the woodshed. And then depending on much is leftover in the shed, may not get used for another season on top of that. Hoping over the next couple years to get back on that 4-5 year plan as well. I have the wood on hand, it's now just limited to how much I can do health-wise.

Good to know. I'm roughly 12 miles from Mt. Washington, which is the second cloudiest place in the US, so a lot of direct sunlight isn't very prevalent anyway. I do get a lot of wind.

Good to know about the oak, as that is what will be the primary wood going into these stacks. I probably wouldn't even have been concerned about this if I was still mainly doing scrounging, since most of what I could get was red and silver maple, beech, white and silver birch, and a bit of ash. I always had good luck getting most of that to dry in one year (it was all dead and down). Having all this red oak to process from the caterpillar killed trees is something new to me, so I'm just trying to get some perspective.

I'll have to go back and look and some of your pictures. I had thought your stacks were in an area that got good sunlight. Good info to hear as I know you burn a lot of red oak and that is what I'm mainly going to be processing. I finally had a decent amount of RO to burn this season, and I now know why you like it so much. I still like beech, but I'm liking this red oak! (The splits I've been burning were CSS in the fall of 2021). I've had some RO over the years, but not as my primary firewood.

I wish I had a decent straight area to just put in a long row of splits, but the way the property is that just isn't possible so I have to be creative. You're farther north than me but in the same geographic area so I was wondering how much sun you get there. Just curious what your primary firewood is up that way? And I agree, getting it off the ground is a must. Last year we were in a drought, so things obviously stayed pretty dry, but most years there's a decent amount of rain/humidity so I try to get my stacks up at least the height of a concrete block. I'm also trying to leave a couple inch gap at the bottom between the double stacks, tapering together towards the top. When I moved some stacks a few years ago to the woodshed that had been top covered for at least three years, there was a lot of moisture/mold towards the bottom (despite being top covered and off the ground). We had gone through a couple very wet years so a lot of moisture got in there despite the top covering (metal roofing). I have since become more conscious of trying to keep an opening towards the bottom of the stacks.

Ideally I would be able to get the stacks where they will have a lot of direct sunlight but that would require them to be moved to the opposite end of the property and I'm hoping to hold off on that until I run out of room in the wood lot. You're a New Englander so are familiar with Mount Washington ("home of the world's worst weather"), so you know I get plenty of wind here. Everything will definitely be kept off the ground (eventually....).

Interesting to hear about the elevation side of things. I was debating about creating an overflow spot for stacks in a lower area that was cleared out in 2024 when I had the first batch of standing dead red oak taken down. There's really nothing I can do with that area due to the slope and location so I was thinking of putting some stacks there. It gets a lot of direct sunlight, but not as much wind and the land drops down closer to the water table. I may have to rethink that now. Definitely interesting to learn about how your stacks under the canopy dry faster. Pretty much learn something new every day on here.

I had gone back over the last week or so and read a lot of posts about stacking and one of your older posts where you were adamant about wind over sun just stuck with me since that's what I'll be dealing with. This site is (almost) always good reading early in the morning with that first cup of coffee. I would prefer to stack with a lot of sunlight, but right now I have all these logs that need to be processed taking up too much space (not a bad problem to have) with more trees that need to come down, plus some have already been on the ground for about a year and a half and I just want to get everything CSS, so airflow will trump direct sunlight for the time being.

A long time ago I had the area where I want to put the new stacks completely cleared out to the tree line. Things have gotten bit jumbled there over the years but I plan on clearing the space out again before I start stacking and some of those scrub trees along the edges will come down as well. I read several of your posts where you talk about, and show, your stacks, and for now I think I'll stick with the double rows. It's just worked for me for a long time and I'm a creature of habit. I may rethink how close I put the stacks together though. I set up the existing stacks with a 30" gap between them in order to be able to get a wheelbarrow between them. I still like having that option (again, a creature of habit), but maybe I can squeeze more in if I do the 30" gap every two rows instead of between every row (since the stacks are only 2 rows wide, I can easily reach both sides of the stack standing on one side so don't need to walk between every stack).

As for putting rows perpendicular in front, I won't be able to do that. What isn't shown in the second picture is that I currently have my raised garden beds taking up a lot of that central area in the yard so I need the area that will be in front of the new stacks for processing and maneuvering equipment. If I can squeeze in even five new stacks, I would be able to get twelve and a half cords in those 10 stacks. With room for seven and a half cords in the wood shed, that will give me a good jump on things until I can figure out what to do with any overflow.

Absolutely your advice was of help, as was everyone's who took the time to comment. There is a wealth of knowledge on this forum with countless years of combined experience. Plus there's the advantage of learning from people who live in different regions and process different types of wood. I'm always willing to learn from others on here and never take for granted the responses other forum members post or that they take the time to offer advice. Keep me posted if you're ever heading back out in this direction, you're always welcome to visit.

Not with all those IBC totes! For now though, I think I will be passing on the totes, at least for the bulk of my splits. I may still get some for all this limb wood I have to process (use them for uglies/shorts), but I think I'll stick with stacking for now. (Of course that is always subject to change.)

 

Any sunlight here is early in the day, low angle sunlight getting through.


A little more closed in area.


If you have decent air circulation , you can put your racks most anywhere.

 

Yes very familiar with it. Hiked to the top in 1985 when I was 17. My older brother was an AMC member then.
We used to stay in Twin mountain when vacationing. IIRC correctly last time I was there was in 1992 when him and i camped at Beech Hill campground. Need to come back. Nice country up there.