I like cutting and I like splitting. Burning is a no brainier. But I hate stacking. And I'm currently stacking twice: once in the drying area and then moving it and restocking in the carport attached to the house. This nonsense has to stop. My plan is to build a lean-to just for firewood. Maybe even a Fiberglas or lexan roof to let the sun onto the wood but it dries fine in my barn so that is probably not something I need. I'm going to attach it to the carport so it gets stacked once and then goes into the house. I am fortunate to have enough space and low enough consumption that I can fit at least a three year plan in the area. My thought is that I can avoid stacking even once if I build bins. Then I can just toss the splits in and be done with stacking altogether. Put pallets or expanded metal platform along the bottom for airflow underneath. Length should make little difference to drying time. 5 feet is about as high as I like to stack- any higher and I worry about the wood falling on me. 4 feet even better but hard for me to resist 25% more wood in the same floor space. So my question is how wide to build the bins to allow the center pieces to dry decently?
Good idea Bert. There's a lot more airspace around the splits when you "chuck stack" too. Ought to dry just fine.
I think the pile is a waste of space unless you have the room for it. I like it stacked in rows and since it's handled by hand it makes the work easier for me. It also helps with counting, the amount of splits collected.
No shortage of room so no worries there. I find stacking neatly tedious and no joy at all. Right now I have no choice but looking to avoid it on the future.
I feel your pain, I hate stacking and moving and stacking some more. I'm envious of my father in law, the only time his wood is stacked in and organized fashion is in log for with a skid loader. Other then that's it's just piled as it comes off the wood processor conveyor, then he loads his dump trailer once a week or so (with a skid loader) and dumps a load in front of his OWB... so easy! But his place looks a little disorganized during burn season, and he doesn't care how dry his firewood gets. For your lean-to, stay away from fiberglass, not a forgiving material when it comes to hail or extreme cold, and deteriorates with prolonged exposure to the sun... I've replaced hunderds of fiberglass sky lights on post frame buildings. All I know about lexan is from buying it for blasting cabinet windows, not a cheap material. I use a lot of polycarbonate panels on my post frame buildings in both couragated panels and as ridge caps for light transfer, the stuff isn't as cheap as fiberglass, but so much stronger. I've literally had to replace roof metal on one of my buildings due to golf ball sized hail, but not the poly ridge cap on the same building. For the bins, pretty much every CL area under farm and garden you can find theses crates... They are cages for liquid totes for water, fertilizers, and chemicals. Size is approximately 4 foot by 4 foot by 4 foot, but will be just shy of a half cord, if stacked but if just chucked in maybe a face cord. They can have metal or wood pallets on the bottom.
But how much usable space would you lose to chuck stacking... We should put it to a study. I agree you'd get potentially more or at least varied airflow through it. With sides and back built up, you don't have to worry about stacking corners neatly, but still have to be concerned about "learners" or off shaped splits lending themselves to some stacking issues. My 2 cents.
Could be. It's a lot more space for sure. When space isn't a problem, it sure is quicker than stackin and the piles won't fall over. Some would argue that it's not as perty tho. I like my firewood all stacked nice and neat. But each to his own...
I'm the most unorganized person out there. Something about undoing a nice neat stack. Don't know what it is. Maybe it is how I track how much I burn. Seeing hours of hard work. Maybe it is my therapy. I know I just wouldn't enjoy it as much if I was pulling out of bins or a big pile.( I know it's only firewood).
I'd have to admit I've changed my firewood chores over the years. When I was in my early 40s, the firewood process took time away from other things and I'd have done just about anything to speed up any part of it... and, I did. Now, I have the luxury of time I did not have then. It changed everything for me. I'm always amazed at the guys/gals on FHC who work 25 hours a day and then still love to get after that wood pile over and over. Inspiration therapy... FHC style...
Just was thinkin my 4' wide bucket on the JD is 18" high with splits at 90* across it... 3 of those dumped into my 32"x60"x48" high bins... ends up being around 3/4 full. And, if I'd stacked the wood tightly in the box... yeah, I'll bet it would be about half full, or less. 33% less space. You're good, Fox man...
I'm with you 100%. Stacking is my least favorite activity. Up until this year, I put down a row of pallets and put t-posts and cattle fencing on either side, cribbed the ends and just threw all the rest in a mound on the pallets and as high as I could reasonably stack it. But, when I decided I wanted to get a 5 year supply, that method just wasn't practical. It uses much more space than stacking (my guess is about 40%) and with my system, I could only access the wood from either end. The new way I am doing it is to build these corrals/pens to hold shorts/odds at one end (going forward, I think I need one at each end) and then stack two rows and fill the gap with odds/shorts to stabilize the row; will top cover after the first year; should be plenty dry after 4 years this way. If you have the space, I say store it in piles ... way easier and if I could, would do the same.
