Pellet Piggies' Indoor Storage Full: Please Share Ideas On Outdoor Storage

Folks,
My indoor storage of filling the garage and part of the porch is now full: 7 tons. I had Lowe's place
another 3 tons on pallets right outside the porch by the ramp. These are well-wrapped Nature's Own.
Plus I covered the plastic wrapped pallets with blue plastic tarp, held down with a few bricks.
My plan is to go through each winter burning bags of pellets from the indoor storage. Each Spring, during
warm weather, I will open up and carry the bags into indoor storage, an integral number of pallets (tons).
(However, I will not need to access any of the outdoor pallets (tons) during a winter.)
In effect, an opened partial pallet (ton) will never be left outside through a winter.
This weekend, I have a feeling some more bags of wood pellets will find their way into my 1/2 acre yard
to be located on a pallet that is placed about 20 feet from the garage door. I have a few plastic caps
left over from previous unpacking of pallets (tons). I plan to put a plastic cap and a high-quality cloth
canvas over the bags that I stack outdoors.

Please share any ideas that you have on storing bags of pellets outdoors through one or more winters.
Suffering from a pellet addiction is always easier when there are others to talk to.

 

Ive never stored outdoors more than one season.

Word to wise, put some MOTH BALLS under the skids. I found a baby skunk under mine last year when moving bags indoors

 

I've never stored outside , but I burned firewood for years so my 2 cents on tarps . Buy the brown ones more $$ yes also better made and last longer . Bricks aren't gonna cut it , I stored my wood on pallets so what I would do was drive nails into the sides of the pallets so I could tie or bungee cord the tarp to it .
Next step crack open a Beer and repeat as necessery

 

I plan on restacking mine on a pallet and putting the big plastic covering they come with over them. Then I will tarp them. Should be fine. I had two pallets outside for about six months this past year covered like this and they burned fine.

 

I have been told by a few folks that if you do store on pallets outside, use should use two pallets before stacking as it is not uncommon for water to wick through one, depending on weather and stuff.

 

Im sure you can stuff a few more tons in that garage. Go higher!

 

Wouldn't bet on going higher - if his garage is anything like mine. Mine's not even tall enough to put my truck into and I can only stack 1.5 pallets high.

I will be storing tonnage outside this year for the first time. So far I have left them wrapped as originally brought, and then I put another big bag over top (from the tonnage I put in the house and garage). I then put empty pallets on top to hold it down. So far, so good. I am hoping to put up a car port this year so the truck can be put under cover, and at that point would move the tonnage so it also had the hard protection.

I personally wouldn't use tarps as I've used those for wood (even the brown ones) and once they start letting water thru, it's all over. I have used painter's plastic / vapor barrier (4 or 6 mil). I used that to good effect last fall when I had to leave 4 tons outside during torrential rains for a couple of weeks. Of course I happened to have a roll left from when I tore the walls out of my house, so it was handy. I used contractor's tape to hold it in place (and shape to the skids), and that worked very well.

 

original packaging and 6 mil poly

 

3 years ago I bought a Shelter Logic Garage. I believe it is a 10x20 ft. The frame id pretty robust, the tarp covering it not so much. I use it for pellets, my mower and leaf vac system ( in the spring and fall), building supplies, 4 wheeler, etc. This fall I noticed the tarping beginning to rip and now its in horrible shape. I got lucky though, my BIL found a huge, heavy trailer tarp that is much tougher than the tarp that came with the Shelter Logic and let me have it. I have had 4 tons of pellets in it on pallets and they stay nice and dry. The garage cost me $300 IIRC new/used, the guy bought it and never put it up. I put it up right behind my garage so it has some protection from the wind. Not the greatest thing to look at but it serves me well now that the tarp is tied down and I believe it will last for several years.

Doggy

 

Dr. Faustus, I took your advice. Used a step layer and went 17 layers high. Can't go any higher because of the overhead door. The garage is small. If the garage were empty,
a small car would not fit. The garage is more suited for bicycle, and yard equipment storage.

 

Stored my first ton outside this season. Whenever I buy a full pallet, I keep the plastic cover(s) as well as the cardboard vapor barrier, so I have a bunch of them on hand. I stacked a pallet outside as nicely as I could, making sure to use a vapor barrier, and cover it with two plastic covers from prior purchases, nailed the plastic covers to the pallet so they won't come off with a strong wind, and also bought a tarp (the brown kind mentioned earlier) and put that over it and secured it with bungee cords. So far that has proven to be a solid solution. I just put another pallet out as well. That one is covered with two plastic covers as well, haven't bought a tarp for it yet.

 

Thats the spirit! you can *always* fit more pellets somewhere! did you get everything in or are you still looking for places to stash them?

 

I managed to fit about 1/2 ton more in the garage by stacking higher. I neatly stacked one ton outside beside the garage on a pallet, covered
with a plastic cap, and a green cloth canvas, put four bricks on top.

 

Go to Lowes and buy an industrial shrink-wrap dispenser and two rolls of shrink wrap. The stuff is like wide, thick Saran Wrap. starting at the bottom of the pallet, wind your way around the pellets going upward, being sure to overlap the wrap by a few inches to ensure that there are no gaps. Tie off when you get to the top. Take a piece of heavy poly that is cut wide enough to cover the top and drape down a foot or so on all sides. Using the wrapper, run a few turns of wrap around the lower edge of the poly. If you saved the covers that came with the pellets, great put those on top. I did this method for years and never had one bag fall to moisture intrusion. Now, some bastage mice got in there and chewed into the bags, so a few blocks of poison under each pallet will help deal with that problem.

 

I have found some high quality American made canvas tarps to cover my pallets of wood pellets that
are sitting outdoors. I have purchased a 14 ft. x 16 ft. (nominal dimensions) canvas, 18 oz thickness, from Chicago
Canvas on Ebay for $120 which includes free shipping. This canvas tarp covers two pallets sitting
side by side. No bricks or ropes are needed to hold down the canvas tarp, because it weighs 29 lbs.
After making careful measures, I am ready to purchase my next canvas tarp from Chicago Canvas,
a 12 ft. x 14 ft. off Ebay for $90 (free shipping), to cover a single pallet. I have selected large enough canvas tarps
to covers all sides of the pallet and to have 6 inches to 8 inches of extra tarp on each side laying on the ground. I figure
if each high quality canvas tarp allows me to purchase an additional ton of wood pellets at a $100
discount and store the pallet outdoors for a few years, then the canvas tarp has paid for itself.
Check out www.chicagocanvas.com. On Ebay seems to be the lowest price because the shipping is free.
These canvas tarps weigh 20 to 30 lbs. each.

 

A shed would be a good relatively inexpensive solution. I somehow wound up with 4 around our property (two with additions even) over the years.

Turned one of them into a nice playhouse for the grands 2 years ago.

I think everyone should have a shed or two cause they are great for storage and greater even as a place to hideout.

 

I plan to get one of those small sheds, but one will be the limit. Many towns in NH, including mine, place a limit of one small
shed on the property without going through all the building permit process.

 

A downside of a shed is that I will still have to hand-place the bags of pellets into the shed. The plus side of using a
canvas tarp to cover the pallet of pellets is that I can have the Moffett forklift place the pallet anyplace. Then I cover
the pallet with a canvas tarp. Right now, I have four groups of pallets on the property. Since indoor garage storage
is at a premium competing with cars, yard equipment, and work shop; I like the idea of leaving as many pallets of
pellets outdoors as possible.
In theory, the minimal amount of pellets that needs to be stored indoors and accessible all winter is the highest amount that I
might burn in one winter, the worst case -- coldest winter. Moreover, during the summer is the only time that I would need to
remove the canvas tarp, tear open the plastic cover of the pallets, and move all 50 bags indoors. Depending on how well
this works out of covering pallets of pellets with canvas tarps, I may go towards the direction of storing outdoors
a higher portion of my pellet inventory. I will keep you posted on how this works-out. Like any new venture, one
has to proceed slowly and carefully. The second canvas tarp, a smaller tarp for one pallet, arrives next week.

 

Over the years, there has been a lot of discussion about pellets being stored outside. As my old brain recalls, the vast majority seem to try to avoid it. However, that having been said, others who had no other option, did keep their pellets outside and covered. Seems most everyone on here is anal enough to go the extra effort to keep their precious stacks well covered. I really don't recall anyone having said they lost pellets from outside HOME storage. Yes, there have been many post about bags of mush, sawdust from BB stores from outside storage etc. but I don't remember anyone having an issue from storing them outside at home. I've always kept mine in my detached garage. Some have been there for three years. No problems ever detected from that storage.