Just curious on everyone's preferred stacking methods. I have been stacking mostly on treated 2 x 4 with the end cross crossed. This method does ok but I do have an occasional pile or two tip over. The bottom row looks like it's wetter than the rest of the stack but I've never confirmed it with a mm. I seen some on here use cinder blocks with landscape timbers and others use pallets. Any thoughts?
Well, I think you're likely to get as many different answers as we have members here. There's really no right or wrong answers; it basically comes down to what you might have on hand at the time, and whatever works for you. I build my own 8'x8' pallets, which makes for a very stable foundation compared to stacking in single rows (IMO), but drying time will probably increase a bit inside my cubes. My top covered stacks do tend to stay wetter towards the bottom, as a lot of the water they are shedding splashes off of the ground back onto the bottom foot or two of the stack. But I've got time on my side - the wood I'm working on now is for 4-5 years out.
This. I use pallets, but my dad's the plant manager/engineer at his company and can set aside pallets for me whenever I ask. A lot of my buddy's own landscaping businesses and always have a bunch of pallets on hand as well.
I am currently using pallets but they are not going to last much longer. I am not a fan of stepping on or over them. I found a place that was giving pallets away but they are no longer doing that. So I think I'm going to go back to just stacking on long straight limbs about 3 inches in diameter or so. As for the stacking itself that job has largely been turned over to the kids so however they do it is fine with me!
I hate stacking on pallets, they break, you need to step over them there's tons of room for critters, I just don't like them, I get2x3s from work that they use for shipping and throw away, I run a couple across the bottom of the pile then 2 going the length of the pile so I'm about 3-4 inches off the ground when I start, then I just stack, stacking usually 2 piles next to each other with a piece that spans both piles every so often and that REALLY helps with stability. That's my basics depending on my mood what I'm stacking how much wood is in my way how much I have to attack etc, here's a couple pics of this year's wood so far
Yea yea I know it's not at pretty as most guys pics on here but I'm on a dead end road so noone sees it, I need to tarp over the piles soon, piled right now is 3 bundles of slab wood, those pieces are all about 28 inches long
I suggest using whatever will work well and is free. I can find pallets for free at my lumberyard and I don't find them hard to step over or find them breaking often - and I have wood on pallets that is over 4 years old. One pain is that the pallets will rot into the ground over that period of time, so every year I have about 10-12 pallets that I need to break up, dry out and burn - but it's a pretty quick job. Cheers!
Those cubes look great! I'm far enough ahead that I would love to do what you are doing to save space; but, I can't fabricate my own pallets so I will have to enjoy seeing yours. I stack on single pallet wide rows elevated off the ground using bricks or blocks. I can access the rows from either side (using a hand cart) as I know stepping on the pallets will eventually lead to trouble. Need to work on my cribbing skills so that my stacks are a bit more pleasing to the eyes. Also started covering my stacks with lumber wrap last fall and these are holding up well (price is right if you don't mind a bit of dumpster diving at the local lumber store).
I stack on pallets, been thinking of milling some 4x4s and getting them higher off the ground. Like a foot. But then I just think a woodshed would be easier and keep the wood dry. The bottom of the stack always sucks. Rain and snow always hits it even if covered. It's kinda one of those..."it is what it is" type deals.
Sometimes up take the bottom row and just toss it to the side for the winter, then come spring I'll re stack it so I rotate it out of the bottom
Others have said it but it bears saying again. Use what you have or can get. For us, we simply cut some saplings in the woods. Sometimes we stack right on the ground. This brings up one more factor with wood stacking. Different type of ground calls for different methods of stacking. For example, I can get away with stacking on the ground and sometimes just do that but if we do, usually the bottom row sinks some into the ground so when we come to this, usually the bottom 2 rows get thrown onto another stack to finish drying for the following year. We are on yellow sand. Those, especially those who have very heavy ground like clay, I suggest stacking much higher off the ground because that ground won't dry out like sand will. I would not hesitate to stack a foot off the ground in clay or any ground that is low and especially if there is water standing part of the time. So my advice is the heavier or wetter the ground, the higher you should stack it. But we do usually use some saplings. I do have a couple rows stacked on one of Pallet Pete's big pallets but won't do it again as I just don't like pallets for firewood. Some sapling work much better. We can cut them to the length we want or even vary the length as it just doesn't matter. If using more than one in length, you can simply overlap and all is well. But we prefer to cut 10' saplings as the best method. We've used ash, maple, cherry, pine, spruce, hemlock and even some witch hazel. Most of the time our wood gets stacked for 3-6 years and we can use the poles 2 or 3 times before replacing them. Diameter of the poles can vary as to your choice. Here are a couple pictures to show what we do. One thing you might notice about our stacks is that we tend to stack 3 rows together. This makes them stronger so we don't have to re-stack and it is a very rare thing indeed if we do any re-staking here. That is a mess we don't need. So we tend to build the ends strong and stack fairly straight. We could stack a bit neater but I tend to stack the wood a little bit loose just for air circulation. It helps. Questions have been raised about that center row not drying as much. I can say without a doubt that does not happen. The center rows dry just as fast. If they did not dry as fast, they would not shrink the same amount but we've always noticed that the 3 rows shrink at the same rate. Usually we stack 4 1/2' high and they shrink down to 4' or less and many times this can happen in the first year but not if you have things like oak in there! I just remembered this picture so here it is showing some of the saplings we stack on. These were from under woodpiles that got burned. They were 4 years under the wood and all of them very useable for another 4 years and some will go even after that. If they start breaking as I pick them up, then I just throw them on the brush pile.
I stack in cubes pretty much any more....I started out using heavy oak skids with bricks under them to get them off the ground a bit. Then I got into some plastic pallets. Still place bricks under them, but don't have to worry about rotting, just maybe some brittleness with age and sun exposure. No right or wrong way, just as long as sun and wind is available you'll be just fine....
I stack on pallets on cinder blocks or bricks, it keeps the wood of the ground by about a foot and I don't the rain/snow wet issues on the bottom row. Plus the bottom rows don't freeze together. Also air can flow up through the bottom helping dry the center. I replace my pallets as needed every 3 or 4 years. There are tons of free pallets around here, I can easily a do zen a day.
After posting the above two pics quickly, I thought they were quite lame. So I went and took current pics to post, kind of showing where I'm now. 1st Pic is the same stack as first pic in my previous post above.
