The only way I can manage this much wood is to toss into 5 cord bulk piles on the ground and then top cover with 10’x20’ tarps for the winter. The plan is to sell all the piles. My shed is set and I have a fan blowing into a very green cord of cherry on the face. we are sitting at 45% relative humidity today so it’s perfect! Do you think my bulk piles will be ok with minimal rot and quality wood in 6 months when they’re gone? Am I doing it right? All Douglas fir. This is the best I can come up with for now.
I have seen wood that is piled on the ground will suck moisture in from the ground. That would be your biggest issue. Do you have access to pallets to put the piles on?
I don’t. And these piles are done unfortunately. The next time they move will be into a trailer. Areas are well drained though and splits don’t even kill my grass out it springs right back often healthier.
I just got done stacking a mix of oak and maple that was piled just like that with no tarp. Was like that for at least 18 months. The stuff directly on the ground was a little funky, but the rest of it was fine. Probably not ready to be burned, which was ok, but I was very surprised on the good condition of the splits given the fact that they were not covered at all.
I know. But by the time they are sold and stacked at someone else’s pile they will finish rapidly I’d believe by autumn 2021.
Cheap canopies over them? In my yard it doesn’t take long before the earth and worms start turning oak shorts into dirt.
I have a friend who's brother is a logger and they will get these sawmill drops off of logs hauled in and dumped, then they will cut and split and throw into the bucket of a front end loader. When they have bucket full they take it and dump into a huge pile, bigger then the ones you have pictured. He swears it dries out just fine. He does haul it to a rack next to the house for it's final resting place before burning but the rack only holds a face cord or so, and he will burn it up pretty quick in the winter, so it doesn't get much drying time there. I have made two round stacks this year, for use next year, these stacks are done like they do in Norway. I stacked one on an old tarp, and the other on sheet iron scraps to keep the bottom wood off of the ground. They are not covered but they are domed at the top, but I don't know if that really helps that much. But I am not going to tarp them, as the wind would ruin the tarps by the time I needed the wood and then I would have the cost of the tarps added to the cost of the wood.
Only thing I've ever had dry on me while sitting on the ground was a stack of black locust poles. Five years and they're nice and dry, but also have no bark on them either. Oak that's been sitting for the same period of time is probably wetter than it was as a live tree.
You have to do the best with what you have and everything varies by geographic location. Where I'm at, I won't even let unsplit rounds sit on the ground as they just soak up too much moisture.
I would suggest getting it off the ground. It will wick up moisture. I use 4 pallets under each of my holz hausens. It's a great way to store wood - takes up less space, self supporting, and gives you a place to hide shorties, uglies, etc. Here's a few pics of how I do it. And you can watch this video that I watched that got me going on building them. It's quite simple - lay down a ring of splits in a circle and then start stacking. If you start losing your inward angle place some more splits perpendicular so you recreate the angle. I have 21 stacks and only one fell down because I built it on a slope and didn't pay enough attention to the angle. All the other stacks have been great. With 4 pallets mine average about 8' in diameter and 6' in heigh and hold just over 2 cord. I cover the piles that I'm currently burning. The others I just leave uncovered so I can maximize wind exposure. If you leave a small gap in between the pallets you can make them slightly bigger and that small difference makes a huge difference in the amount of wood you can store. As you can see some of my stacks are noticeably smaller/larger compared to others. And I get all the pallets (and the wood for that matter) for free.
Piles/heaps like that is how most of the guys selling wood around here "season" theirs. Although many have mountains in comparison. It's not ideal and the splits at the top and sides actually dry fairly well, even without tarps, but the bottom of the pile doesn't fare so well. It's still better than logs cut to whatever length you want from logs that are only partially dried out. At some point you just can't spend all the time required stacking to handle bulk amounts unless you have nothing else to do in life or have lots of really cheap labor. So put the splits that had contact with the ground and are dirty to the side to have a chance to dry after the top of the pile is gone. I sure wouldn't leave birch on the ground, but many other types should fare fairly well for a relatively short period of time. Time will tell if drizzly nights/mornings and sunny afternoons will season well in a heap or not. You have weird weather there.
They’ll be fine! My father in law stores what he cuts each year outside in a huge pile and brings it into the barn as he clears room. Sometimes sits out there for a couple years. I’ll take a pic of how he has it outside but he doesn’t cover it and it is usually there for a couple years. Stains but doesn’t rot. All white oak. You may lose some in contact with the ground. He rolls out landscaping fabric under his piles which helps some but having them on pallets would be best
That's the way I do it, sometimes. I have two stacks right now about 7ft plus tall. I also rick it up the conventional way.
Thanks. I've processed probably about 50 cord so far I think. And I've been replenishing what I've been burning this winter almost immediately heh heh. For this year I have 8 cord ready to burn and probably 2 more ready by the end of this winter.........
How do the holy hausens dry the wood as compared to regular row stacking in your option? I might give this method a try when I have 3 oaks cut down early next year.
I think it dries better becausese most of the wood is covered by the top. Water kind of just sheds off when it rains. And there is space between stacks so water coming off one stack doesn't splash into the side of the adjacent stack like what you have in traditional stacking. Traditional stacks are 4 ft tall and even then they are very unstable. My stacks were at one point over 7ft until the code inspector told me to make them 6. And then they shrunk as they dried so I've been able to top them off. Because the wood is pointed down towards the center they are also way more stable. I had only one of 21 stacks collapse because it was my fault for not maintaining that angle since I had built that one on a slope. I am really enjoying the wood now. Wife is really happy too. Been pulling out a lot of wood from the center of the stacks and spot checked random splits all the time - the inside is just as dry as the outside. No issues there. When you lay out your 4 pallets, don't butt them up tight against each other. Leave like 8" or so, enough for splits to bridge the gap. This gives you more volume and you can be more efficient with your space. Let me know how but goes!
