Which Material is better: Stone or Mulch???

Looks really good

 

nice looking area Road-side Oak Im curious about how the concrete bags hardened up?
What is your current inventory of wood?

 

Yeah that area was a low lying and and filled with brambles and mud. Thanks!

 

The concrete bags hardened up perfectly. Super solid . Currently I have about 4.5 - 5 cords split and stacked...Still amateur status in this company!

 

That's not a bad amount. Very good start.

 

I would like to add another comment about using the ground cover first. It will go a long ways to keep your stone from mixing with the dirt beneath it. I've got it under my patio and so far (last 15 years) the stone stays stable and doesn't sink down. One draw back is vermin will borrow under the ground cloth and that will sink if the borrows are wide enough.

 

I used a heavy gauge ground cloth between my dirt fill layer and my stone layer.

 

Great decision!!
Clothvkeeps the stone from mixing in the mud and sinking when the frost comes out..

 

I'm going to go against nearly everyone here and say that I greatly prefer wood chips over stone for my firewood areas. Reason being, during the whole process, you will inevitably wind up with debris from the firewood all over the ground. Mine is plentiful enough that it's nearly self-sustaining. The work needed to remove bark, wood pieces, chips, dust etc. off the stone, even with a good backpack blower, is not worth the effort. And if you don't do it, you will eventually turn your stone bed into a wood chip bed anyway. I place 3-4 inches of new wood chips inside both my wood sheds every couple of years, and a good layer in my wood processing (splitter) area. Then pallets go on top of the chips. The wood chips stay dry enough that the pallets don't rot quickly, some of them have been there for a decade already. I replace pallets when boards break, not due to decay. If you look at my avatar to the left, the area in front of the shed is all wood chips. Plus I hate hitting stones with a mower.

 

Jon_E .. I agree with you but he said the area was low-lying and filled with mud.
I also live in Vermont, this is my experience. You put in the Stone and within a year or two the weeds take over. You make bark mess you don't clean them up they decompose into soil. Mow weeds same height. Ground is solid..

No ruts or mud in spring when frost goes out..

 

Plus I hate hitting stones with a saw chain. FIFY...if you are cutting in the processing area.

 

I usually prefer wood chips as well but for storage only and next to the house ( or a building) sometimes the stones mimicking a driveway makes more sense.

 

Wood chips in your processing area, stone under the storage area...

 

Here are the stacks so far on my new stone pad stacking area. Main rack is 16ft with a row of pallets running parallel of the same length. The main racks are all red oak I scrounged this summer along with some beech and poplar on the pallets. The small rounds on the pallets are from a small red oak score I picked up last week... I heard a wood chipper running down the road and hooked up my trailer right away.. lol never even had to get out of my pajamas! How’s that for an easy score? Anyway, I also included a detail shot showing how loose I’m stacking... really trying to maximize airflow through the single rows. The top covers just went on last week, they are metal and plastic roofing panels that are screwed down at the ends and weighed down in the middle with solid cement blocks. Hoping that’s enough to hold them down. Haven’t been online much lately and I thought I’d share the progress on the new stacking site... really looking forward to fire season!!!!!

 

Now that's some true blue firewood hoarder dedication right there!
Stacks look great!

 

Very neat and we'll done wished my stacking area looked like that. I like the air flow stacking. I've always stacked rather tight. Wonder how much it affects drying?
How much wood do you have?

 

I think the loose stacks help with drying for sure. That said I know most of the moisture evaporates from the end grains but I have some tight stacks in my woodshed that just don’t seem to dry as fast as these single rows that are more out in the open and stacked loosely. I even have a few stacks that are “stickerd” to allow for airflow between rows within a single stack. Each stack I try something different always experimenting. I guess in a couple years I will figure out what works best my my space and just stick with one method. I figure even the tightly stacked stuff will season given three years or so. I’d say I have I have about 5 cords on hand that split and stacked.

 

Nice and neat, looks good. I can't wait for burn season either.