I consider this a victory, of course. It needs to hold a whole winter's worth (3 cords) and look reasonably good since it will alongside the house and visible. I don't have any experience building things but I have a circular saw and plenty of 2x8's, 2x4's, 18" square pavers, and a pile of weathered oak fence rail. I want it to be freestanding and place it on pavers so that we can move it if necessary. My toes tingle at the idea of not needing to shuck wood around in the middle of winter except to bring it in to burn. Bestow your wisdom please. I'll take anything.
... how big are you gonna make it? Not sure mine would be much fun to try and move afterward but here's a few pics... holds around 6 cords. 8x20x6 high at the back.
Make it bigger. Seriously. What happens if you have a really bad winter and you need more wood? Mine will hold about 7 cords. We almost always use 5, and I usually put in at least 5.5-6. Since my wife doesn't deal with the firewood, I didn't consult. I needed to make my life easier, so I built a shed. So, that worked. Portable should mean no added tax burden, but how are the highest winds in your area. Wouldn't want that flyin away.
Yep. Go for it Dave! dgeesaman- you must build this shed! And it prolly should be a li'l bigger like the boys have said.... Do you have any roof configurations/style in mind?
My plan was to build the shed so that it would hold 2 years worth of firewood......one year on each side. That plan was based on a number of thoughts....one being that I would be soon getting a new stove and wood use would drop. Well, a number of other factors have come into play, and the original plan hasn't panned out, so I'm still using about the same amount of wood even with a new stove. Go figure, eh? Stuff happens, and if you only prepared for the basics, it can kill ya.
Here are a couple more portable racks you might be able to make bigger with a roof if you really want to move it later. 4x10x4. And I agree... make it as big as you can afford. You'll use the space.
Check with local codes or ordinances as to allowable size for your lot, even on portable buildings. I'd build it on skids, so it could be moved if needed.
"Build it bigger" - Yes, there is value in that. Last winter set all kinds of records around here for cold and we burned almost 3 cords. So I'm not flying blind with this number. The back line of my property has lots of space for stacking other years but won't be as easily accessible. If this turns out to be too small, I can either build another one or move this one to the back and replace with something bigger. The portability would be based on my tractor with forks. It should move about 3/4 ton that way. If not, no big deal. I will look into the risk of takeoff - for us, high winds in a t-storm are 50 or 60mph, but at the end of season before I reload it would be the risky time. The more I think about it, Stinny's method would work really well. I could have as many as I want and with something as a roof or cover I'm good to go.
The support rails underneath are four - ten foot 4x4s. I would have liked your 3/4 ton tractor cap dragging those out there. Each empty rack must have weighed 500 lbs. My JD could only lift one end.
Using Stinny design, it would be easy to add a roof to them. I've been thinking of building one of these... This would easily be adapted to the racks Stinny showed.
How much wood does one of those hold? With my wood operation moving, I am in the hunt for a different style of wood rack for the front yard.
I also love this idea. The area I'm putting my wood would allow me to form a U snapped area with three of these. I'd like to be able to store three cords to four cords in this area. Which might mean the I have to build them bigger.
The beauty of this design is you can build them to suite your needs, a 8x4x4 would hold a short cord 93% give or take(taking out for end framing) a 10x4x4 would hold 1.18 cord. If you built the base 10x4, with 5' ends, you would have 1.48 cord.... like I said, build to suite your needs.
My thought is this for dimensions. left and right sides - 6' long, 54" deep for three rows of 18" splits by 6' high and a foot and a half off the ground. The back of the U would be 8' long by 54" by 6' high. With a cord being 128 cubic feet, my dimensions would need to achieve 512 cubic feet. 72"X54"X72"=162 cubic feet X2= 324 + 96X54X72 216 = 540 cubic feet total. Just over 4 cords. This year I am going with a temporary setup as I need to test this wood stove on the first floor to ensure it's not blasting us out of the living room.
It's short of 10' long... I figure it's about a cord with just 2 stacks (20" splits) leaning into themselves at the top (like bogydave) . Little over a cord if stacked tight 16" splits.
Wood sheds come in all sorts of designs. They can be costly or cost very little. They can be big and hold lots of wood or small and have more than one shed. Here is one of the simplest designs around and Pete had very few dollars in this thing but it works very well. Here is ours. We put in around 3 cord of wood usually in October then by spring it is gone and we can use the space again in the barn for other things.
