[Brimasmom]

We're in the process of turning our heat over to a wood stove, and a question or two came up during the planning.

How does one build a decent, usable wood shed? We've already split some wood, but the wood has gotten quite wet over the winter. I can't imagine being able to light this stuff when it matters most.

Anyone have any input? What about you, Kev? Any chance of you taking pictures of your woodshed and giving out some pointers?

 

[Guerrilla]

How big of a shed do you need? At the ranch, we have about 2 cords layed up in an old horse shelter on the road in, and use an ATV with a trailer to haul a couple days at a time worth up to the house.

At the cabin, I have a seasoning cord stacked up in three rows and tarped down with sandbags. I spaced out pine saplings to hold the bottom row off the ground. This is halfway between the garden and the house. We have a major problem with carpenter ants down there, so I don't want fire wood seasoning anywhere close to my cabin. . . It is also in the sunniest non-garden spot we have, making it a good place to season a pile.

My wood shed is going to be four plywood topped pallets between some sunken, pressure treated lodgepoles and walls of old tin roofing, somewhere closer to the house. The lodge poles will give me something sturdy to stack the wood against, and the plywood topped pallets can be replaced when they get eaten-up.

But I will still be keeping a wood pile for bulk storage. I hope to keep at least 3 cords dry or seasoning at all times, which shouldn't be a problem living backed up against a timber preserve. Open it up in the summer and let the sun shine down, tarp it in the winter.

I worked at a resort / summer camp farm one summer. They had about ten cords stored in the middle of a pasture, under a gigantic open walled tin-roofed garage/awning thing. Kept most of the rain off the wood, and kept guests from helping themselves. The mud road out to that woodpile was a blast!

 

[kev]

Anyone have any input? What about you, Kev? Any chance of you taking pictures of your woodshed and giving out some pointers?

I have never used a wood burning stove all winter. But from what Benjamin Franklin wrote - during the course of a winter, a franklin stove will use about a cord of wood.

My wood is stored in 2 places, I keep a small stock here at the house and another stock at the camp.

This is the wood stocks at the camp. The closed in part on the left is full of wood as well. The right hand side is oak, the left (behind the tin) is pecan.

This is an older pictures of the oak.

My wood shed at the house almost empty. I made a haul from the camp yesterday, so the shed is full again

Most of my wood is used for cooking bar-b-q. So I can not offer a hands on opinion on how much wood is used during the course of a year.

 

[Dwind]

ever thought of collecting the grubs that collect in said wood piles for use in fishing? be a nice change from using nightcrawlers

 

[neal]

My wood storage area was mounted about 6" off the ground with corrugated steel on three sides, pallets for the flooring to let moisture and air through, the top was covered with PV panels, and I used a tarp on the open west side to cover the wood. The main frame was of six each 4" wood fence posts mounted about a foot and a half into the ground so as to make the storage and PV mounts able to withstand winds of over 100 mph.

My storage area was about 4' tall and could only hold about two cords though.

 

[Idaho]

We have a new modular home with a new Englander stove and where I live in Idaho, we use roughly one cord a month. I don't have a building for storing our firewood so I use the clear plastic sheeting to cover it up. Works fantastic too! Plus it's stacked on pallets.

 

[421slicer]

if ya can't get a shed up immediately... stretch out a tarp. But leave room for airflow, so the wood can dry out on warmer days!

 

[ZigMund]

My wood storage area was mounted about 6" off the ground with corrugated steel on three sides, pallets for the flooring to let moisture and air through, the top was covered with PV panels, and I used a tarp on the open west side to cover the wood. The main frame was of six each 4" wood fence posts mounted about a foot and a half into the ground so as to make the storage and PV mounts able to withstand winds of over 100 mph.

My storage area was about 4' tall and could only hold about two cords though.

We had a wood stove when I was younger, and my dad built a shed very similar to what you mentioned, but he built it with all pressure treated wood.

The shed was corrugated tin on the top, back and ends, and we tacked down tarps that attached to the top of the frame, and they would keep the rain from getting on the wood. The shed was about 50 feet long, and 5 feet high. We would split all the wood we put up if it was too large. We rotated wood like canned goods, that way the newly split wood would be placed in the empty slot, and left to season for about a year or two before being burned in the stove.

Recently my parents spent a week with some friends that lived in the mountains and utilized an external wood stove for all of their heat and hot water needs. He said that the stove was quite efficient, and if they loaded the firebox full, it would last for days. This stove was no small internal heater. It had a thermostat which controlled the airflow and stoking. It kept thier home water heated to about 170, and this same stove was used to heat the core of thier home heater so thier cabin had central heat.

Hope that your wood shed comes out great Brimasmom!

 

[230gr]

Our wood shed is a roof extension of our barn with oak slat sides in which we put 5 rows of 18 inch long firewood stacked 7 ft high and 24 ft long. In our zone 4 (-25 / -35oF) winters, we generally use 1/2 to ¾ of a 12 ft long side per season in our wood furnace and cook stove. Next year we will simply refill the empty side and used the other full, cured side for the winter. This allows at least a summer of curing before use.

 

[Brimasmom]

ever thought of collecting the grubs that collect in said wood piles for use in fishing? be a nice change from using nightcrawlers

Oh no! Have the fish been complaining again?

Claudia

 

[Brimasmom]

Thank you all so much for your input and replies.

Now, at the risk of sounding girlie...

Doesn't all that wood attract snakes? Especially rattlers? Somebody PLEASE tell me I have nothing to worry about. I hate those things!

 

[hypervel]

Uh, seen no snakes, but the mice seem to like the homes I made them.
I laid out a series of apple bins. Each equates to ~ 1/4 cord
each if piled well. We split 4 cords and use 'bout 3 a year. Will split the wood for next season in the spring-the wood I got last summer. The bins help me "pace" my usage-but I'm in to really keeping track of some things....especially fuel. Oh, and I just tarp it w/ tarps from Costco. They last for 2 or 3 years, I just consider it a consumables cost.

 

[FredLee]

I sunk treated 4x4's into the ground,and used 6 foot tall treated picket fence as three sides,and put a metal roof over the works.I put the roof about 2 feet over the fence,built some slope into it.Faced the opening to south.It will hold about 2 full cords,if you stack it up to 6 feet high.That will last me a winter.

 

[reaction]

with limited funds or your not allowed to build a wood shed on the property, a good 10'x20' tarp works.i think the addition of wood pallets to stack it on made a big difference.it provided air space to dry/keep dry and tie down points as well.

 

[STG-58]

My dad and now I been burning wood for 30 years. We never had a wood shed. My dad still covers his wood that he is about to cover with a tarp. I don't. I have my wood cut by may. I burn 6-7 cords a year and let the wood lay out in the weather. I have no problems. I sometimes have a cord or so left over so I burn it next year. I don't have extra snake problems but my dad did get bit by a cooper head one year and laid him up for a month. I did find a dead possom in the pile one time. I don't think a wood shed is a need, I've gotten by for 13 years without oneand so has my dad.

 

[coyoteacres]

We usually have 10 (ten) cords of cut, split seasoned wood at any time and a wood shed isn't an option. (wish it was)

We heat soley with a wood stove (have no other heat source) and it gets below zero in the winter with high winds. The house stays nice and toasty. What we've done over the years is get a big roll of 6 mill construction plastic (black or clear) and cover our wood. We usually keep about 3-4 days worth of wood in the house in a designated area and if a big storm is coming, or a snow storm, we refill our wood area in the house.

If U have an insulated house, U burn less wood, both houses we've had were we've used our wood stove were un-insullated until we spent the time and money on it. Once insulated, our wood consumption was cut by more then 1/2. Depending on the room U install your wood stove in, put a box fan (big one) behind it but far enough away to not cause a danger (melting) or on a piece of furniture and when that room gets real hot, push the hot air out into other areas of the house. We were able to do this in our last house and heat a 1,400 square foot house very comfortably. This place we're in now has really high ceiling, so we put a ceiling fan in and it pushes the hot air back down and around so the loft doesn't cook. I hauled our wood stove up here about 1,100 miles to this house, because I've never been cold since I've had it, and it's going with us when we move I've heated soley with wood for 8 winters now.

 

[FredLee]

10 full cords,or face cords?

 

[Te Hopo]

How do ya measure a chord?

I used to cut heaps for my old boss each year, we had a wood shed with only a back on it, it was divided into sections by a trellis so the wind could blow trough, we always had wonderfully dried wood.
At that time our place (poorly insulated) and hot water were heated by wood, so we went through a lot of wood each winter.

 

[230gr]

A full cord is a large amount of wood. It measures 4 feet high by 4 feet wide by eight feet long (4' x 4' x 8') and has a volume of 128 cubic feet. ...

Face cord is 4' X 4 ' X what ever lenght you cut, usually about 18" long

 

[FredLee]

Full cords are based on a 16 inch log,so three logs,end to end = 48 inches width.roughly.I always heard face cords were based on 16 inch logs.Three face cords =one full cord. Even cutting 10 face cords = no slouch,in my book.
It don't get easier with age...