25 replies to this topic

[ghostrider]

woke up, looked out of the living room window, and yes, the large stack toppled over overnight. piled it too high?

Termites eating one side of the pile.

[Lex]

woke up, looked out of the living room window, and yes, the large stack toppled over overnight. piled it too high?

Termites eating one side of the pile.

[mongo_jones]

bad stacking. the center of the bottom row in particular. anyway: got a second rack; an even cheaper one: two metal brackets with pre-drilled holes into which i placed and attached with screws four 4ft long 2x4's for vertical support and then two 6ft 2x4 rails on which the wood rests. transferred 1/3 of the big stack to this one, and re-stacked the other. i need to get heavier tarps. i have the plastic sheeting tied very insecurely around right now--a good gust and it'll be gone.

i'm told a couple of good non-rainy/sleety cold days will dry everything out nicely.

[Rail Paul]

(snip)
i'm told a couple of good non-rainy/sleety cold days will dry everything out nicely.

cold dry days are wonderful for drying and curing wood

do you know if the oak was freshly cut when you received it, or was it curing in a wood lot somewhere?

[mongo_jones]

(snip)
i'm told a couple of good non-rainy/sleety cold days will dry everything out nicely.

cold dry days are wonderful for drying and curing wood

do you know if the oak was freshly cut when you received it, or was it curing in a wood lot somewhere?

seasoned for two years apparently. and i believe it, given how light the pieces are relative to size.

[Daisy]

City slicker version:

When I had an apartment with a fireplace we ordered firewood on the phone and men came with it in a truck, the wood company which has been in existence for over a hundred years also delivers ice. A 'bundle' which yielded about three fires cost something like $35 dollars. So we decided, after a winter of $10-plus fires and we had fires a few times a week, to buy a half cord of wood in the suburbs and pay through the nose to have it delivered to the elevatorless townhouse we lived in and stacked neatly in the basement. It was much cheaper than the almost weekly wood deliveries of the previous winter. Of course we did not reckon on the mice who it took only a couple of weeks to colonize the woodpile in the basement. This did not sit well with our neighbors (or us), so back to the expensive wood deliveries it was. This has cured me of ever wanting another apartment with a fireplace, especially since even the poncy wood that came on a truck tended to harbor spiders.

[SLBunge]

How are you putting the cover on the wood racks? Are you fixing the tarp to the rack ends so you don't have to untie anything when you pull wood out of the rack in the middle of winter?

My wood storage is inside the (detached) garage. Sometime this winter or in the spring I think I need to order some wood and at that time I'm tempted to move wood storage outside along the garage wall that faces the alley. That would give me a nice place to store the extension ladder and whatever else is now laying in the middle of the floor.

[mongo_jones]

How are you putting the cover on the wood racks?

very badly.

the big rack is by the fence, and there are two tall fence posts on either side. i have plastic sheeting (left over from painting the house 3 years ago) draped over the posts and the fence, coming down about 1.5 feet in the front. sides are mostly uncovered to let wind/air through. i've put some very heavy stones on the part that goes down to the ground in the rear, and i've wrapped twine around the whole thing and attached it to the fence. at some later point i will try to replace the sheeting with something a little heavier and i will replace the twine with those stretchy cord thingies people use to secure luggage on roof-racks etc.. that's my plan anyway.

the smaller rack is covered similarly--the four posts are about a foot above the wood level--the plastic sheeting is draped over the posts, and twine around the side with a simple knot or two.

i encourage you to build me something better and install it.

[SLBunge]

i encourage you to build me something better and install it.

I know this is an idea that might have been more helpful before you stacked the wood (twice) but couldn't you have put the racks under some part of your deck? (I can't remember what it looks like under your deck.)

[GG Mora]

How are you putting the cover on the wood racks?

very badly.

the big rack is by the fence, and there are two tall fence posts on either side. i have plastic sheeting (left over from painting the house 3 years ago) draped over the posts and the fence, coming down about 1.5 feet in the front. sides are mostly uncovered to let wind/air through. i've put some very heavy stones on the part that goes down to the ground in the rear, and i've wrapped twine around the whole thing and attached it to the fence. at some later point i will try to replace the sheeting with something a little heavier and i will replace the twine with those stretchy cord thingies people use to secure luggage on roof-racks etc.. that's my plan anyway.

the smaller rack is covered similarly--the four posts are about a foot above the wood level--the plastic sheeting is draped over the posts, and twine around the side with a simple knot or two.

i encourage you to build me something better and install it.

You can avoid the use of stones and twine by simply putting a few logs at each end on top of the plastic or tarp or whatever. It'll save you having to adjust the plastic/tarp as you diminish the pile. </25-yr woodburning veteran>

ETA: I fully understand that it is the woodburning neophyte's prerogative to be obsessive-compulsive about every aspect of the operation. You get over it.

[mongo_jones]

i encourage you to build me something better and install it.

I know this is an idea that might have been more helpful before you stacked the wood (twice) but couldn't you have put the racks under some part of your deck? (I can't remember what it looks like under your deck.)

i thought about that. but since the deck is attached to the house the termite/carpenter bug issue came into play. more importantly, the deck becomes all but inaccessible once the snow begins to fall--the stairs going down from it become too hazardous for creatures with only two legs (and snow piles up outside the lower level exit).

mora: that's a good idea. there are some very ugly, misshapen pieces that could be useful for just that purpose.