How to properly store firewood?

Woodpile material

Having installed a frame for storing logs on the site, you can simply put the firewood in the woodpile without fear that they will crumble from their weight and get wet in bad weather.
Typically, wood or metal is used as the material for making firewood. Warning! The service life of the product and installation features depend on the quality of the selected material for the base.

A metal woodpile has a number of advantages:

• strength - the external environment has virtually no effect on the structure;
• long period of use;
• variability and aesthetics of design.

Aluminum profile construction is ideal as a lightweight, portable base for firewood. It is easy to assemble and can be moved from place to place. It is only not suitable for a large amount of firewood due to the possible deformation of soft aluminum under the weight of logs.

For large woodsheds, a metal woodpile is made from a channel, steel profile or pipe.

To install such a serious structure, you will need a welding machine, but in the end the firewood box will please you with its durability and solidity.

For decorative metal woodpiles, forged elements are used, which give the device an individual design.

Metal stands for firewood are often placed in the fireplace area of ​​country houses. This woodpile for the fireplace decorates the room and gives the home comfort and sophistication.

Sometimes, when creating large iron firewood sheds, in addition to the steel frame, a metal grate is installed along one or all sides of the structure.

The most popular and easiest to make woodpile. To make it you need boards, bars, and the remains of wooden building materials on the site are also suitable. In addition to a modest budget, the advantages of a wooden structure include the following:

• a light weight;
• ease of assembly;
• long service life;
• neatness of appearance;
• Easy dismantling for moving to a new location.

A simple way to make a wooden woodpile in the country is a canopy, which can be made from scrap materials.

It consists of a conventional wooden frame with one or two walls, a roof made of slate, roofing felt, and metal sheets. Cinder blocks or pallets are suitable as a base.

To make a beautiful woodpile, you will need a little time, material and tools. But this design will last longer and looks neater.

Important! The tree needs pre-treatment to protect it from moisture and insects.

Where to store firewood

• The best option is a barn that can be closed. This should be a dry shed, without leaks and rodents, in which it will be possible to build a rack inside to accommodate a supply of firewood for various needs;
• A good solution for storing firewood is a garage or workshop. Naturally, if space allows, otherwise firewood is not needed in this building. If such an opportunity exists, in any corner of the garage, on a pallet, storing logs in a checkerboard pattern so that they are ventilated. It is important to arrange the stack away from the potbelly stove and electrical appliances that heat the garage;
• Storing firewood under a shed. Not a bad idea, but not under a wall or roof overhang where water leaks in. Otherwise, you will only destroy everything that was prepared with hard work or purchased at a high price;
• Storing firewood in a separate, special woodshed is perhaps the most correct solution, which has a lot of advantages in use!

Perhaps, no matter how sad it is to talk about this, one of the primary criteria for choosing a storage location will be the question: do they steal or don’t they steal... Because if there are enough lovers of other people’s property in the area, then the only reasonable option is in a barn under lock and key.

Good firewood is not a cheap pleasure, and losing it would be very annoying, you must admit. So you will have to work hard and build a reliable storage for them. It can be located separately from other buildings, or combined with other outbuildings, or even adjacent to the house - the main thing is that all storage rules are taken into account.

If you are lucky enough to live in a fertile land, where it is not customary to encroach on other people’s property, the choice becomes noticeably wider.

Building a firewood shed is quicker, easier and less expensive than building a woodshed. Sometimes such a building still has walls (on one or three sides - according to desire, opportunity and necessity). But they are often limited to just a roof on poles. Covers from bad weather, provides ventilation

Moreover, the canopy can be either a free-standing structure or an extension to an existing one - a barn, a bathhouse or directly to the house

It is convenient to stack such a woodpile: the trees serve as support, and you don’t have to worry that the structure will fall apart. True, it will still be useful to monitor stability - the firewood will not roll on the sides, but nothing prevents it from collapsing flat. This is especially likely if the woodpile is long.

A woodpile under the windows can even become a unique and very colorful decoration. And in the summer it is convenient to use it, for example, as a stand for a box of flowers. But from a practical point of view, such a decision is justified if all storage rules are followed. This method also has its opponents, by the way: they claim that in this case the facade of the house is poorly ventilated, which is not at all useful for it.

Well, others at this time lay out an entire wall of firewood right under the roof of the house - and consider this solution convenient and correct.

I think a lot depends on the climate here, and the material of the building itself plays a role. And, of course, you shouldn’t stack the woodpile close to the wall - even if it’s small, you should leave a ventilation gap. It is useful for firewood and will not harm the house.

If the space under the stairs allows, you can put a full-fledged woodpile there. It’s very convenient and practical: the firewood is protected from the weather and is always at hand, so you don’t have to go far to get it. In fact, this is the same idea of ​​storing firewood near the wall of the house, only there are no problems with protection from rain and snow

And even if there is not enough space, you should not abandon the idea completely - a small “handy” supply will always come in handy

• Just out in the open

A very common method in our villages. The woodpile is installed in free space (in a utility yard, near a fence, along a path, and so on - wherever it is more convenient for the owner). It is usually used when a lot of firewood is needed. Here it is very important to take care of the stability of the structure and be sure to build it on a solid foundation so that the lower rows do not rot.

If the owner of the plot is a creative person, it is quite possible that he will want to stack the firewood in some unusual way - not like everyone else, and so that the woodpile not only serves as a source of fuel, but also as a decoration for the yard.

There are a lot of options - some of them can be found below. It’s only important, while getting carried away by creativity, not to forget about the main purpose of firewood - to keep us warm in the cold winter. Therefore, if you need this type of fuel not only for beauty, you should think about how practical such an art object will be.

Beautifully stacked firewood on a summer cottage is also a part of landscape design. It would seem that one could come up with something original here - he stacked the firewood and that’s it. And we offer you 10 ideas that will help you make an original woodpile at your dacha.1. Woodpile in the form of a fallen tree.2. Woodpile - waves.3. Woodpile - hut.4. Woodpile - face.5. The woodpile is part of the fence.6. Woodpile - face 2.7. Woodpile - garage.

8. Woodpile - slide.9. Woodpile - flowerpot. 10. Woodpile - window sill.

Source

Classic ways to stack woodpiles

You can see in the photos of various woodpiles for firewood what a classic woodpile looks like. Typically, people who regularly make a woodpile for storing firewood stack the firewood using the classic method.

The so-called “round timber” is stacked in the center, and chopped firewood is placed on the sides so that the structure is stable and does not get wet.

Stack. In this method, firewood is stacked parallel to each other in a woodpile. This method is not very preferable, since it does not have the best stability.

Cage. When folding using this method, each top layer of firewood is laid perpendicular to the bottom one. A woodpile of firewood folded in a cage is noticeably more stable than a stack due to its design.

Circular method. The chopped firewood is stacked in a ring shape.

Stacking firewood in a woodpile is not a simple matter, but a kind of art. So in Germany, people turned out to care where to store firewood.

German inhabitants came up with their own way of doing this. This method is called Holzhausen. The woodpile turns out to be in the shape of a kind of house.

The bottom line is that incorrectly chopped firewood that has an inappropriate shape is placed in the center.

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Using this method, the necessary air circulation is achieved and all the firewood is completely dry.

Just make sure that your yard is well protected, or that the holiday village in which your house is located has a completely prosperous contingent.

It will be unpleasant if your winter supplies are stolen. This method is notable for the fact that there will be a lot of ventilation for the firewood, and there will be fewer problems.

How to make a woodpile with your own hands

The simplest and most uncomplicated type of woodpile is a stack. We laid one row in one direction, maintaining spaces between the logs, and laid the next one in a perpendicular direction.

You can stack all the logs in one direction, also maintaining a distance between them for ventilation, but this design is unstable. In any case, the opposite ends of the stack must be reinforced with stakes to the full height of the woodpile.

To store a significant amount of harvested logs, there is another type of woodpile - round or stacked (it really resembles a haystack). Its main advantage is its compactness for large volumes of firewood.

We choose a well-ventilated, dry place and arrange a base of gravel or tree bark. The base will simultaneously serve as drainage.

Important! If you do not have experience laying a round woodpile, do not immediately try to set a record worthy of the Guinness Book of Records. Trying to immediately put together a very large round woodpile will result in an unpleasant need to redo everything.

Consider your first experience as the “first pancake” and try not to let it turn out lumpy. Whatever the outcome, one thing can be guaranteed for sure - it will be a very exciting activity!

On the base we arrange a cross of two stakes of equal length. The crosspiece will help us maintain the correct radius of the round woodpile. We lay out the first row of logs in a circle, end to end.

Leave it empty for now. After completion of the work, the empty center will serve as a kind of pipe, with the help of which good ventilation will be obtained. You can partially fill the center if you decide to stack a large woodpile. Then another row is laid out closer to the center, but the pipe is still preserved. However, we agreed to postpone the records for the future.

We lay the second layer in a perpendicular direction. We got a bias towards . In this circle, the logs touch their side surfaces. And so we continue to stack the logs, while trying to maintain a slope towards the center. You can periodically add logs in the same direction as the first circle.

By laying stakes crosswise at the same height, we will strengthen the woodpile. If the height of the structure is more than a meter and if there is an obvious excess of logs that cannot be stacked in this woodpile, you can start throwing them in any form into the empty center. In this case, ventilation will deteriorate quite slightly, because randomly thrown firewood will not impede air circulation. Firewood in the central structure will make the woodpile more stable.

We leave the flattest logs on the upper “floors” and lay them so that they form a domed roof. We will cover the roof with tree bark. This is enough to protect the firewood - tree bark is waterproof.

The advantages of laying logs in this way are obvious: they dry faster, the entire structure is stable, and much more logs can be stacked per unit area in this way. And what is important, the round woodpile has a very nice appearance. We don't care, do we?

As mentioned earlier, the main factors that must be observed when storing firewood are the absence of moisture and good ventilation. Therefore, the woodshed must be installed on a flat, dry area with drainage.

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It is correct to stack firewood in the woodshed according to the same principle as on the street. Pallets are pre-installed under it, only after that you can start stacking firewood. This way the bottom row will be ventilated. Instead of pallets, strong boards, bricks, logs or other suitable means are often used.

It is also important to take care of the integrity of the roof in the shed. If it leaks, then all the work will be in vain. The firewood will still get damp at the first rains and will have to dry for a long time. Damp wood is clearly not suitable for heating.

It is most convenient to place the woodshed close to the house, bathhouse or other outbuildings. This will reduce the time for building the premises and labor costs. If possible, make the woodshed open on one side. In a completely enclosed space, the firewood will not dry well, rotting may begin, and mold may appear. This happens for the same reason: humidity.

Please note: place the woodpile in the woodshed so that there are small gaps between the wood. This will significantly improve air circulation.

The simplest option for a woodshed is to extend part of the roof from a house or bathhouse. In this case, a through frame is used to secure the woodpile. The structure is completely open, so it is necessary that the firewood does not spill. If the overhang from the roof of the house is small, then it is enough to stack the firewood in the woodshed and secure the woodpile with supports on the sides.

Please note: you should not create woodpiles that are too high. Firstly, it is dangerous, a log can fall from above at any moment, and secondly, it will be inconvenient to get the next portion of fuel.

Thanks to the beautiful texture of the logs, you will get a beautiful decorative element for your personal plot, in addition to the fact that the firewood will be reliably protected from external influences. And being close to home will provide convenience - you won’t have to go somewhere far for the next armful of fuel in winter. At the same time, do not forget to leave small gaps so that air flows to the wall of the house.

The technique for making a homemade woodpile is simple, but it requires careful calculations and great care and vigilance.

The main thing is to pay enough attention to the first row of firewood, as it lays the foundation for the entire firewood pile. We will look at the construction of a hand-made firewood shed using the example of a round woodpile.

First, you need to correctly mark the circle in which the firewood will be laid out and fit it to the first row of firewood. The initial circle of firewood should be laid out in the shape of a chain so that their ends touch.

The second circle should be laid out a little differently. It should be perpendicular to your first circle of logs. This step is necessary to lay the basic shape of the firewood and provide our structure with solid stability.

Also, do not forget about the inside of our firewood, it should not be empty, so it should also be filled with firewood.

Once you have stacked your woodpile to about five feet in height, you can finish building the base and begin making the top. To do this, stack the firewood in the form of a mountain from the center to the edge.

That's it, your round woodpile is ready! You can use it throughout the winter season, and most importantly, it is very practical and does not require much time to make.

When choosing beautiful woodpiles like in the photo, you should consider not only the design and aesthetics, but also understand the solidity, strength, safety and fire safety of the structure.

Advice! A drawn drawing of a woodpile will not only simplify construction, but will also allow you to calculate the amount of building material.

Any owner of a house or summer cottage can master the creation of a simple wooden woodpile. To install the woodshed you will need the following materials and tools:

• meter board for cutting into crossbars (3 cm thick) 15 cm wide;
• three-meter board for the base (3 cm thick) 15 cm wide – 2 pcs.;
• one and a half meter board for sidewalls (3 cm thick) 15 cm wide – 4 pcs.;
• roulette;
• saw;
• hammer;
• screwdriver;
• self-tapping screws

We suggest you familiarize yourself with: Storage, kindling, humidity, splitting and drying of firewood

After preparing the materials, choose a suitable location for the future woodpile for firewood. It’s good if the woodcutter stands on a ready-made concrete foundation - this immediately eliminates site preparation. If there is no such thing on the site, then you can lay it out of cinder blocks or red brick, which, unlike white, is not so saturated with moisture.

When the base is ready, cut the meter board into 4 equal parts, which will serve as transverse elements of the structure. After this, 3-meter boards are placed down under the base of the woodpile, and one-and-a-half meter boards are placed vertically against them as side walls. All parts of the frame are fastened together with a screwdriver. The last to be applied and screwed are the 25-centimeter bars, finally connecting the firewood frame together.

If you plan to have a wider woodpile, you will need additional cross boards to strengthen the structure.

In order to protect firewood from precipitation, a homemade woodpile is covered with wave slate or a suitable sheet of corrugated sheeting.

Advice! Before you start using a wooden woodpile on your site, it is treated with a wood antiseptic, which provides protection against fungus, mold and insect activity.

To fold a round woodpile, you need to mark the diameter of the desired circle and drive a thick stick into the center.

Laying out the first row of firewood begins from the outer edge in a spiral, carefully aligning the starting circle, since the entire masonry will be aligned along it. It is necessary to ensure that the firewood is tilted towards the center of the circle to avoid destruction of the firewood after assembly. Moving in a circle, they lay out a well 50-60 cm high. It is tightly compacted with firewood, placing them vertically.

If the slope to the center of the circle cannot be achieved naturally, then transverse bars are laid at the level of the outer edge of the woodshed until the desired slope is formed.

When the well is full, make a second row in a circle 50-60 cm high. The resulting space is again filled with logs. The pattern is repeated until the masonry reaches 1.5 m in height.

Such an open-top woodpile requires a protective covering material from moisture. A durable film or steel sheet is suitable as protection.

Why arrange a place to store firewood?

This is probably more of a rhetorical question. But it is still worth mentioning the real reasons, except for the fact that firewood deteriorates in the open air.

• The first reason is waterlogging. Rain and dampness from the soil contribute to the appearance of mold and mildew on the surface of pieces of wood. Firewood rots, turning into garbage that doesn’t even really burn. Rotten branches and bark clog the flame, and the hearth begins to smoke. With such wood, heating or cooking in the oven and grill becomes impossible;
• The second reason is a drop in calorific value. The amount of heat that is released when burning wood directly depends on the type of wood, as well as its humidity, which reduces the calorific value. The moisture that evaporates from the structure of the logs goes into the atmosphere with part of the thermal energy. There is a significant drop in efficiency, and the cost of heating a country house increases, as does the amount of wood burned when frying meat or vegetables on the grill;
• The third reason is aesthetics. Landscape design and order at the dacha can be spoiled by several piles of sawn and chopped firewood, as well as garden trimmings, which are stored at the border of the site. Therefore, it is worth thinking about choosing the appropriate place and conditions for storing firewood.

Woodshed, woodshed, woodpile - the names of the standard place for storing and storing firewood in the country. Often, such a place is defined as a barn, a shed, or a stack near a wall. But not all conditions are suitable for this!

You need to start with the storage location; it should be convenient for the owner of the house and comply with the rules that will help the firewood last for several years without losing its quality and healthy aroma.

1. We must not forget that firewood will have to be taken in winter, when the yard is completely covered with snow, which means that the woodpile needs to be made not far from the entrance to the house or even along its wall.

2. To avoid problems with sawing and chopping firewood in winter, all this must be done in advance. If this condition is met, in cold weather you will just need to leave the house and collect the required amount of prepared firewood.

3. It is very important that the firewood is dry, and for this you need to provide a suitable structure, and if this is not possible, then stack the logs in a special way.

1. The firewood must be dry, which means that the woodpile must be protected from rain from above and from collecting moisture from below. Therefore, the base for laying firewood should be located on a hill to prevent storm or flood water from flowing under it, which will lead to wetting and rotting of the lower layers of the firewood stack.

2. The top of the woodpile should be under the roof, or the firewood should be stacked in such a way that water will flow along its top layer, folded like scales, and will not get inside the main mass of wood.

3. The entire structure of the woodpile must be well ventilated, so the firewood is stacked so that through gaps are formed between the logs, which will allow air to penetrate, drying the chopped wood.

Air gaps must be left between the firewood

4. You need to know how long it will take for the firewood to dry thoroughly. Wood harvested in winter dries much faster, about five to six months. It is not recommended to prepare firewood in spring and summer, since the wood will be of low quality and will have to dry for a long time - the time until complete drying can be from ten months to a year.

Warehousing and storage rules will depend on the location chosen for the woodpile.

• The best option would be to store firewood under a roof in a woodshed - there they will be in shelter and protected from all external negative influences - sun and precipitation.
• Whatever types of wood are stored, the brought logs must be sawed and split, but you should not rush to put them in the woodpile; it is better if they lie in the sun for a while and dry out.

Since it is better to harvest wood in winter, it is better to saw and chop logs for firewood in the spring. Over the summer they will dry well, and closer to autumn they can be put in a woodpile.

You need to know that if you stack raw firewood in rows, when it dries, the woodpile will shrink and simply fall apart.

• You cannot stack firewood on the ground, as it will absorb moisture from it. Therefore, trellises made of long and even, small-diameter trunks or metal pipes are first laid on the soil. The first row of chopped firewood is laid so that its ends lie on two trellises, and not on the ground, and are raised a few centimeters above it.

If the woodpile is located in a woodshed with a floor, then there is no need to lay anything under it.

• When planning to stack several rows of woodpiles, it is necessary to provide a small distance between them for air circulation. Each of them should be installed with a slight slope towards the previous one.
• When installing woodpiles in an open space, you will need to strengthen each of them with vertically installed pipes or thick fittings. For the base, trunks, pipes or bricks are laid on the soil for firewood, as mentioned above.

You can strengthen the woodpile with vertically driven pipes or fittings

In the latter case, firewood is stacked on the sides of the woodpile - one row along, the other across. Such a system will help make it more sustainable.

• The top of such a woodpile is covered with sheets of slate, metal or thick waterproof film, which will protect the firewood from rain and snow.
• Another way to stack firewood for storage is in the form of a stack. But it is not very popular in our country, except in some areas. Basically, woodpiles are laid in this way in rural areas of Germany, Sweden, Norway and other countries.

How to properly stack firewood in a woodpile

Proper stacking of firewood in tiers will ensure the dryness of the material and extend the shelf life. To stack a woodpile according to all the rules, you must take into account the following requirements:

1. Stacking involves dense parallel filling of woodpiles with firewood. Small gaps are acceptable for the purpose of ventilation of the material.
2. The bottom layer is laid from even and longest blocks.
3. It is undesirable to build a woodpile more than 2 m high - at such a height it is inconvenient to remove firewood. Recommended height 1.5 – 2 m.
4. You should not pile up a pile of firewood - excess weight can cause deformation of the entire structure.
5. When covering firewood in a woodpile with a tarp or film, you need to leave a free gap near the ground to ensure good ventilation.
6. In the absence of side walls, the outer logs are laid perpendicular to each other to ensure the stability of the structure.

Important! Be sure to line the bottom of the woodpile with bricks or pallets to avoid dampness - wood perfectly draws moisture from the ground.

Tags: firewood, woodpile, stacking

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