How much firewood do you keep just outside your house, and how do you keep it dry?

[kentuckydiesel]

I've seen the thread about firewood storage where everyone posted pictures of their barns...but this is a bit different.

My wood shed is a good 150yards from my house (an old carriage shed I think), and is inside a barn lot where we let our horses roam, so I tend to bring a few days worth of wood to the house at any given time rather than run back and fourth every night. I currently have plastic over this "immediate use" stack, but would rather have a small shed or box so I wasn't always making sure the plastic doesn't blow away.

How many days worth of wood do you guys keep outside your house, and how do you store it?

Thanks,
Phillip

 

[johncinco]

I have a lil shed, 20" deep, by 7' high by 14' long. I keep my immediate wood to burn in there, usually lasts 3 weeks or so at least. It serves a more important purpose however, my hot tub is located under my deck on one side of the "shed" and the road and neighbor is on the other side of it. I can scurry from the house to the hot tub without skivvies on and no one will catch an eyeful. :devil: I don't have to try and put frozen clothes back on either after a nice soak.

 

[darkbyrd]

2 pallets right off the porch, poorly stacked, with one of those nice grey/brown tarps to pull over it on rainy days. Can get about 2 tractor-grapple loads on it, usually keep a mix of woods (pine through to locust) on hand. Top it off when the ground is dry and can get to the woodpile without making too much of a mess. Probably last me 1.5-2 weeks if I let it get empty.

 

[kodiak]

Our main wood pile is a couple hundred feet from the house. I use a 4'x6' trailer tightly stacked at about 2'-3' feet high. The trailer gets parked under the 8' overhang on the side of our garage normally or if it's really cold and blowing it gets parked inside the garage. That trailer will last 5-8 days depending on temps.

 

[Chud]

I keep about a cord in racks outside my front door since it's the shortest distance to the box. The wood is covered with woodpile tarps that I secure with scrap pieces of wood.

 

[howard270]

With this newly purchased house, we have what I call the dog room. It is roughly a 14 foot by 14 foot sun room with a tile floor and a doggy door and a 36" exterior door. It is just off the living room where the fireplace insert is and dining room. I load my garden cart full of wood (1/2 hedge and 1/2 elm) and pull it into this room. If I load up the garden cart it will last me a week and a half of average winter temps for here. If it is cold it will last just over a week. I also have heavy duty cardboard boxes in the living room on each side of the fireplace (about 6 feet each side away from insert) and they are full of short splits of hedge and black locust. These boxes have enough wood to last me 3 days by themselves.

The house I lived in last year I did the same thing but had to use the garage for the cart and made sure it was full before any storm ever came through cause I had to take the cart in and out of the garage door. Had a large cardboard box that a rolling island came in inside the house and it held enough wood for 3 days as well.

What I like about the boxes is that when empty I just dump all the bark and dirt outside and refill.

 

[spike60]

My woodshed is only a short 40' walk from the house, so I just flip on the light and go out and grab what I need. I usually only bring in what I need for the night. Big storm coming, and I'll bring in a liitle more.

I do also have a facecord rack on the back deck. Yeah, it's just outside the door, but in wet weather it's a lot easier to just walk to the woodshed than uncover and then recover the wood rack.

 

[zogger]

We have just stacks, then three days worth inside the house on the wall behind the stove. We keep that topped off based on demand and usage, and rotate the oldest in the house goes into the stove next.

I don't really have an intermediary place besides that. We have a porch, but it has dogs and my stuff there

At another place, I did keep wood on the porch, had an exact seven day amount, just worked out that way by the studs holding up the porch roof. That worked well, from the stacks to there, then into the house a few days at a time for final behind the stove heating. Was some days in midwinter it was really nice, didn't have to go outside or off the porch at all. Not digging on 25 below if there isn't a dang good reason to be out in that.

 

[ratso]

I keep a wheelbarrow close to the stove.I have about 1cord in the woodroom.Then I have a shed with 8cord about 100 feet away

 

[branchbuzzer]

With this newly purchased house, we have what I call the dog room. It is roughly a 14 foot by 14 foot sun room with a tile floor and a doggy door and a 36" exterior door. It is just off the living room where the fireplace insert is and dining room. I load my garden cart full of wood (1/2 hedge and 1/2 elm) and pull it into this room. If I load up the garden cart it will last me a week and a half of average winter temps for here. If it is cold it will last just over a week. I also have heavy duty cardboard boxes in the living room on each side of the fireplace (about 6 feet each side away from insert) and they are full of short splits of hedge and black locust. These boxes have enough wood to last me 3 days by themselves.

The house I lived in last year I did the same thing but had to use the garage for the cart and made sure it was full before any storm ever came through cause I had to take the cart in and out of the garage door. Had a large cardboard box that a rolling island came in inside the house and it held enough wood for 3 days as well.

What I like about the boxes is that when empty I just dump all the bark and dirt outside and refill.

Just a couple things that might improve your current set-up. You could try metal roofing to cover your stack instead of plastic, it tends to get caught by the wind less and doesn't get folded up ( look for someone tearing an old building down to get it used and cheaper)

You could stack more in the dog room. Put a large heavy mil sheet of plastic on the floor and stack on it. When the wood is gone, roll up the sheet and dump all the crumbs and bark outside, similar to your boxes.

 

[zogger]

Just a couple things that might improve your current set-up. You could try metal roofing to cover your stack instead of plastic, it tends to get caught by the wind less and doesn't get folded up ( look for someone tearing an old building down to get it used and cheaper)

You could stack more in the dog room. Put a large heavy mil sheet of plastic on the floor and stack on it. When the wood is gone, roll up the sheet and dump all the crumbs and bark outside, similar to your boxes.

In normal conditions, metal roofing is better, in high winds, it turns into potentially flying death.

Seen it twice now on this farm the past year and change. My opinion, metal roofing needs to be screwed down hard to roofs, and not let sit just with some weight on it. You get even small tornadoes or straight line winds in excess of 80-90 MPH, that stuff can take off and go who knows where. If you have enough weight on it to hold it down, you might as well just build a permanent shed or rack with some pressure treated or cedar posts and beams and screw it down properly.

Just my opinion. I used it a little and switched back to plastic to cover the tops of the stacks. I am not that worried about flying plastic, should we get hit again with magnum winds.

And this weather the past few years is slap nuts. There is no "normal" weather any more, not where I live. We are getting extremes. Heck, it is January 11 and it is like wet spring outside here, flowers coming out, frogs croaking in the puddles, etc. then cold fronts come in, you get tornadoes and high winds. An acquaintance of mine made the national news a few weeks back when he and his family got blown out into the yard, house demolished around them, and they lived through it, no injuries.

I talked to him again last week, he is seriously considering a full reinforced basement before they rebuild, for a storm shelter. And if I had the resources, I would do that as well myself, I am beyond spooked when it comes to big winds now.

(basements are not near as common down here as they are up north)

 

[kentuckydiesel]

I think I'm gonna build a 10'-12' long wood rack with a 30" or so wide metal roof on it. Have any of you had experience with a roof directly above the wood? Does it usually keep things dry enough or is it really important to cover the sides too? I would have one side shielded by shrubs, the other with a big smokehouse about 15' away, so it shouldn't get too much wind/rain from the sides.

-Phillip

 

[Mntn Man]

Stacked wood really doesn't get wet in the middle of the pile. The top few layers do but no big deal. Snow on the stack can be a PITA, but I deal with it. I keep about a half cord in the stove room in the basement. A couple of days in there and everything is nice and dry. I keep about 8 cords just steps from the window, uncovered on plastic pallets. I believe that rain doesn't really contribute to overall moisture if it isn't monsoon season.

 

[gtsawyer]

Our insert is in the finished basement. I keep the "close" wood in the stairwell, just outside the basement door, stacked along one side. There is enough room to easily walk next to the stack, so the stairs are still usable. There's enough room to keep about 1/4 cord, which lasts... well as long as it lasts (I'm not very consistent on how often I burn). An added bonus, is that I can easily dump multiple wheelbarrows of wood into the stairwell before stacking it along one side.

The attached photo shows about 8 barrows full of wood, dumped in the stairwell just before being stacked along the right side.

View attachment 216833

 

[deerjackie]

28 ft livestock[covered] backed up to door of house. Gimme 3 steps to 3 cord

 

[daleeper]

I'm watching with interest, as I have a small rack in our basement that keeps about one week of wood, the rest is in a shed quite a ways away, I bring a weeks worth up in the pickup or loader bucket. I would like to store more just outside the basement door, but I really don't want to deal with tarps/plastic, as they have always blown off just when you need them.

 

[SS396driver]

2 cord cut and stacked on my padio on pallets about 8 ft from the kitchen door . 5 cord in my driveway on pallets about 30 ft from same door. Covered with canvas tarps to keep dry I get the canvas from a friend who does awnings and boats.

 

[whatscooking]

My wood shed is about fifty yards from the front door. I used tarp straps to secure a rectangular plastic trash can with a lid on it to a hand cart. The trip to the house is down hill so that works good, about two days of heat is kept dry and close to the stove.

 

[stumpy75]

My main woodshed is about 150 feet from the house, so I keep a face cord(1/3 of a full cord:wink2 near the back door...

View attachment 216903

 

[Milkweed Seed]

I keep a hoop on the front porch and use cutoffs of rubber roofing to cover it and my stack in the back. Kind of a pain in the ass, cause I have to fill the hoop just about everyday when it's really cold out. I made a patio with pavers 18' x10' to stack my wood on in the back yard.