How do I manage large amounts of firewood?

[gorman]

Leave it in logs until you have orders.

Ok but are you going to get the wood dry enough in log form before it’s split?

 

[jrider]

Leave it in logs until you have orders.

People on the east coast want seasoned wood.

 

[c5rulz]

We switched over to the big firewood bags. Firewood seasoned great this past year, no mess, stack on pallets. Customers are getting exact amounts of wood. For us this works pretty good. We always got some molding/wet wood with our piles as well. This solved that problem. No more handling the firewood either. Off the conveyor into the bag, then from the bag to the dump trailer. There is a cost with the bags but if you factor in all the time saved by not handling the wood it makes sense. We are reusing last years bags again this year, not sure if we will get three years out of them or not.

View attachment 617871 View attachment 617872 View attachment 617874 View attachment 617873 View attachment 617875

That is really efficient. Very nice.

How much are the bags?

 

[woodshax]

We use similar bags and they cost about $12.00 a piece. We drop them off where they are cutting and splitting (built a collapsible frame to keep the empty bag upright) and the guys with a conveyor just let the split wood drop into the bags. We skid them to trailers and then back home to to bag and bundle....We can get about 10 uses with each bag

 

[FlyingDutchman]

In the vineyard industry, we have lots of trouble with chilling harvested grapes in totes.

We take 6" pieces of vented drain tile and put them in the middle of the totes to help get airflow to more of the fruit so we can chill it faster and it helps prevent it from going through a heat, promoting fruit quality in the winery.

Go talk to your county road dept and get some old scrap pieces of steel road tube, a hole saw (although just having it a few inches off the ground might be all you need) and 3-4 steel fence posts to keep them stood up while piling against them. Should promote airflow in the pile and prevent the rotting. Should be free or cheap, doesn't matter if you smash them with the loader either... Weld some rerod to the top so you can pull it out of the pile with a fork tine.

Viola- air flow to the most critical area of the pile where rotting occours, for cheap or free.

 

[Hinerman]

I have never gotten mold or punky from piles of split wood.

However, unsplit is another story. I got behind on splitting this year and almost all my wood started getting punky. All of it was in rounds cut to 16" lengths. Some of it was stacked, some thrown in a pile, some in the shade, some in the sun. Live and learn.

 

[Hinerman]

That’s what I figured. So I basically need a large asphalt or concrete flat top with border blocks. This will mean I will need a way to screen it. On the upside I guess this will make it easier to load but I’m fed up with firewood.

LMAO, I don't know of a single tree service around here that does firewood. I get a lot of wood from them. Firewood is too much work and not enough money, especially in this area. You guys get a lot more money for firewood back east.

 

[Jakers]

.

Go talk to your county road dept and get some old scrap pieces of steel road tube, a hole saw (although just having it a few inches off the ground might be all you need) and 3-4 steel fence posts to keep them stood up while piling against them. Should promote airflow in the pile and prevent the rotting. Should be free or cheap, doesn't matter if you smash them with the loader either... Weld some rerod to the top so you can pull it out of the pile with a fork tine.

Viola- air flow to the most critical area of the pile where rotting occours, for cheap or free.

they use this method for the beet pilers around here. if the beets heat up too much they rot so they blow air in there to keep them a consistent temp

 

[Sandhill Crane]

I've had the same issues piling, and some even with stacking multiple rows tight together in racks as the center row stays wet due to lack of sun and good air flow.
I gave forty of these racks away this summer. One customer took eight, another three, and another took five, and another took ten.
I am now using the Posch Pack-Fix, a German pallet and netting system, made in Austria.
Northeast Implement in Spencer, New York is the Posch importer. I found them excellent to work with.
There are pluses and minuses to any system.

The pluses are: easy to use; easy to move wood; seasons very well due to small amount (loose thrown and wrapped with netting); which means no stacking; very consistent quantities; easy to cover if need be (We just had five weeks of rain. The individual pallets are covered and dry); the equipment is top of the line quality.

Minuses: takes room unlike a pile or tight stacking (four pallets to a stacked cord); need a delivery system like a skid steer or fork lift to unload at customers or hand unload, which is what I am currently doing. (1/4 cord, or pallet, of green Oak is about 1,450 pounds; seasoned Oak maybe 1,000 pounds... so a small tractor isn't going to lift it); requires a conveyor; up front initial expense of the Posch equipment itself.

Also, I work alone, but for optimal daily output a second person is needed as the online videos will show.
Google Posch and check it out.
If interested...come run mine.

 

[gorman]

In the vineyard industry, we have lots of trouble with chilling harvested grapes in totes.

We take 6" pieces of vented drain tile and put them in the middle of the totes to help get airflow to more of the fruit so we can chill it faster and it helps prevent it from going through a heat, promoting fruit quality in the winery.

Go talk to your county road dept and get some old scrap pieces of steel road tube, a hole saw (although just having it a few inches off the ground might be all you need) and 3-4 steel fence posts to keep them stood up while piling against them. Should promote airflow in the pile and prevent the rotting. Should be free or cheap, doesn't matter if you smash them with the loader either... Weld some rerod to the top so you can pull it out of the pile with a fork tine.

Viola- air flow to the most critical area of the pile where rotting occours, for cheap or free.

This seems like a good ideas. In the meantime I’m going to lower my price to 210 a cord and try to move more.

 

[brnchbrkr]

have seen pallets formed like an upside down V on the ground the length of the pile of wood through the center to promote circulation.

 

[lknchoppers]

I windrow mine. Piles average 8' high and about 12-14' long. Stored in a field with full sun and wind exposure and I get zero mold. I have seen other guys piles around me relatively the same size but not the sun exposure and its moldy in the middle.

I do wind rows as well. My piles are max 5ft high, No stacking labor either. I have seen guys with big piles try to rotate or mix it up and they just get the wood dirty. Depending on the conditions if it's dry and the ground is hard I can scoop most of it up carefully with my skid steer to load. I also hand load into the FEL sometimes. A concrete or asphalt pad would be ideal however to have an area that could hold 100 cords is cost prohibitive for me.

 

[Timbercreek]

Where are you out of cheif?
Im in westerly. Dunns corners to be exact.
Just picked up a dyna processor, so let me know if you fall behind on production.
My buddy has the same problem with logs, he says its a waste of time to handle logs, so he calls me whenever hes close by and i scoop em up. My outdoor boiler eats alot to heat this ol farmhouse.

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

Ok but are you going to get the wood dry enough in log form before it’s split?

I don't sell seasoned wood though a log sitting a year vs one cut last week will be quite a bit drier. If you have piles of wood that is molding and rotting I don't imagine it's seasoned?

Working on selling maybe 20 cords of seasoned wood for next year, plan to price at $375 vs $275 for regular wood.

I have about 2 acres of room for log decks, equipment, trucks, 2 processors, a sawmill, etc so don't have much room to make piles of wood, plus the less it's handled, the better.

 

[fordf150]

storing in log form works decent and produces relatively dry wood if done right. I stored my logs precut to 8' lengths, stacked on runners so even the bottom row of logs were a foot off the ground. store em out in the open where the sun is beating down on them and the wind can blow against the ends of the logs and in 6-8 months they will be at the very edge of acceptable for sale. they only dry out so much so dont try keeping a pile for 2 years and think it will be 14% because it wont.

 

[Marine5068]

I charge $180 a log load and each load has at least two cords.

That sounds about right. I pay $100 a cord of hardwood logs.

 

[gorman]

storing in log form works decent and produces relatively dry wood if done right. I stored my logs precut to 8' lengths, stacked on runners so even the bottom row of logs were a foot off the ground. store em out in the open where the sun is beating down on them and the wind can blow against the ends of the logs and in 6-8 months they will be at the very edge of acceptable for sale. they only dry out so much so dont try keeping a pile for 2 years and think it will be 14% because it wont.

This is how I’m going to have to do it I think.

 

[fordf150]

This is how I’m going to have to do it I think.

I forgot to add this little nugget. I only dealt with 16" and smaller logs with an occasional 18" thrown in, dont think my method would work nearly as well on stuff much larger than that

 

[lknchoppers]

This is how I’m going to have to do it I think.

My experience has been, if selling seasoned red oak, white oak or hickory I can tell you storing in log length up off the ground in the sun doesn't work well at all even with the 100* summer days we have in NC. Fresh splits will still be in the 30%-40% moisture content range. Split prior to a hot summer for descent seasoned firewood. Oak really takes two seasons to season correctly but when you sell firewood not many can wait that long to sell.

 

[fordf150]

My experience has been, if selling seasoned red oak, white oak or hickory I can tell you storing in log length up off the ground in the sun doesn't work well at all even with the 100* summer days we have in NC. Fresh splits will still be in the 30%-40% moisture content range. Split prior to a hot summer for descent seasoned firewood. Oak really takes two seasons to season correctly but when you sell firewood not many can wait that long to sell.

Oak is 2 seasons split and stacked to season in my experience. It'll rot before it dries to point of being usable if stored in logs.