Need help building Wood Storage area.

[Biglurr54]

After two winters of walking in the mud twice a day to load the boiler I have decided to fix my wood storage area once and for all. Right now it is a gravel base with a small mount of top soil. Right now the top soil turns to mud where the water lines run to the house and when ever the temp gets warm. It also had a steep grade in the lower corner. Ever try to stack round logs on a hill.

My current plan is:
Scrape top soil off
back fill with bank run gravel to fix grade
lay landscaping fabric
put in 3 inches of crusher run

The area will be 42 ft by 10 ft. This will include the Boiler, room to plow with the 4 wheeler on either side of the boiler, 5 stacks of wood 4ft w x 8 ft l x 6 ft h. That is 7 1/2 cords of wood which is about what I used this winter in green wood.

Over the summer I am going to hopefully install 7k watt solar system over the wood pile as my cover. NYS will pay for half of a structures cost to support solar panels in residential setting.

Thats the plan. Let me know your thoughts on the pad construction because once its built it will be there for a long time so I would like to do it right.

 

[dave_dj1]

Sounds like a good plan. A couple of things you might want to keep in mind, depending on the grade change you may want to build some sort of retaining wall so your slab doesn't get undermined. I've seen a lot of woodsheds built to cover the OWB, you may want to check into that. I would also look into your buried pipe, it sounds to me like you have substantial heat loss if it's keeping the ground thawed and muddy all winter. If you fix that you could probably cut your wood consumption down quite a bit.
good luck,
dave

 

[cmsmoke]

You may want to consider laying down some insulation over those water lines. It could be done on the sub-grade under the pad. Crusher run will thaw and get somewhat sloppy the same as the topsoil, which you say, is part of your problem now.

 

[Biglurr54]

I was figuring that the landscape fabric would keep the crushed stone separate from the gravel. Its a 125 foot run to the house so that will be a lot of digging by hand. In a few years I plan on replacing the pipes with a better insulated pipe when I get an excavator to do my foundation on the house.

Im hoping the gravel with an appropriate grade will keep the water moving away as well.

 

[Biglurr54]

I thought about building over the boiler but I would like to keep it separate. I dont mind being out in the elements and if the boiler had a roof the smoke that billows out every time you open the door would get over whelming.

 

[Cheesecutter]

If code and $ permit I would pour concrete in front of the stove . I have a 6x6 pad in front of mine and a brick paved pad to put my wood on. No mud for me.

 

[Kevin in Ohio]

I wanted NO problems when I set mine up and this is what I did.

When I started they didn't have the premade feed lines for the boiler to house so ANY water around the pipes was a huge heat loss problem. EVEN with the new stuff I still do it the same though. I ran a 4 inch tile under all my lines and covered it with sand. Then laid smooth bore(HI Q) tile on top of that to run the feed lines through. I then covered that all up with sand to around 10 inches to the surface top soil. NO water problems and I can pull my feed lines with no digging if needed.

On the furnace house. Footer/foundation and Floor was a monolithic pour with rebar 16" on center. Three sides with concrete block so stacking against the walls is no problem. Concrete block used to keep termites and powder post beetles in check. Put rebar in every other core and filled all the cores with concrete. Cathedral trusses used so boiler can be lifted out, overhead if needed. End wall is stick framed in sections with screws so in about 3 hours it can be taken apart if furnace change is ever needed. Door is big enough to have a trucks tailgate inside the building, I use a cart that holds about a 1/4 of a cord to move to stack inside but wheels are a turnin' on rigging a conveyer if I find one for cheap. I'm dry, wood is dry and no Spidey whining from me.

Smoke inside the building is minimal with some common sense loading. It's not that hard to figure out your usage once your online. It is NOT rocket science.

Highest priority is to get the water away from your lines.

 

[Iska3]

Look up the member on here... Kevin in Ohio he had some great ideas. What every you do, do it right and you will only need to do it once.

 

[zogger]

Ta heck with some boiler, 7k solar system! Want to see pics of that when it is done! You specced it out yet?