Setting Up My Wood Lot

[DirtDawg]

Hi All! I've been lurking the forums here for a while and really enjoy all the information and years of woodcutting wisdom this site has to offer. I also know the value of learning from others mistakes so I can avoid making them myself so I figured it would be a good idea to get some input. Here's my situation.

I have a small landscaping operation and have been slowly moving more and more into the firewood business. As I already have the dump trailer, saws, and logsplitter, and love cutting wood, it seems like a logical option for a supplemental source of income. This past fall I was given the use of a fenced in lot in a small industrial park. The ground is dirt (currently mud and slush) and pretty uneven, but its fenced in which is a huge plus.

I began dropping logs off and cut and split a few cords before the snow, but now that spring is here I'm ready to get an efficient firewood setup there. I experimented with stacking and throwing wood into piles (and have read the threads on here about it). The cords that I stacked on pallets and covered with tarps, when inspected this past week, showed some black mold or mildew. I ripped the tarp off and threw all the wood into the big pile with the logic that the wood will dry and the mold or whatever will die off (not sure if that was stupid of me).

Piling seems to be the easier method as I am only one guy, don't have a skidsteer or tractor (although hopefully within the year) but I am worried about mold, and the wood not drying out properly/ fast enough. Also because I have a lot of red oak currently. I'd prefer to pile, as its quicker and easier, but want to make sure the wood is properly dried. The firewood is piled on dirt right now. Should I continue throwing piles or should I get some more pallets and get stacking? Is piling wood in the dirt uncovered like I have been okay? I want to make sure my customers are getting good quality well dried wood and don't want the wood getting moldy or being wet to burn.

What should I do? How can I make sure my wood gets properly dried out without sacrificing tremendous efficiency or spending a lot? I will post pics of the lot tomorrow to give you guys an idea what I'm working with and hopefully get some more detailed input. Thanks for the help guys!

 

[Poindexter]

The keys for me locally, and seem to be for lots of folks in other areas are to get the splits off the ground and covered on top.

Folks in locales that have lots of wind to go with whatever for rain have to do side protection that blocks rain but allows good airflow.

Really its all about airflow, keeping ground water off and rain off.

What if you build whatever economically sized shed or tent for seasoning, sell a bunch of green wood for easy money, and then offer whatever you can season for sale come January when you got dry wood and the price for seasoned cord wood is high?

Lots of folks here are seasoning red oak for two years. Sure wish I could get some, the king of my wood pile is birch at a lousy 20M BTU per cord.

Best wishes.

 

[pennsywoodburnr]

I also read on here about a guy that would occasionally turn over his pile of wood to make sure the stuff in the middle and on the bottom would get hit with enough air and sun. it'd be nice if you had a large slab of asphalt to dump everything on. What's the size of this fenced in area? I was just thinking it might be more feasible to lay all the split logs on top of coarse gravel or something that would help with water drainage.

 

[Whitespider]

Storing wood directly on the ground will likely be a problem... pretty sure all but maybe one or two here will agree with that.
I've never had any luck storing it in piles (on concrete), the buried splits just never seem to dry... a few here say it works just fine.
Stacking works best for most of us, but there is some disagreement on if it should be stacked in single rows, double rows, triple rows, etc... for me, triple rows (or more) have been like the pile, the center rows don't season.
To cover, or not to cover, that is the question. Or more correctly the never-ending argum... err... discussion here. There's three main schools of thought on that...

• You have your "roof" (woodshed) group... most of them have open, or semi-open sides for ventilation.
• You have your "tarp" (or similar such) group... most of them cover the top only, leaving the sides open for ventilation.
• And you have your "screw that" group (which includes me)... most of us agree that an open location, with maximum sun and wind exposure is best.

Of course there's multiple variations on those three themes. For example, some of the "roof" guys use an old barn, some of the "tarp" guys use corrugated steel set up on spacers, and some of the "screw that" guys cover what they plan to use just before crappy weather sets in.
(shrug)
So if we took a vote...

1. Keeping the wood away from contact with the ground would win by an overwhelming majority.
2. Stacks, rather than piles, would win hands down... but may not be an "overwhelming" win.
3. "Roof", "tarp", or "screw that"?? My guess is it would be darn close to an equal split."Sheds" are darn popular, "tarps" can blow of and such... depending on your local weather, stacked uncovered, in the open, may give you your fastest seasoning... maybe.

 

[Ronaldo]

Storing wood directly on the ground will likely be a problem... pretty sure all but maybe one or two here will agree with that.
I've never had any luck storing it in piles (on concrete), the buried splits just never seem to dry... a few here say it works just fine.
Stacking works best for most of us, but there is some disagreement on if it should be stacked in single rows, double rows, triple rows, etc... for me, triple rows (or more) have been like the pile, the center rows don't season.
To cover, or not to cover, that is the question. Or more correctly the never-ending argum... err... discussion here. There's three main schools of thought on that...

• You have your "roof" (woodshed) group... most of them have open, or semi-open sides for ventilation.
• You have your "tarp" (or similar such) group... most of them cover the top only, leaving the sides open for ventilation.
• And you have your "screw that" group (which includes me)... most of us agree that an open location, with maximum sun and wind exposure is best.

Of course there's multiple variations on those three themes. For example, some of the "roof" guys use an old barn, some of the "tarp" guys use corrugated steel set up on spacers, and some of the "screw that" guys cover what they plan to use just before crappy weather sets in.
(shrug)
So if we took a vote...

1. Keeping the wood away from contact with the ground would win by an overwhelming majority.
2. Stacks, rather than piles, would win hands down... but may not be an "overwhelming" win.
3. "Roof", "tarp", or "screw that"?? My guess is it would be darn close to an equal split."Sheds" are darn popular, "tarps" can blow of and such... depending on your local weather, stacked uncovered, in the open, may give you your fastest seasoning... maybe.

Very well said. That about covers it.

 

[jrider]

I've been selling wood for 18 years now and I don't stack anything I sell. It just takes too much time for my liking. I windrow it and have had good results - I have a bunch of customers who have been with me for years and I get more references every year. As stated above by spider, an open location with lots of wind and sun are ideal. I have found though, if you are going to try the windrow method if the sun is shining it better be on your pile. Even a reduction of a few hours a day worth of sunlight will make a difference and not a good one. The direction you run your piles also matters. I have best results with stacks that run almost perfectly north/south. East/west didn't dry as well. Your climate is different than mine as I live in south Jersey so this may not work for you but I would suggest trying a few methods until you perfect it for your setup.

 

[philoshop]

Welcome to AS, Dirtdawg!

 

[zogger]

Anything you can get down on that mud first so the thrown pile of wood is out of the dirt will help.


I am using old railroad ties with pallets on them, but just the ties would help a lot, leave some air space, enough so it can't fill up with wood, and heap on over them maybe.

To me, it is better to have one cord of good wood up in the air properly drying/dried over two cords laying in the mud rotting out and not drying very well. You will also build a good customer base with better quality wood over the years. Once people start burning actual for-real dried wood like two year old oak, they won't be satisfied with the beer money hacks two month old still half wet wood.

 

[mainewoods]

Obviously you will get dryer wood stacking it off the ground, and dry wood brings premium prices. Wood "seasoned" for at least 6 months is what most sellers offer. I have never seen a wood dealer with stacked wood, it's always piled and windrowed as jrider stated. a lot of time is involved with stacking large quantities of wood. Oak needs time- lots of time, and would be better to sell next year. If you sell 6-8 month piled red oak as seasoned, there is a good chance the buyer is going to be unhappy when he burns it. If time isn't an issue, then stacking is the way to go.

 

[mainewoods]

With the winter we are having, I am not surprised there is some mold on covered green wood.

 

[cat-face timber]

I agree with Spidey,

Off the Ground...

Also, if you could get a helper he/she could be stacking while you keep bringing it in and bucking/splitting.

I would love that job!!

I use pallets to stack all wood on, and cover my wood during late fall/winter with tarps.
By the time I cover my wood is dry.
BUT... we have like 6% humidity here, so not much mold grows on the wood I have split and stacked.

 

[Poindexter]

One idea while you are thinking - move your splitter around and pile your fresh splits on the chips and bark bits you made last week under the splitter.

 

[Dirtboy]

Welcome DirtDawg, looks like we are kind of neighbors. Like others said, score yourself as many pallets as you can. Red oak especially needs to dry for a couple of years before its primo. Keep it in the wind & sun and cover the top only with plastic or a tarp. If your not looking to keep an inventory because of space considerations, advertise and sell the wood as green, folks that try to keep ahead would gladly buy green oak and let it dry in their own yard. That is some seriously good BTU's.

 

[jwade]

as far as i am concerned stacking is handling is just an unneeded step in the process, in an already labor intensive process. as said above if you can get it off the ground, keep it uncovered so it can breathe until nearly ready to sell or burn is the only way to go. this has always worked well for me, even with oak in the humidity of central virginia. i would guess that with the lower humidity and breeze in new york the wood would dry fine stacked and uncovered until shortly before the rain in the fall.

 

[DirtDawg]

Thank you everyone for the replys! I've found all of them very helpful and gave them some thought when I was there today. I snapped some pictures today I'll post up later, gotta meet my dad for dinner in a little bit. The pics are on my tablet and will hopefully give you guys a better idea of what I'm working with. I pulled my dump trailer out today and really made a mess in the mud. Its starting to rot underneath already and is less than a year old! Gotta get some gravel under that asap.

As far as the wood seasoning, I think I'll stack whats in the piles just to get it off the ground, and set the red oak aside and stack it separately so I can let it season for longer. I'm going to try to pick up more pallets and create some 4' x 4' stacks along the fence lines on both sides of the lot going north to south so the stacks get sun on the sides. If I add additional rows which more than likely I will, I'll leave walking space in between them which will also allow for air and sunlight to get in between the stacks. Not sure how I'm going to go about covering them yet if at all, but I'll figure that part out after they get hit with some dry summer weather (hopefully). I figure I can fit 10 cords along the fence on the left side of the lot, and maybe 12 along the right side. Its a metal fence so it will not block the air or sunlight at all. If I do too lines of stacks going down both sides of the lot, I should be able to fit 44 cords minimum, perhaps 60 if I add another 4x4 row too the longer side of the fence. This will hopefully make more sense once I get some pictures up. My goal is to get moving 100 cord a year but I think it will be a couple years before I see that happening. I'm really all about doing things the right way, getting top dollar (because doing things the right way usually requires greater expenses, time, and effort), and getting good systems in place.

For now I'll keep splitting into piles trying to clean everything I already have cut up out of the way and stack it all later. In the future, I'll probably try to go straight from the splitter to the stack to save a step. I can drag the log lengths and the splitter with my truck over near where it will be stacked and try to make things easier for myself that way. I work solo for the most part as I like to do things legitimately and on the books, and in NYS thats very very expensive. Its also nice peace of mind, not worrying about what anyone else is doing, just playin with saws and chopping wood. I'll get some pics up soon!

Philiosoph: Thank you for the welcome, I feel at home already!

Dirtboy: Where upstate are you? I'm just outside the Albany area.

All your feedback is more than welcome and very much appreciated! Happy Spring everyone!

 

[GeeVee]

Ok Dawg, You're doin good. 6 posts and nobody's pissed off at you.

But here's the test-

Define: Cord of Firewood.

 

[cat-face timber]

I am not Dawg.. but a cord of wood is when you wrap a piece of cord around a stick..

DUH.. everybody knows that!

 

[DirtDawg]

^ lol.

the only cord I use is the one that plugs in my electric chainsaw...


...ha just kidding.

 

[philoshop]

I wish you all the best in your endeavors, friend!
To add to Whitespider's list above, and many/most on here would agree:
Firewooding is a poor man's business.
A little on the side is cool and will get ya some boxes o' beer in a pinch, and keep you playing with the toys, but you'll be way ahead at the end if you put that time, money, and energy into your real job.

 

[Oliver1655]

Are you working with logs or mainly smaller cut pieces. Do you have a tractor/skid steer with loader? If working with logs & have a loader, you might want to check out the log bucking trailer.
http://www.arboristsite.com/community/threads/oklahoma-ar-mo-ks-tx-gtg.158438/page-1199
Here it is in use at Hedge's charity cut.
http://www.arboristsite.com/community/threads/oklahoma-ar-mo-ks-tx-gtg.158438/page-1213

This will save your back big time by greatly limiting your need to bend & lift while cutting/splitting. System is simple:
- Loader sets log on bucking rack.
- Cut logs up.
- Rounds land on inclined expanded metal ramp which diverts rounds to the opposite side of the saw operator on to the catch tray.
- Have the splitter staged next to the log bucking trailer. If you have a log lift have the log lift to where it is right next to the catch tray of the bucking stand then you can just roll the larger rounds on to the lift. If no lift, build a ramp/staging table to go between the catch tray & the splitter.

One saw operator with someone feeding them logs can keep 3 splitting crews supplied with rounds.