Thoughts on storing wood vertically?

[glennschumann]

So, like many of you, I've acquired a fair amount of slabbed wood, but my cup runneth over. I've got a lot of it stored outside (under tarps and the like) but I also have a 1 car garage that I can dedicate to wood storage now that I've got a 2 car for the vehicles. Some of the wood has dried for 1 year/ inch, but some is not quite there (1 1/2" years for 2 1/2") It is mostly Hard Maple, Red Oak, Elm and a little bit of Walnut. Do you think it is reasonable to stand this stuff on end for the sake of getting more in the garage, or am I risking warping / other bad stuff? I see stuff at the wood stores all vertical, but it is likely to have been kiln dried already, and I'm not ready to have a kiln on my little city lot... yet. : )

Thoughts?

 

[huskyhank]

I think it'll be fine. I have some white oak I've dried standing on end and see no problems at all with it.

 

[smokinj]

I store up on end like that.

 

[mikeb1079]

interesting you should post this as i was in the same boat. i just built a lean to structure out back so that i could store my slabs vertically. fresh cut lumber will still get stacked horizontal but after 6 months to a year i figure they're dry enough to stack vertically. it's actually really nice to stack em vertically as you don't have to unstack a whole pile to get at the slab you want. you can just flip thru em like a deck of cards.

plus, from what i've noticed it seems like if the wood wants to move it'll do it within the first month or so during that initial drying stage. i'll try to post a pic when i get home tonight of my slabby shack...

 

[glennschumann]

Thanks for the feed back so far folk... much appreciated. Looking to hear more as the sun rises on our other friends around the globe. Yes, vertically stacked makes for great access, and given that I've made friends that are smarter than I am, I'm not thinking I can keep them around all day as I stack and unstack slabs with their assistance before they "Hear their spouse calling" when I'm looking for the right slab.

 

[JimmyT]

I usually stack around 5 cords of red oak on landscape timbers each season. When I have an excess of wood I stack it in a cone on a 45 degree angle and some of the billets are vertical. I have seen some old timers from Europe stack their wood in a eight foot circle filling the center as the stack and angling the top courses. It looks like a cylinder with a roof to shed the rain.

 

[Talltom]

Vertical storage works well for dry wood but there are a couple issues you need to consider. You want to keep the boards as vertical as possible. You can leaf through the boards like a book and easily take out the one you want, but how will you move the remaining ones back to vertical after you've taken out a few? Dividing the space into sections makes this much easier and makes the storage more adaptable to changes in the amount of wood you're storing. You'll need a high support to keep the end boards vertical at each end of the space anyway, so you might as well make one every 2-3 feet.

It's also difficult to dry the wood when stored vertically. Stickers stay in at the bottom but need something to hold them at the top (you need fewer stickers, though.) You also need to keep the boards away from the back wall to allow air circulation. Warp shouldn't be an issue for your wood that's mostly dry, but you'll eventually want them fully dry and this will take a very long time if they're stored tightly. If you can pull them out from the back wall, you can alternate boards leaning a degree or so in different directions like an M but this is not as stable as leaning them a degree or 2 in the same direction and using stickers. You can screw a sticker into the top of the board or drill holes through 2 stickers, tie them together and hang them over the top of the board, one set near the front and one set near the back.