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Firewood Racks

Bill Satko

Bill Satko

Member
Messages
3,220
Location
Methow Valley
Dang it, even though I said I was not going to be productive this weekend, I couldn't stop. I kept hearing my wife's voice in my head. The design is based on You Tuber Jon Peters' design. I still have to install some 2x2 on the posts. Have to wait until Monday to get the wood. Speaking of wood, I need to get 2 more cords delivered.

The wife is coming home this morning so I need to pickup the place a bit and also tidy myself up. I have a kind of mug shot look going right now.

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Back in the 70's I heated with wood. I built some racks that were very similar to yours. Yours are nice and neat and attractive.

A friend and I would buy an entire logging truck load of hardwood logs. They would deliver the logs on my friend's farm and he and I would cut them up and split them and share the wood. I had a LUV long bed pickup with overload springs and I carried load after load and stacked them in those racks. That winter it got down to 5 degrees twice and we had two blizzards come in off the ocean that dropped 18 inches and 19 inches. Burned a lot of wood that winter.

I sure would hate to have to do that work today. Truth is I couldn't if I wanted to.....
 
Mike Stafford said:
I sure would hate to have to do that work today. Truth is I couldn't if I wanted to.....
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Burning wood is my third means of heating house. We have also electrical (Convectair wall radiators and mini split system) and fuel oil (hot water boiler with hydronic wall radiators). Being kind of remote, it is best to have several ways to keep warm. My wood stove is a European model that takes smaller length logs. About 15" is max. I am not set up to either cut my own logs or split them. At least not on a cord scale. I have a chainsaw and a maul, but am content (?) to just adjust the rogue mis-sized wood. I just don't have energy to work that hard anymore. I would rather save it for play. :)
 
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Firewood is my MAIN source of heat and has been for many many years.

I have two cords waiting to be stacked that I bought 2 months ago.

Last year I bought 2 cords that will be burned in 23-24

I have about 2 cords ready to be burned this year.

I have storage room for 6 cords, plus some extra.

Love my woodstove and a bice warm fire in the winter.

I will be burning by end of October.
 
I miss the days when I cut my own firewood and heated with it. But, reality has a way of changing things. I would strongly advise (old men can get away with giving unsolicited advice ;) ) having a back-up source for heating your home. If yer in the hospital with a bad back, heart attack, etc. you don't want the wife and children to freeze. In our present home I have a propane gas heater that looks like a small Ben Franklin stove. When needed it keeps the house comfortable. Wouldn't be without it.
 
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Nice looking racks, Bill. Strong and simple. Will you cover the tops of your stacks against rain and snow? A variation of those could be handled with a pallet jack in my basement !

Shown is our 8 cords, brought in cut and split early last spring by an excellent supplier and piled to dry all summer in the heat and breezes. It’s mostly hard (sugar) maple, some beech and yellow birch and a small percentage of white birch. We normally burn about 6 cords, but we mis-managed the wood so badly last fall during the massive barn roofing job, that we were cold all winter. So I got extra and will try to get back to the desired position of having a year’s supply ahead.
Our handling system is very inefficient and we touch each stick at least six times before it gets in the furnace. Each year, while handling the wood, I invent in my mind, a labour saving procedure. But, here we are again and it’s not in place.
 
Never had to do much splitting of wood, except when I lived in CA and we bought a partial cord that I split in the Garage... (lots of gouges in the concrete floor), but as a kid after I got old enough it was always my job to bring in the wood for the fireplace.... then just before I was in my teens, on cold mornings, Dad would call for me to get up and light the fire.... by the time I was a teenager we lived in town and didn't use wood.

After I was married first time we bought a couple of houses that had fireplaces... the first one we discovered did not draw well and we had more smoke in the house than up the chimney, so it wasn't used... the house we lived in where I cut the wood in the garage had a nice fireplace, but how often do you need a fire in California?.. our last house in Houston had a nice fireplace, but it sat in the middle of the room between the living room and dining room and cleaning ashes out over carpet was just too much trouble and again how often would you need a fire in Houston?
 
Sure beats mine, just a couple of T posts on each end with barn tin thrown on top and a few logs on it to keep the wind from blowing it off.

I’ve got the neighbor bringing dry split wood this year again, but have another that has a pile of hackberry piled up from a tree that came down. My wife’s aunt/uncle just had a big dead elm taken down this week and asked me to come get it to burn, then the 8 or so trees we had taken down as well. I got firewood coming out my ears, but not complaining.
 
My wood splitting experience came in my pre-teen years. We lived in a house that had five fireplaces, although only two or three of them got regular use. Dad worked full time as well as keeping up with the small ranch we lived on, so most of the splitting and stacking duties fell on me. After that house, I didn't live anywhere with a fireplace until I bought my first house in LA, and it already had a gas log in it. Before I moved in, I vowed I'd take out the gas log and burn wood in it, but after just one evening with the gas log I decided there was no need to burn wood in it. The next house I owned in LA had a fireplace, and I installed a gas log in it right after we moved in. Our current house also has a fireplace. The previous owners burned a lot of wood, and it took us a couple of months to get the smoke smell out of the house. LOML made it clear that we weren't going to burn wood in it. Although there's a gas hookup in the fireplace, we don't spend enough time in the living room to warrant the expense of a gas log setup, so our fireplace is more of a decorative thing. Like a true city boy, I've even got an LED light in there that slowly changes color, lol.
 
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Peter Rideout said:
View attachment 122323
Nice looking racks, Bill. Strong and simple. Will you cover the tops of your stacks against rain and snow? A variation of those could be handled with a pallet jack in my basement !

Shown is our 8 cords, brought in cut and split early last spring by an excellent supplier and piled to dry all summer in the heat and breezes. It’s mostly hard (sugar) maple, some beech and yellow birch and a small percentage of white birch. We normally burn about 6 cords, but we mis-managed the wood so badly last fall during the massive barn roofing job, that we were cold all winter. So I got extra and will try to get back to the desired position of having a year’s supply ahead.
Our handling system is very inefficient and we touch each stick at least six times before it gets in the furnace. Each year, while handling the wood, I invent in my mind, a labour saving procedure. But, here we are again and it’s not in place.
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You call that a wood pile, Peter? That's not a wood pile; this is a wood pile.

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:p :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO:
 
I remember one year that I bought 2 cords of cordwood. That was 4 foot logs. They called it Swamp Maple. Some of it was 18-20 inches diameter.

I was splitting with a maul and wedges.

Not a single piece split easy. Every stinkin piece needed a wedge and still not easy - not at all.

Like splitting ELM - if I got that right.

That was some of my best firewood.
 
Peter Rideout said:
Will you cover the tops of your stacks against rain and snow?
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Although we don't get that much rain here and the snow we get is very dry, I would like to devise some sort of cover. The snow for the most part is easily just brushed away it is so dry, but if left in the sun will melt some and ice can form. We get a lot of sun here during the winter. I am rudimentary thinking of canvas or plastic tarp with loops or straps that would fit around the 4x4's. It would just slide down the posts as pile shrinks. It would be just enough to cover the top with maybe a foot over the sides. The idea is still percolating. Really leaning towards canvas as the sun really damages the plastic tarps and they then tend to tear. Don't think I will do anything this winter as I don't have time, too many other projects going on.

I am already thinking of modifications to the rack that I might incorporate in the future. One would be a 2x4 across the top of the three 4x4 at each end, tying them together. Others would be adding two 2x4's on the floor of the rack (too much of a gap between the 2x6 and 2x10) and replacing the 2x2's on the posts with 2x3's. He originally used 2x3's but I could only get 2x2's locally. Again the 2x2's create too much of a gap.

Not sure these racks will stay there in the future, but they will easily move empty with a fork attachment on a tractor. I installed them on concrete piers as I didn't have a tractor or other machinery to level the ground. Once I get a tractor, I will level a space for them and have them sit just on the graveled ground.
 
Mike Stafford said:
By the way, I enjoyed splitting wood but I hated stacking wood..

My wife wanted to try wood splitting so I het her give it a shot. She enjoyed it so much I bought her her own maul.

If you want to keep your wife happy don't buy her a vacuum cleaner; buy her a maul.:LOL:
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My wife hates vacuuming (I do it) and I am pretty sure if I tried giving her a maul, she would use it on me.
 
Mike Stafford said:
By the way, I enjoyed splitting wood but I hated stacking wood..

My wife wanted to try wood splitting so I let her give it a shot. She enjoyed it so much I bought her her own maul.

If you want to keep your wife happy don't buy her a vacuum cleaner; buy her a maul.:LOL:
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That may end being dangerous for you, in ancient times they used rolling pins to hit misbehaving husbands, and that was dangerous enough... :rofl:
 
Toni Ciuraneta said:
That may end being dangerous for you, in ancient times they used rolling pins to hit misbehaving husbands, and that was dangerous enough... :rofl:
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Toni, that was a long time ago when we were young. Neither of us are splitting wood these days. We don't even burn wood in the fireplace; we had gas logs installed.

And yes, giving a wife an instrument that might be used against you is not the best idea. It is best to not misbehave. :giggle: We have been married for over 49 years so I guess we are doing some things right.
 
I might have a problem. It is looking like I have more wood and than wood rack. The picture does not do justice to the size of the wood pile laying on the ground. It extends much deeper than the picture can convey. There is another space near the house that I fill (currently where the barbecue is sitting), but I am not sure if that will take it all. Oh well, better to have this problem than not enough firewood. This load is a mixture of Doug Fir and Tamarack.

Those with eagle eyes and nothing to do all day but closely examine pictures on the forum will notice that I installed cross member tying the three 4x4 together at each end. It was a needed modification. Thinking of getting canvas to cover the top of the racks. May need to add longitudinal members at the top to support the canvas on the rack that I will pull firewood from. I only anticipate drawing down one rack this winter, but we will see.

Oh yes, if the picture appears hazy, that is due to wildfire smoke. The winds shifted and we had some high winds that brought the smoke in a couple of nights ago.

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