Winters Supply of Firewood.....

Nice work! I put up 6 cords last year, but none this year, were behind the curve big time this year, so next season will have to buy seasoned wood to get caught back up!

 

If it wasn't for the fact that I'm three states away as well as lazy and useless I'd give you a hand with that...

 

I got side lined big time with family issues, and figured I have enough for this winter if we go easy on it, and so next year, I gotta get seasoned to make up for the loss of a good season just to get caught up, so next year, I will have to get two log trucks in and maybe hire some cousins or teenagers to come help split and stack! LOL

 

Beautiful sight, a shed full of wood drying away. For those of you just starting in this wood thing, the wood is only half of the show. While preparing it has a lot of things that can be dangerous, sharp noisy machines, falling trees, etc, please be sure to clean, repair, check and improve your stove and chimney. It does no good to have a woodshed full of wood if you burn down the house or die of carbon monoxide due to a bad stove, stove pipe or chimney. In my humble opinion a half as*** preparation that may work or may not or may kill you is perhaps worse than no preps at all as it gives you a false sense of security. For most of us I think a good stove, chimney, wood storage, and at least a years supply of wood is more of a survival asset than a good night sight for our battle rifle and would cost about the same. Would love to have both, but sitting with the wife and dog in a well heated living room last January, enjoying my 10 th or so year of use out of my good wood stove and chimney and having a tank of fuel oil last 7 years, has kind of warped my priorities.

 

It's cool to see pictures of how some people live....especially in areas off the beaten path. Thanks for sharing, @BTPost !

 

I wish I could find a couple of 14 yr-old assistants even to just split the stuff... I am in the throws of building a Hoop House to store wood plus I guess I will have to store some in the garage this year, don't actually like that idea but have had a couple of cords split and drying all summer and do not want them wet. The green stuff goes in the Hoop House. I got wood stacked all over the place right now and need to get it inside soonest. Here are a couple of photos...

My 'Proof of Concept' and 'Work in Progress' Hoop House which will be a wood house. It's 10' X 16'. I'm sort of learning from experience with this one as need to build the wife's Green House next Spring. I just got the hoops up yesterday and should get the hip boards and etc. done today...I hope if I quite screwing off here and get to it. :

A photo of the one of the seasoned (dried) piles I have around the place (noticed the old hydraulic wood splitter which has become my best friend! ).

And, one of the green piles still in rounds...

The plan is to build a new garage next year with 12 foot lean-to's on each side for wood but until then I guess I will have to make do by putting some in garage, in the hoop house and simply stacking the rounds outside under tarps and sheets of roofing. I only got my woodstove installed this Spring so still in transition to make this functional and practical.

 

We have a cord left from last year. We start cutting wood september 1st. Got to do 5 cord this year.

 

@BTPost BTW I am green with envy for your A-Frame Rhino! That is exactly what I need to get the logs out so that I can get them cut up instead of cutting them into rounds and having to carrying them out by hand or wheel barrel. Sweet!

 

Nice to have youngsters around for that...

Got mine ready to go...3 cords will last about 5 years here. More than that would just be feeding the bugs

 

A different approach is to build a tracked cat like I did. You can get snow mobile tracks and drive sprockets and use what ever you want for power. I used a Wrecked Yamaha 400 cc from a quad ( with reverse) and a John Deere Gator rear end for the final drive, just used a #10 farm chain and sprockets to hook the Yamaha up to the diff and she runs great and the brakes are the steering and braking! Total investment was just a fuzz over $2500 and is the same size a Cushman Trackster, but with twice the usable power, and cargo area. I can carry 1/3 cord of wood, and tow a small yard trailer that can haul 1/2 cord, and do it any time of the year even with snow on the ground! Here is an Idea of what I'm talking about, and using this as a basis of the design and build your own! I strongly recommend differential steering , you will not have issues with reverse steering and better power transfer too! The video tracked rig has 126 inch tracks, you can get them up to 179 inch, or buy an extra and have GoodYear tire and rubber "strech" them to what ever length you wish! I use Camoplast commercial tracks which come at 163 inch length BUT they are 24 inches wide and a long wearing compound! I bought one extra and had them stretched to 240 inches. The seams are rated to the same shear rating as the rest of the track and you cannot even tell where they were stretched! Cost $400 total to have them stretched!!!

 

@ghrit "...but me thinks better to move wet wood than carry insect homes into the garage for dry storage."
I am thinking more and more that you are right. I do keep a box of wood in the garage for the ghetto BBQ but really think it's a bad idea to put a full cord in there. I think I will stick all the split wood (that's is seasoned/dried) in the Hoop house and stack and cover the rounds with tarps, plastic and maybe some cheap metal roofing. Better to do that than get a bug problem in the garage...yeah, think that is what I will do. Thanks!

 

If you get Ceder, save your saw dust and trimmings and toss that around your wood pile! Bugs don't like Ceder and will keep out of your fire wood!

 

Love the little twin track go cart.

 

If you have a hoop house you can throw a bug fogger in every couple of months to kill off the bugs... and it's not cost prohibitive...

 

I thought a covered wood pile was a baffle for generator exhaust ??

 

I heat exclusively with wood and thankfully most of my wood comes from right here on the property. But it has to be felled, limbed, bucked up, split and stacked. Definitely not a free lunch, but it feels good to just pay for gas and oil and sweat equity. Although the older I get there's the further price of a creaky body.

I store most of it behind the shop in a covered rack and a couple of other tarp'd racks. I keep enough for about a week next to the stove. Otherwise none of it touches a structure.