Playing With Your Wood! Part 1.

After hearing enough jokes about it, I finally gave in and chose that title.

Firewood is used by many homes in colder climates to offset heating costs.

Many people in colder climates turn to wood heat in the winter months.  It’s a great way to offset other heating costs, and is used especially in rural homes.  If you use a wood stove, fireplace, or wood boiler, you’re going to need to know how to stack wood efficiently, safely, and correctly.  Here’s how I do it:

Before we even begin, make sure you have gloves and steel toe boots on when you’re stacking wood.  Don’t believe me?  Pick up a big piece of firewood, and imagine dropping it onto your toe from 4 feet.  Now go put your steel toe boots on.

Let’s start by taking a look at the overall construction of a woodpile.  I like to stack wood on used shipping pallets.  They’re sturdy, large, and you should be able to get them for free.  Food for thought, you can stack wood on individual pallets, shrink wrap it, and move it with a tractor or fork lift when you need to!

Anyway, pay special attention to the orientation of the firewood.  Stacking the firewood using the tips in the descriptions of these pictures will make things more stable and efficient.

The angle of the wood on the outside rows makes the pile more stable. It is also possible to make the pile wider as you go up.

It may sound corny, but the old saying "enough space for a mouse to run through, but not enough space for the cat to chase it" is right on the money.

This pile has about a cord and a half of wood in it. It's sitting on 3 standard 40"x48" shipping pallets.

That’s how I make my piles stay put and minimize their footprint.  If you want more details about how to move the wood, and how to actually build the pile, click through the gallery!

See you next time!