Building a firewood store: part 2

Picking up from part 1, which ended with the firewood store at this stage:

The next job was to put some cross beams on top of the stakes, but first we had to peel them:

This actually makes quite a mess, so we decided we'd peel the roof slats at the wood before bringing them home.

Anyway, after peeling, the chestnut cross beams were a really nice white colour, though that quickly fades.

The cross beams were then drilled and nailed onto the stakes, ready to hold up the roof slats.

Here's a pile of slats for the roof, which we've cleaved from chestnut poles and then peeled:

We got them home using the roof bars on the car, which have proved very useful.

Before long, the roof was taking shape...

We also brought back a lot of hazel poles:

These were then woven between the stakes to make walls that will keep rain out while letting air pass through so that the wood can keep drying over time:

Going back to the roof slats though - the ends were often too thick to easily drill through to nail them down, so we used a side axe to shape each one of them:

This then left thinner ends that were much easier to work with:

OK, so here's the roof with all the slats on, and Tracy working on the final wall:

Inside it looks like this, with pallets used for the floor - this will keep the logs off the ground, and allow air to pass underneath, so stopping them from getting damp and rotting:

The store is actually separated into two bays by some shorter stakes, and we just zip-tied some more pallets to these to make a wall. The purpose of this is so that we can empty one bay first, then it can be refilled while the other bay is being used. This will make sure we are always burning hte oldest wood first.

Here's an overhead view:

And here it is with tarpaulins on the top:

These are just zip-tied down:

But then over the top of them went some roofing felt - and I also proved the roof is quite strong. You'll notice we ran out of hazel, and used some old fence panels to finish the wall on one side.

So here it is finished, with lots of logs stored. We've used pieces of perspex we had spare to add some more rain protection at the front, though I don't think they're really needed as the roof overhangs quite a bit.

We've been using wood out of the store for a few weeks now, and it's proved much better than the pile under a tarpaulin that we had to use last year!

Mike

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Building a firewood store - part 1

Last winter we just kept our logs under a tarpaulin, but this made access awkward and didn't allow a free flow of air so the wood could continue seasoning. However, it was all we had time for at that point. This summer we've been building a proper firewood store (or log store, if you prefer), although it has progressed quite slowly for various reasons. It's roughly based on the most recent store built up at the wood.

We started out by laying out a tarpaulin we'll use for one layer of the roof, to get the shelter about the right size:

We already had some 8ft Sweet Chestnut stakes ready, so we brought them home and peeled them using a draw knife, which should make them more durable. They're a bit unwieldy to peel though!

They're a lot harder to peel when they've dried out like these ones, but the upside is you create a huge amount of kindling!

That old familiar tool, the post driver, came out again to start putting the stakes in their places.

and before long there was one wall ready:

Onto the next wall...

After that, we'd used up the stakes we already had at home, so it was off to the wood to collect more, and also to look for a couple of long straight Sweet Chestnut stems to fell for the cross-beams.

We managed to reuse a lot of stakes from the past winter's cutting:

Here's the cross beams. It would have been better if they'd been felled in winter, but we'd not made our plans for the store at that point. Chestnut felled in the summer can be less durable, but as these parts will be under cover once the store is complete I'm not too worried about that.

In addition to the six main stakes to hold the roof up, there are shorter stakes in between them - this will allow us to weave branches between them to make walls that will keep the rain out while letting air pass through. We've also put a row of shorter stakes along the middle so we have two separate bays in the store - this comes in useful if you have older wood you want to burn first.

So here it is with all of the stakes in. Looks a bit like Woodhenge might have done, only smaller!

Next step is the cross beams, walls and roof, in Part 2.

Mike

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More chainsawing logs...

Back to the woods yesterday to process more logs...

As usual, we took a few sacks from the older section of the store back home:

The other side of the store is now full, so that's about 1/4 of the wood needed for next winter now ready. We're definitely ahead compared to last year!

When we stopped for a short break, a Pheasant came wandering past, thinking he was invisible as always...

We left the bird feeder topped up again, as it had been emptied over the last week.

This bit of the wood's not looking very green yet - the sun needs to get a bit higher to start warming the ground there. That will come soon enough though...

Mike

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