Mainly because I’m desperately trying to avoid doing any work…

Wood stove running nicely. The wood that was in the store is being used up quickly due to my wife’s apparent lizard blood running through her veins. We’ve used about a quarter of the wood in the store I reckon.

Which got me thinking. What’s the protocol to restock? Build another wood store? Apply some separation between ‘wet’ and ‘dry’ wood? I have a couple of tons of wood (we know a tree surgeon who keeps dropping it off on our drive) just piled up in the open air at the moment and my plan was to chop it up, feed it into the store but then I realised it would be mixing with the dry wood.

Tips appreciated. Also, best chopping methods. I was going to get a big wood saw but then i thought, no, a electrical circular saw would be great.

For info, the wood store looks like this, with about a quarter of the wood now gone from the left.

Wood Store by Jon Wyatt, on Flickr

definitely segregate. We have a wood store, two sections side by side.

One has an old door, so seasoned dry stuff goes in there.
Other half is more vented at side, open front, and the stuff that’s drying out goes in there.

So, use the dry stuff until it gets emptied, then (hopefully get timing right) transfer now dry wood from one to the other. Bit of a faff and would be better with bigger or wider store, but works OK and keeps me warm!

And a garden full of new wood that’s seasoning in the open – south facing shed wall helps.

Yes keep it seperate. You could re-stock. Better to build another store. There doesn’t seem to be much space for a good airflow. Your green timber will dry best in the open initialy so would split (with a maul) and stack (free standing in the open not up against a wall). If you put your longest pieces on top sloping you will create a roof for the stack.

Build a new store then, better airflow. Splendid. 😉 Thanks.
Time to find some more pallets.

The wood we have stacked out in the open is in a pyramid structure. It’ll fill that store completely no problem.

def build a bigger store. I would use nearly a quarter of that in 2 days in the furnace & wood burner 😉

I have 2 wood stores, although the second one hasnt been filled yet. The first one has two batches of wood in at the moment. No segregation but one end is dryer than the other. I can work out where the boundary is. Ultimately I will have 5+ tons in each store and so can alternate between the two. I now have a new toy for moving wood around more easily too now (got a trailer for it too):

Id look at an inexpensive <12″ electric chainsaw for the volume of material you are processing. Build yourself a good horse, or buy one on eBay,

Makita doing electric one for 99quid – househusband getting on well with his.

I use an evolution chop saw at the moment because im mostly burning waste wood from mines and rusty macs house modernisations nails and all sort in that you dont want to go near with a chainsaw. – evolution blades cut through nails an all.

Any logs i come across get hacked with the bowsaw then split with the maul.

Dont forget your trews and boots though.

Trail_rat – do you have the model type for the Makita, I may have a need

Chainsaw sounds good. Couple near me on ebay.

Dont forget your trews

???

Dont forget your trews and boots though.

You may have noticed that chainsaws cut through wood quite well.
They will cut through your body even easier if you let them.
Chainsaw trousers/chaps and boots will help prevent that. They come up nearly every time someone mentions chainsaws on here. You’d be a muppet to not use them when operating a saw.

Speak to househusband woody , he got it not me but speaks highly of it .

You might think im just cutting sticks on the floor.

Is amazing how many competent people get caught out just hacking sticks.

Tree surgeon we used to work with was just in his yard hacking sticks , cba putting on his chainsaw trews and hacked through his knee and all the associated tendons

He hasnt worked since.

Thats not to say you can be complacent as they help slow the saw down and keep the cut minimal but they dont stop all saws , some of the boots are shocking for protection.

I swear to god singletrack with all it’s faults, is the best place on the internet. I never visit here and don’t learn something.

Chainsaw trousers. I never knew they existed.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ah-FmYnaIWw[/video]

So for boots we just use normal industry PPE steel toe caps? I’ve got some of them already.

No, chainsaw boots have kevlar wads on the front face as well as toe impact protection.

I got some class 2 stihl boots for cheap on ebay

Steel toes – clues in the name…

Could cut your toes off and still have them protected by the steel.

Choose your boots carefully . Sme right useless boots out there

Chainsaw boots have protection from the toe all the way up so the protection overlaps with the trousers. You can get gaiters to wear over steel toed boots for occasional use.

Thats not to say you can be complacent as they help slow the saw down and keep the cut minimal but they dont stop all saws , some of the boots are shocking for protection.

That depends on the Class of protection you are buying. They are tested and rated and marked as such.

Also get ear defenders if you want to hear after using a chain saw, and you may as well get the ones that come fitted to a hard hat and face grill.

If you’re cutting logs on a saw horse you’d have to be pretty inventive to find a way to cut your toes off. But… dropping logs on your toes doesn’t take any special technique at all.

a chainsaw is starting to sound rather expensive (because I appreciate a lot of safety is necessary)

Might go back to using a saw horse and one of them big saws. Not afraid of hard graft.

Stuff we had was climbing kit – tis crazy that although the most dangerous place to use a chainsaw is up a tree …. It generally is where the lightest ppe is used because of the need for mobility.

5thelefant – doesnt seem to be all that uncommon for cba sticking this wee bit in the saw – foot on and cut .

Seen it with a stihl saw as well cutting a monoblock. Mentalists .

How bigs the stuff your cutting samuri .

As i said before im using a chop saw to good effect on most stuff ..l and if it doesnt fit the saw then i attack it with a bow saw

Trail_rat – do you have the model type for the Makita, I may have a need

Speak to househusband woody , he got it not me but speaks highly of it .

I bought the Makita UC3520A/2 from Power Tools UK for £100 delivered:

Linky

Also bought, on eBay, Oregon Yukon trousers, boots and their Easy-Cut saw horse – all perfect for my needs. As I said here the other day an electric chainsaw makes sense if you are working alone (stop/start) and in one position – the back garden, in my case.

Most of it is branches. Say no more than 4 inches diameter. A bow saw would be through one in a couple of seconds. There’s the odd trunk sized log like househusband has posted but not many. We don’t get clean logs like that, all the stuff our guy drops off is straight off a tree. I chop the twigs off and leave them to dry, they make great tinder.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYZJ4MxKfMk&noredirect=1#t=45[/video]

I really like the thinking in this log splitter. Want one.

I don’t know if it’s of any use, but the Makita above can be had for £80 from Amazon if you don’t mind damaged box.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B000UZ0T06/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&colid=AJSZ8CA4C7X6&coliid=IPGP9WBC4C77V&condition=used

Back to the OP. If you have the space it’s worth building a shed which is accessible from both sides. You can stack, store and use at the same time. The way you have it at the moment you have to use everything you have before you can replenish your stock.

I run 3 log stores, each has enough wood to last the whole winter, that way the logs have 2 years to season, so the wood I’m gathering now will be used in the winter of 2015-2016. I also like to have a decent mix of softwood and hardwood, say 20-30% softwood, as it’s good for getting stove going and up to temp.

A mate and I are for buying a splitter shortly, as I’m doing it with a maul at the moment, which is okay until you start hitting knots and the likes. Screwfix have one for 275 quid which looks okay.

A mate and I are for buying a splitter shortly, as I’m doing it with a maul at the moment, which is okay until you start hitting knots and the likes. Screwfix have one for 275 quid which looks okay.

Given the number of STWers that have stoves and woodpiles, I think if there were enough of you to share the purchase cost and use of a splitter within a community it would be a sound investment.

The efficiency is like night and day over an axe. I can fill this trailer in about an hour with the splitter.

All I really need is confidence a full store will get us through winter.
We have the rest of the year to build up stock.

I’ll build a second store nearer the house, plenty of room. And I’ll start with a bow saw.

Thanks all

Mcmoonter – I had an image of you having a great big old flywheel in the back of one of your outhouses and crafting a version of the splitter I linked to up there. I’m sure the Scottish Steampunk version you could put together would be way more powerful and fun!

That vid of the chainsaw and trousers, I guess the idea is that the fibres stall and choke the chain?

Still looked like it rotated far enough to get a nice way into the leg, or is the point that they stop the saw going straight through?

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bVAAx3mMKY&feature=youtube_gdata_player[/video]

Bought a bow saw. That’s great for up to about 4 inches wide.
Also bought a short handled axe which is good For very little.

Guess I need a long handled maul to get those wider logs split.
Anyway, I’ve done enough to restock the store. Filled a bin in the garage with dry wood and stacked a load of dry wood under cover.

Wood store by Jon Wyatt, on Flickr

Log grenade and the back of the maul worked on relly big stuff tht had defeated my splitting maul

Short axe isnt even any good for splitting kindling – the splitting maul splits kindling under it own weight with ease.

I use a kindling axe – pretty hard work but can split stuff down to almost matchstick thinness, which reckon must be great for getting fire going. Saves having a really sharp edge which I’d just mis-use anyway!

Ive got a short axe but the splitting maul ( which is just a bnq special does it so easily i couldnt tell yOu where my short axe is.

@trail rat. That’s what I thought. The arms race went like this: maul->maul+grenade->maul+grenade+6lb wedges. I’ve just spent best part of a day splitting half a chord of very knotty something or other that came from two mahoosive trees we had dropped in the spring. I have blisters like a teenage Kylie fanboi…

Then there’s this lot left to do:

Just finished building our new log store, we just need to fill it now!
Segregation wise, we build walls with split logs between the bays and round the edges. These are built up a couple of feet at a time and then back filled using the jcb.

OP, I’d just build another store, you can never have too much wood 🙂

Personally multiple wood stores made out of pallets. 2 pallets on floor 2 on there sides screwed to the ones on floor. You will have to decided how to join the vertical ones. If you can remove fire wood from both sides use battons if from one side only use rope otherwise you will constantly back your head on battons.
Personally I am a massive fan of using an electric chainsaw at home. Minimal maintance. Cheaper on fuel without taking into account it stops using fuel when you put it down. And as I have a steep drive I don’t have to go down the drive to fetch it back. No more expensive than a cheap petrol one and about the same power.

.OP, I’d just build another store, you can never have too much wood

. Said that for years all you can have is to little space to store it.

*Has log store envy*

Ours is only a little one- holds 2 Cubic meters of wood..

It’ll do.

For this year.

We’ve determined (see the axe discussion), that our log store is approximately half the size it needs to be. The next one will be bigger, but not as big as flip’s up there. I reckon 4 fence posts sunk into the ground, 6 foot high, wooden slats and roof, about the size of a garden shed should do it. (n+1 for woodstores not withstanding)

Of course, wood consumption went up massively as soon as my son came home from university.