As we all know, firewood is crucial for our daily life, especially in winter. Firewood can provide warmth during the winter and the fireplace can make us a comfortable and warm house to live. If we can store firewood properly, we can protect our wood and use it to warm for a long time during the cold winter. Choose a place near your house, if you want to store firewood outdoors; choose a place which is dry and ventilated, if you want to store firewood inside. Make sure to avoid the firewood getting moist so that it can burn effectively when you want to light a fire.
Storing the firewood properly is letting your effort and investment not be in vain. You may have spent all day, week even a couple of months in preparing the firewood for winter’s coming. And what you do is just throwing the firewood into a big pile, don’t care about it and ignore it. Is this the correct way to prepare for winter? Absolutely not. In this way, you just will let your effort go to waste. Nature is so cruel and you must face it. Wood is very susceptible to rain or snow and it’s common in winter. Storing firewood in an improper way can lead it to wet and be
decayed. Besides, if you throw the firewood into a big pile, it will appeal to all kinds of animals and bugs to hide in there, it’s not what you want.
OK, let’s see how to store firewood properly.
select a Firewood storage location
First of all, you should select a storage location.
Find a place close to your house. When you start to store firewood, the first thing comes to your mind is the convenience. Firewood is too heavy to carry from the outdoors into your house, and it will be worse during the winter months, it’s difficult for people to carry the heavy firewood outside. So find a location to store the fire wood as near as possible. And if you can’t find a place close to your house, don’t be silly, buying a wheelbarrow to
- transfer the firewood is a better choice.
- Find a place away from soil. If the firewood is stored on the ground directly, touches the surface of the ground, it will rot by the bacteria and bugs as soon as possible. They will hide in the firewood because they like the temperature there. So search for a place away from the soil. You can store the firewood on the surfaces of concrete, asphalt and clean gravel, these surfaces are the better choice than the soil. But if you can’t find any proper place, you can elevate the firewood by sticks or lay down a trap under the firewood.
Make sure your outdoor storage shed has room. The outdoor storage shed is a wonderful place to
- store firewood. Firewood can avoid being wet by the rain or snow outside if it is in the shed. The shed can also avoid the firewood touching the soil. If you don’t have a shed, your garage is also a great place to store firewood.
Find a place in your house. As what I know, some people like storing firewood in their house. It’s very convenient for us to store the firewood inside, we can stay at home warmly instead of suffering the cold weather outdoor. It can also protect the firewood from the moisture and the soil. You can store it in an old trunk or in some fireplace which have compartments built into the wall. Make sure the firewood inside is dry, if the firewood is
- chopped or collected by yourself, it shouldn’t come into the house until it fully dries out, it will take about six months.
Read:How to Cut and Split Firewood
Store Firewood
Secondly, you should store your firewood safely.
- Elevate firewood. If you can’t find a place away from the soil, you can elevate the firewood with 2 by 4 boards. You can find the boards at any hardware store and build a simple storage to store your firewood. Lay down enough boards in order to stack all the firewood. Keep the firewood parallel to the board and lay them over the boards.
Use a tarp to keep your firewood away from moisture. Easy to get a tarp at any hardware store
- and simply lay it over the firewood and tie it down to make sure the firewood will not contact the rain directly. And it’s important to ventilate so that your firewood can’t be too dry, you should leave a side of the tarp open to ventilate. Only cover the top and leave the sides uncovered, air needs to flow to dry it out fully and moisture also needs to get out. It’ll cause mold to build up and the wood won’t season well if you wrap all the firewood.
Stack your firewood. If you can’t stack your firewood properly, it will cause so many problems such as accelerating the speed of rot. You should stack your firewood instead of throwing it into a big pile. Stacking it well can help the air
- circulation and keep it dry. If you stack firewood against the wall, it will let the bacteria and bugs easily get into the firewood and rot it. It’s better to leave a few inches of space between firewood and the wall. However, if you stack firewood in your house, you can stack it against the wall, it will be okay. It’s not hard to learn how to stack the firewood, but it takes your time to learn it well. Just like the old saying, practice makes perfect. If you’re willing to spend some time at the beginning, it will be easy later on.Thirdly, avoid pitfalls.
- It’s not correct to out a tarp over the firewood when it’s still wet. Wet firewood should be uncovered in the open air in order to dry out fully. If it’s raining outside, you can put a tarp over the wet firewood, but leave the sides of firewood pile exposed to the open air.
- Dry your firewood out before using it. Before using your firewood, make sure it dries out fully. Dry firewood is lighter than the wet one with cracks along the edges.
Check the local law of firewood storage. Look over the local codes in your city before building the shed or choosing the methods of storing the firewood. Make sure it’s legally.The firewood is the source of life during the cold season, it’s necessary just like water and food. Life without warmth is just like flowers without fertilizer. And the origin of warmth is firewood. We must learn how to protect it and how to use it properly, let it work effectively, and then use its power to warm our world.
Now stop talking, let’s go and just do it!
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