Outdoor Wood Store: Best Practice To Store Your Firewood

Tips on Building and Maintaining Your Outdoor Wood Store

Struggling to store your firewood correctly in your outdoor wood store? Don’t worry – we’ve put together several tips for keeping your firewood, ensuring that you can avoid issues concerning moisture levels, mould, and bug infestations!

Whether you want to strike up some warmth, prepare some barbecue food, or create the ultimate focal point at a social gathering, you need to store your firewood correctly so that it operates at the best of its ability.

So, let’s get straight into it!

What is firewood?

When learning how to store firewood, it might first be worth establishing what this material actually is to have a greater understanding of how to approach it. Firewood is a wooden material harvested and utilised for fuel. It usually comes in a branch or log form and can be seasoned (dry) or unseasoned (wet).

As a renewable resource, wood fuel is more readily available than non-renewable sources, making it inexpensive and environmentally friendly. Demand for this wood can outpace its ability to grow on local and regional levels. However, efficient forestry practices can enhance local wood supplies, making it an excellent fuel choice.

How to store firewood

After your wood has been chopped up to a suitable size, you then need to know how to store it correctly for the best results. There are many different ways to store firewood, including decoratively placing it around your fireplace, bundling it up in a bag, or putting it outside your backdoor.

However, the best place to store your logs is stacking them in an assembled pile far outside your home in a wood store. Let’s consider this in more detail!

Seek out the best spot

Finding the best place to stack your firewood is critical. Whilst some firepit owners prefer the convenience of stacking their firewood in the house, this may encourage several little visitors, such as mice, termites, and spiders, to come inside.

Therefore, the wood should be kept outside, where it will potentially age better with increased airflow to dry it.

To find the best spot for your outdoor wood store, we can recommend:

• Keeping the firewood around 20 feet from your nearest house door to stop pests from coming inside

• Choosing a dry yet breezy spot

• Stacking the wood at least a couple of inches away from any structure to allow airflow behind it

Stacking the firewood

Now that you’ve found the best spot for your firewood, you need to know how to stack it properly! As a general rule, firewood should be stacked in rows under four feet high. However, the details of your masterful stacking depend on several factors – for example, is the firewood fully seasoned? Are you using a rack? Or perhaps pallets and posts? You need to consider these things when stacking your firewood.

You’ll want to store wood bark-side down if it isn’t fully seasoned. This allows the moisture to continue easily evaporating from the wood.

Once the wood is fully seasoned, you can stack it bark-side up. This is since it will have aged to naturally protect the material from rougher weather conditions such as rain and snow.

If you have pallets and posts, the pallet should be placed on the ground, and the posts should be hammered in on each corner. Ensure that the posts are close enough to each other to prevent the firewood logs from rolling off the sides. The wood should be piled on top of the pallets, which will keep each piece raised off the ground.

However, if you’ve opted for a firewood rack instead, set the rack in place and stack the wood with the ends facing front and back. This action should be stopped when you have reached four feet in height evenly across the rack.

The critical thing to learn from these stacking instructions is not to put your firewood into an unorganised pile. This disorganisation can prevent the proper airflow that the wood in the middle of the pile needs to dry rather than rot.

Choosing a corten steel wood store from our GrillSymbol range at Firepit.co.uk can help you out with this. The cleverly crafted corten steel is perfect for putting in the garden, embracing a protective coating that is designed to last a lifetime. Available in different varieties, you can select a wood store that suits your needs, whether you want it placed on the floor, hung on the wall, or made into an extensive wood wall.

How long should the firewood be stored?

Now that the wood is all neatly stacked in your wood store, you need to know the answer to an all-important question: how long should it be held for? Knowing the answer to this question can encourage you to utilise the right amount of wood in your firepit and prevent wastage.

Depending on when the wood has been cut, it may not be ‘ripe’ enough to use on your firepit. After all, firewood has to age before you can use it effectively. Using freshly cut wood can result in a lot of smoke and a creosote build-up. Other issues caused by not using properly seasoned firewood include short burning times, minimal heat output, and even a life-threatening build-up of carbon monoxide.

So, as a general rule, aging most types of wood takes at least six months to allow it to get rid of most of its moisture.

Final tips

Here are a few final tips to take away in the journey of storing your firewood:

• Protect your firewood from harsh weather conditions with a firewood cover

• Keep the storage space well-ventilated

• Trim the pile using a string trimmer for taller weeds or grass that sprout

• Get rid of kindling or scraps lying around

With efficient firewood storage keeping your logs ready to burn through even the chilliest conditions, it’s time to get your firepit started and enjoy all your hard work today!