Our Firewood Shed Plans

Earlier this year we decided that Summer 2011 would be all about big infrastructure project. Our new firewood shed plans are one major step towards this as we now have enough space to season firewood for a full three years - essential for us to burn our own oak.

The specifics of our firewood shed plans are a compromise based on trying to balance a wide range of requirements; your own needs may vary and so affect your choice of design.

Firewood Shed Plans - Design Principals

When we discussed this we listed down all the things we wanted to achieve:

• Minimal Handling
- Ideally we would stack the wood once when green and then not touch it again until burning it 3 years later
• Sizing
- Needed to be sufficient that we could get three years ahead for our oak to be ready to burn. We estimated the quantity of wood we might burn if using ONLY firewood as around 4 cords, so needed storage space for 12 cords.
• Roofing
- Many people argue that firewood seasons best out in the open with minimal cover, but this doesn't seem sensible in our british climate: Autumn, winter and spring tend to be wet and it would need stacking under cover before burning anyway. Restacking goes against the "minimal handling" criteria. We went for a simple sloping roof with an overhang.
• Location
- This tends to be very situation dependent, and most people will end up making do with the space they have available. In generally you want to choose a spot that minimizes handling distances and is as exposed to wind and sun as possible to speed up seasoning. Ultimately our shed ended up a reasonable distance from the house but we can deliver wood to it directly by 4WD/Trailer and can finally move the wood into the house using a trailer on the back of the ride-on-mower. The distance is slightly further but being able to move large amounts of wood with the mower makes things much easier.
• Construction method
- We went with 4*4 inch treated timber posts as uprights, spaced on 8ft centers. This gave us 3 bays approximately 8ft by 8ft, each capable of holding around 4 cords of firewood. Mostly this was because timber was easy to work with and cost effective.
• Walls or open sided?
- Again, there is some debate on this because any kind of wall will reduce airflow and slow seasoning. On the other hand some kind of sturdy boards with 2" air spaces between are a good compromise adding more strength and some security from casual theft. They are also very useful if you want to save the bother of stacking neatly; with walls you can throw wood in loose right up to ceiling height. It would take longer to dry thrown loose but if you can afford to leave your wood to sit for an extra year this might be a viable option - it certainly saves on handling time! We decided not to add walls at this stage, mostly because of the additional materials cost. We have the option to add them in later, possibly using off-cuts from our own milling.
• Flooring
- Ideally you want to store your firewood above ground level to improve air circulation and stop water being soaked up through the damp earth into your logs. Some options are concrete slabs (probably the every best but expensive), a raised wooden floor, wooden pallets (a common choice when stacking in the open) and gravel. We opted for gravel because we didn't want to pour a slab - a two inch layer seems sufficient to stop moisture.

Design inspiration for our firewood shed plans

Oddly enough, given the amount of time I've spent researching and writing for this site, I've seen plenty of different firewood sheds first hand as well as photos of literally thousands more. I suggest if you are planning to build some firewood storage you do the same, as there is a large variety of styles.

Ours was based loosely on one we saw in the French Pyrennese - a region where heating with firewood has never really been replaced by modern central heating and stacks outside peoples houses look much the same as a hundred years ago.

Notice that there are sections with much lighter coloured firewood - this firewood rack holds probably 3 years worth of wood in separate bays. It is closely stacked, not thrown loosely, and has no sides. This particular one has obviously be built in a few stages as more room was needed, and various bits of scrap timber were used. It is right by the house so there are no long trips through the snow in the depths of winter.

Click to see how our firewood storage shed plans developed!