Free Firewood Falling From The Sky

Last weekend I bought a load of wood and had it delivered. Yesterday I got home to find that a HUGE branch. as large as a medium sized tree, had fallen from a water oak in the back yard. The thickest part is 18-20" in diameter.




Once I saw that it hadn't fallen on/damaged anything, I was pretty stoked. Who doesn't like a huge pile of free wood, and I really like cooking with water oak, it's good stuff.

I got to work on it., and pretty quick it was obvious that I had a dull chain. Made a quick run to Lowes for a replacement and the difference was night and day. First a haircut.




Then I cut up the bones.




I have to say, for a small 16 inch, consumer "yard" chainsaw, my Husqvarna 435 really did an impressive job. I think I'll rent a splitter, I don't feel like swinging a maul that much and my back has been crappy lately. Once split I'll stack it in a small greenhouse that I have. That dries wood really quick.

zippy12 said:

Not quite your haul, but I keep cruising roads here for Dorian scraps....

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When Barry came through in July, all that fell at the time was a bunch of pine. I've still got a widow maker or 2 hanging in the pine tree.

Got it all split this weekend. Made a pretty nice pile, now I have to build a shed for it

So once I got it all split and cut I needed a place to put it. I've been a bit envious of Cheryl and her chichi she shed so I built this.



It holds right at 2/3 of a cord



Then I filled a rack I built that holds 1/2 of a rick and still have a scraggly pile of the lesser quality stuff (which is still perfectly burnable once dry) that I'm just going to put out by the road, pretty sure it will get picked up. All in all that downed tree put out just a hair under a cord.

LordRiffenstein said:

That's a nice shed!

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Thanks, it’s just 15-8’ 2x4s, 10 - 8’ fence pickets, and some tin.

LordRiffenstein said:

I stole your pictures, need to build something like this.
It will make stacking easier and I'm sure Lady Riffenstein won't mind a more neat stack of wood in the backyard. :heh:

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I used the basic design here http://myoutdoorplans.com/shed/firewood-shed-plans/ but changed the length and width and height a little. Since I built mine longer and the floor joist make a longer span and support more weight I added a row of cinder blocks under the center of the joist as well as on the ends. Using a little gravel under all of the cinder blocks made them easy to level with each other. I made the floor joist on 9 inch centers so I could just stack the wood on them without adding any kind of floor decking, also for the rafters, since I used corrugated metal I ran 2 rafters the long way instead of front to back. The footprint of mine is 93x40, the corner post for the front are 53" high, the back are 43"