Decorative and practical storage of your firewood
A woodshed is practical for storing your firewood in a dry space – but it is also quite decorative in your outdoor space. There are so many different woodshed designs, and it’s up to you to decide what you like the best. If you want inspiration, you can check out tags and pins on Instagram and Pinterest.
When you’re ready to DIY, here’s a list of the things you should consider, when building you own woodshed.
Know your firewood-need
Before building you woodshed, it’s important to know your firewood-need. What is your firewood consumption? How much space does your firewood take up today? There are multiple ways to measure firewood, but the most precise is in cubic meter. Find the size of your woodpile by multiplying the height, length, and width of the woodpile. In this way, you measure the firewood but also the air between the wood logs.
Once you know your firewood-need and the needed size of your woodshed, you can begin building. We recommend, that you make your woodshed a tad bigger than measured to make sure, that you always have enough space for your firewood.
Choose the right placement
It’s important to consider the placement of the woodshed. It should be placed easy to access and not too far from your house to make it easier to refill your firewood basket. Most people choose a location near the house or garage. It is though important to consider the weather conditions for your woodshed: It needs air and sun for optimum drying of the wood. Besides this, make sure that your woodshed complies with the building regulations and district plan.
Which material should you use?
The material you choose affects the durability of the woodshed and the extend of maintenance needed. If you use tree as material, you should know, that tree needs continuous maintenance and occasionally a thorough wood protection. A woodshed in steel can, on the contrary, last many years without maintenance. It is also a good idea to consider the weather conditions where you live in order to choose fitting and durable materials for you woodshed.
You might want to weigh the costs of the different materials before you decide. Tree, steel, and other material have different prices. Maybe you have leftover material from other projects, you can use to save money?
The woodshed should keep the firewood dry
The main purpose of a woodshed is to shelter the firewood from rain and snow, whilst giving the wood enough air to dry properly. Due to this, the woodshed must not be either too tight, too closed, or too open. It’s a fine balance between the woodshed on the one hand being closed enough to shelter the wood from rain and snow, and keep the wood from absorbing moisture, and on the other hand being open and big enough to supply air from several angles and in between the wood logs.
Besides this, the wood must not be placed directly on the ground since it will absorb moisture. Choose a base of e.g., flags, pallets, or boards of tree to lift the firewood from the ground and give it the optimum drying conditions as seen on the picture below.
The woodshed should not have closed sides since the air supply is crucial for the drying process. Last, but not least, it should have a tilted roof that extends the woodshed enough to lead the rainwater away without dripping onto the firewood. Also note, that plants, grass, and weed should be kept away from the firewood, since these also release moist.
3 great tips
• Consider sun, wind, and building regulations regarding the placement of your woodshed
• Place the firewood with the bark facing up and with plenty of space between the logs for optimum air supply
• Only use dry wood for firing in your wood stove (maximum moisture of 18%)
A rule of thumb is wood that has been chopped and split during winter and stacked during spring (before May 1’st) can be used for firing in the following winter.
