Recently, Mama Pea over at http://ahomegrownjournal.blogspot.com/ made a post about how they manage their fuel for heating with wood. It has inspired me to post about how we manage ours.
In the spring of 2018, less than a year after we moved here, after some thought, Hubby finalized the positioning of the woodshed we knew we needed to keep our wood piles out of the weather. The east end of the barn was the place.
The
east barn wall was reinforced by diagonal
braces on the inside, attached to the side walls of the barn, to take the added weight of the attached roof and the snow load. Hubby then harvested some straight spruce and balsam fir for the rafters,
sizeable hemlock for the beams, and some sturdy cedars for supporting posts at the front end for which he dug the holes
and sunk them in. He positioned the heavier beams with the aid of a tripod and a chain hoist.The metal roofing was scavenged from a scrap yard. 
Under construction (piles awaiting splitting)
The trees for wood are harvested in the fall, winter or early spring, depending on snow depth, and hauled to the wood yard behind the barn with the ATV trailer. The rounds are piled until we have a splitting bee, usually early in the spring before the flies get too active. The split wood is then piled under cover. We keep about a two year's supply, so it is well seasoned.
After
the splitting bee, I rake up and collect all the detritus from the splitting, in
pails and bins, and keep it in the barn, as it is great small stuff
for starting a quick, hot fire.
spring...working on filling
The barn woodshed is about a hundred yards from the house. We fill
the house woodshed which is beside the (unheated) back porch by trailering loads
up from the barn with the ATV.
ATV trailer load
House woodshed by the back door
Inside the porch we have a whole end
divided off for wood. 
A bench seat under which we store our off season footwear
It is brought inside to the stove as needed in a little plastic bin with sturdy handles. It is just a few short steps to get wood from the back porch.
This winter, we have emptied the house wood shed once, and have only partially refilled it since. Yes, heating with wood warms you more than once!!
We have been quite surprised at how well our wood stores are lasting this winter. We use a wood stove upstairs and a wood furnace in the basement. It usually doesn't get used unless the temperature is going below -12. We have a load of saw logs waiting to be cut and split across the yard. Once it is finished, we aren't going to cut wood anymore...we will just buy it.
ReplyDeleteWe have only made a small dint in our wood stores as well. It was so mild leading up to mid-January. We hope to harvest our own as long as we can. We have a neighbour in his mid-70's who is still cutting wood for sale, and splitting it all by hand!!!!
DeleteWe aren't really physically able to harvest our own wood off the property, so we bought saw logs from a logging company that was working in the bush back of us. That's the pile across the front field. Last fall we bought two cords of cut and split beech from a gentleman in Rankin that we were very pleased with. We have another two cords on order for next fall from the same fellow. Our basement wood room is still half full, as are both our wood sheds, so we're good for a couple or three years yet!
DeleteIt is comforting to have that wood supply. Hubby does the felling, a bit at a time, and I help with moving, splitting and piling the wood. We like to keep busy and active, and hope we can continue doing that, although I have a degenerating hip joint that gives a fair bit of pain at times. It sucks getting old!!
DeleteVery impressive Rosalea. That is all so much work, I can't even imagine!
ReplyDeleteKeeps us moving, Martha! Use it or lose it!
DeletePerfect spot to dry your mittens, I see, in the last photo! -Jenn
ReplyDeleteBang on, Jenn! It is.
DeleteWhat a great post! And I love your pictures. All that wood is better than money in the bank!
ReplyDeleteThank you Leigh. It is worth all the work involved.
DeleteSo very interesting to see how others handle their wood for heating! Your main wood shed is bigger than our main wood shed and I love the looks of it. Knowing the effort (and exercise!) put into all that beautifully cut and stored wood warms (no pun intended) my heart. My husband would love that bench for putting on and taking off boots on your porch. And the idea of hauling in your wood to the stove in that carrier with the handles certainly would keep the debris from ending up on the floor! Love this post and thank you for doing it.
ReplyDeleteThank you, MP. The handled bin doesn't keep all the 'tree crumbs' out, by any means, as it seems we are constantly running a dry mop around to collect them, and the dust! In the second picture, the pile standing alone and the one right behind it are from a big oak that crashed last year. Apparently oak needs to be seasoned for 2 years before use, as it is so dense. It will probably cook us out of house and home when we use it this coming winter!
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