wood shed – New England's Narrow Road

Cordwood under tarps in snow. — Cord wood ready to burn

I’ve changed some things to make burning firewood easier this year. Last year my wood was stacked and covered with blue, plastic tarps. I had to trudge through the snow to the stacks of snow covered wood, brush it off and dig it out, then haul it in through the back sliding door to the living room.

By about mid-winter the snow was so high, and with the thaws and re-freezes, the wood became buried in solid snow hills. I dug out what I could, but mostly I was careful to not use too much. There is always the threat of an ice storm that would cause days without power. If that happened, keeping my small wood stove going for a week or more would really use up the wood.

This year I have a new plan. I had a wood shed built this summer! I also added a door to the back of the garage. I can walk out the back of my garage and within a few steps I will be in the wood shed collecting dry pieces of firewood. This is much better!

New wood shed to keep firewood dry and snow free. — Love the new wood shed!

More is stacked inside the garage and so I feel like I am ready for the winter’s cold. No more shoveling out the tarp covered piles. The wood shed was an investment that I will enjoy for a while.

All of us who burn wood over the winter months to keep the high cost of heating oil at a minimum, must begin gathering and stacking it long before the snow flies. This winter my wood will be stored in my new wood shed.
For me, fire wood is gathered during the summer when my son visits and uses my chain saw to cut up trees. He does what he can during his visit and my other son then splits it for me during the rest of the summer. I do all of the stacking. Up until this year, I’ve stacked the fire wood on wooden pallets along the side of the house, and then covered the wood with flimsy tarps to keep the snow off.
That hasn’t worked so well. We get lots of snow here, and the wood ends up buried. With melting and re-freezing, pretty soon the wood is tough to get to. Also, unless I keep a path dug, it’s hard to even get to the wood to bring inside and burn. Usually I give up and end up leaving much of it to re-stack for the next year when I could be using it to heat my house.
So I splurged and hired my contractor to build me a nice, dry wood shed. Continue reading “My New Wood Shed”