Eleanor Hartley
Why a Log Store Earns Its Keep
Anyone who heats with wood learns the same lesson eventually: the logs you burn are only half the story. The other half is how they were stored. Wood that has been sitting in a damp heap against the shed wall will hiss, smoulder and sulk in the stove. It gives back a fraction of the heat it should, coats the flue with tar, and costs you far more in sweeping and chimney repairs than a few sheets of timber ever would.
A proper log store is a simple piece of kit, and it does three jobs at once. It keeps rain off the top, keeps ground moisture out of the bottom, and lets moving air pass through the stack so the wood can dry. Get those three right and you will be burning logs at 15 to 20 per cent moisture content, which is where a stove starts to behave properly. Anything much wetter and you are effectively paying to boil water.
If you live in a smoke control area, dry fuel matters even more. Wet wood smokes, and smoky fuel is exactly what the regulations are aimed at.
Siting and Sizing the Store
Put the store where the sun and wind can reach it. A south or west-facing wall, clear of overhanging trees and not tucked into a shaded corner, will dry wood noticeably faster than a north-facing nook. If you must site it against the house, leave a 50mm gap behind so damp air can escape rather than soaking into the brickwork.
Keep it near the door you actually use. A store forty metres down the garden is a store you will stop filling in February.
For size, work out what you burn in a winter and then double it. A household running a woodburner most evenings typically gets through two to four stacked cubic metres a year. A store 2m wide, 1m deep and 1.8m high will hold roughly three stacked cubic metres if filled neatly — and nearer two if you stack loosely for airflow, which you should. If you can, build two bays side by side: one for this winter's fuel, one for next year's.
The Base and Frame
The single most common mistake is stacking logs straight onto soil or concrete. Both wick moisture upwards, and the bottom row will be sodden and riddled with beetles by spring.
- Clear the ground and lay a bed of compacted gravel, or a couple of paving slabs.
- Sit treated bearers — 100 x 100mm posts or stout pallet feet — across the base.
- Aim for at least 100mm of clear air between the ground and the lowest log.
For the frame, tanalised timber is worth the extra few pounds. Use 100 x 100mm posts at the corners and 47 x 100mm rails for the sides, fixed with coach bolts or heavy screws. A height of about 1.8m at the front is comfortable for most people, with the back lower to create the roof fall. Depth depends on your log length: 600 to 700mm for a single row, around 1.2m if you plan to stack two rows back to back.
Brace the frame diagonally at the ends. A full store weighs a great deal, and a rack that sways in a gale will shed its roof within a season.
Roof and Airflow
The roof should overhang generously — 150mm on every side is not excessive — and slope downwards towards the back or the side, away from the opening. A fall of roughly 1 in 12 is plenty. Corrugated bitumen sheets are cheap, light and easy to cut; overlapping feather-edge boards look the part on a cottage and work just as well, provided each board laps the one below by at least 40mm.
Sides should be open. Slatted louvres, spaced with 25mm gaps between boards, give you the cottage look while letting air move through the stack. The back can be close-boarded if it faces the weather, but never seal the store as a box. Trapped, still air is the enemy of seasoning, and a sealed store becomes a mould incubator.
Leave the front open, or fit a removable slatted panel you can hook on during driving rain and take off again when the wind turns.
Stacking and Seasoning
Split your logs to roughly 75 to 150mm across the grain, and cut them to suit your stove — usually 250 to 300mm. Split wood dries far faster than round wood, and a log with the bark left on one side and a clean split face on the other is ideal.
- Stack with bark uppermost where you can, so rain runs off rather than pooling in the grain.
- Leave small gaps between logs, but do not build a honeycomb — you want air to move, not a gale blowing through.
- Never stack so tightly that you need to wedge logs in with a mallet.
Seasoning takes time. Softwoods such as pine and larch are usually ready in six to nine months. Most hardwoods need a full year, and oak is better at two. Ash is the traditional exception and can be burnt green at a push, though it still improves with a summer in the store.
Buy a moisture meter — a basic one costs very little. Split a log, test the freshly exposed face, not the end grain. Under 20 per cent is usable; 15 to 18 per cent is where you want to be.
Keeping the Store Working
Fill the empty bay in spring, not in October when you suddenly realise you are short. Wood stacked in April has a whole summer of warm, breezy weather to dry it, which is worth more than any amount of clever design.
Use the oldest wood first and work through the store in order. Keep the top layer — the driest logs — for kindling and for damp evenings when you need a fire to catch quickly. Check the roof each autumn, clear leaves and debris off the top, and make sure the bottom row has not sunk into the ground.
Do all that, and you will have a store that quietly pays for itself: a warmer house, a cleaner flue, and the small but genuine pleasure of walking out on a cold morning to a stack of dry, ringing logs.
