Thursday, August 24, 2017

[Firewood Shed] DIY firewood shed - Part 1 : The design

As you all know, winter is coming, and we recently moved house. In this house the only heating system is based out of a single chemine. I therefore had to stock sufficient amount of firewood in order to hold on for the major period of the upcoming winter.

The specification were pretty simple, it needed to contain at least 6 stere of firewood of 50cm in dry conditions and with enough air flow to allow for the wood to continue drying.

I scattered throughout the internet in order to get inspiration and some plans to get started. There are many plans available out there, but unfortunately nothing really usable for European people. Most of the available plans being made by makers from US and Canada in units that are really not usable for us in Europe. I therefore had to start from scratch. I took inspiration from the plans I found and I made my very own set of plans. I could basically tailor make the plans to the wood lumber dimensions that were available at my local store.

The main structure is using 45x120. I had to found pressure treated wood that would sustain frequent water exposure.
Then the roof structure was made out of 40x75 pressure treated wood. Finally the walls were made of 25x150 raw planks.  The shed is then finished with some OSB 3 for the flooring.

In order to contain 6 stere of wood, I scale the shed accordingly.

1 stere of wood cut in 50cm pieces represent approximately 0,8 m3.  So technically, to fit 6 stere, you would need at least 4,8 m3 of space inside the shed. This calculation only work if the wood is perfectly laid without any lost space, which is almost impossible. I decide to build the shed with at least 6 m3 of space inside which theoretically should hold around 8 stere of wood.

The overall dimensions were decided taking into account the volume target as well as fitting in my backyard without making too much of a mess visually.

I went for 3 meters long, 1,3 meters wide and a bit less than 2 meters high.

This is how it looks like:


The exact dimensions: