There are two ways to stack a cord of wood: with the help of a rack or without one. Only one of these methods will get you taken seriously as a mountain man. Woman. Person.
Skip right to the stacking tutorial.
I’ve been stacking wood since I was 9 years old. Because apparently I was some sort of pioneer child, further proven by the fact that my favourite toy was a potato. My father Norm taught me how to stack wood. According to Norm (may he rest in peace with a roaring fire) you should basically be able to drive a monster truck up one side of your wood pile and down the other without it moving an inch.
While it's true you want a very stable pile of wood, if it's stored outside you don't want it so tightly packed that no air can circulate through the logs. That'd get you laughed RIGHT OFF THE MOUNTAIN.
First some fun facts about wood. I mean what facts about wood aren't fun? Do they even exist?
Table of Contents
What's a face cord of wood?
8 feet wide x 4 feet high x 16" deep.
A face cord of wood is a stack of wood that's 8' long x 4' high made of wood that's 16"-18" lengths. So if someone delivers wood to you saying it's a face cord but it doesn't measure that when you stack it, then you didn't get a face cord. A face cord is also called a rick. I have NO idea why.
What's a bush cord of wood?
8 feet wide x 4 feet high x 4 feet deep.
A bush cord is the same amount as 3 face cords. It's called a "face cord" because the amount is the same as what you see on the face of a bush cord.
Is Stacking Wood Good Exercise?
You bet it is. Even the tiniest person will burn around 300 calories an hour moving and stacking wood. The bigger you are the more calories you'll burn.
How do you get a stable, solid stack of wood without using racks? You use the wood stacking technique of making wood pillars.
How to Stack Wood (without a rack)
To stack cords of wood without the help of any rack you're going to have to build something to contain and stabilize the wood pile. You have to make wood columns out of your firewood on either end of your wood pile. If you do it right they'll act just like regular columns and stabilize the whole pile.
Pros
- No extra materials or costs required for this method.
- Looks super-cool.
- Very sturdy.
- Gives you street cred. Errr ... pioneer cred. Homesteader cred?
Cons
- It's time consuming.
- You have to be precise. If one log in your pillar isn't steady your entire pile could crash down.
**The night before your wood is going to be delivered make a batch of chili. Seriously. You'll be so happy you did then when you're 8 hours into stacking wood the next day.**
Here's my award winning (not really but it COULD be) Chili Con Carne recipe.
- Lay equal sized pieces of wood side by side, then side by side in the opposite direction. Test your stack as you build it to make sure it isn't rickety. When you push on the wood there shouldn't be any wiggling.
2. Continue doing this until your stack is 4' high.
3. Fill any large gaps in the column with smaller pieces of wood to create a sturdier structure.
4. Repeat this on the other end of where your wood pile will be. There should be a space of around 7' between your columns.
For the past few years I've made my columns anywhere from 4'-5' high and I haven't had a single one fall down.
5. Once you have made your wood columns, you can stack your wood in between.
Wood Stacking Tips
- Use square cut logs or logs with a very flat side for your columns. Save round logs for in your main pile.
- Use the largest pieces of wood on the bottom of the main pile (in between the columns) so they can support the rest of the wood.
- I do 2 logs one way, 2 logs the other way and then fill in the columns. Doing 3 and 3 logs will make a sturdier column, but also take a lot more time.
- The MOST important thing for stacking the columns and your main pile is to make sure they are level. If things aren't level they'll eventually topple over. It might not be today or this week, but they will fall down.
- I stack directly on my flagstone because it doesn't hold water. Do not stack directly on soil or grass if you can help it because that'll rot the wood AND it'll be filled with bugs who happily house themselves in your pile. Just place a couple of long 2x4s down 12" apart and stack your wood on that to keep it off the ground and dry.
- Put any weirdly shaped logs that just won't fit into the pile nicely off to the side. They'll only make your wood pile wobbly. When you're done stacking you can put the weird ones on top of your finished pile.
- To cover or not to cover? If your wood is in open air the best thing to do is cover just the top of the pile with a tarp to keep rain and melting snow off of it. The rest of the pile should be left open to allow for air circulation. The easiest thing to do is to place a folded tarp over the pile and hold it down with a few of the weirdly shaped logs.
- Wear steel toed or HEAVY boots for wood stacking. I wear Bogs like this and I've had them for years.
There are 2 mistakes people make when stacking wood. They either stack it too tight so there's absolutely no air circulation in between the logs which promotes damp wood that isn't ready for a fire OR they just drop it down and end up with a pile so loose and wobbly that it tumbles over the second an amorous squirrel chases his lover over it.
If you don't have a huge property for keeping wood, just use whatever space you can to stack your wood. If you have nice piles they look really good around your yard come fall and winter.
To Stack Firewood with a Rack
Buy a firewood rack, set it up and start stacking. That's all there is to it.
Pros
- Much faster to stack wood on than making wood columns.
- Keeps wood off of the wet ground.
- Almost zero chance of the wood pile ever toppling over (which is really dangerous!)
Cons
- It can get expensive if you need a lot of racks.
- You have to store the rack somewhere when it isn't in use.
Where to buy Wood Racks
Most hardware stores carry some form of rack, but for larger racks you're best bet is Amazon. You can see all the Amazon wood stacking racks from big to small here.
You can also buy plain brackets that 2x4s fit into which create a rack that can be disassembled at the end of the season. They work great but you're going to have the added expense of the brackets themselves, plus you need a lot of 2x4s if you're stacking a lot of wood. All of which you're going to need to store when they're not in use.
The racks I'm using in this photo are plastic, which eventually cracked but you can now buy cast iron brackets.
How to Stack Wood. With or Without a Rack.
How to stack a bush cord of wood without a rack using wood columns.
Instructions
- Lay equal sized pieces of wood side by side, then side by side in the opposite direction. Test your stack as you build it to make sure it isn't rickety. When you push on the wood there shouldn't be any wiggling.
- Continue doing this until your stack is 4' high.
- Fill any large gaps in the column with smaller pieces of wood to create a sturdier structure.
- Repeat this on the other end of where your wood pile will be. There should be a space of around 7' between your columns.
- Once you have made your wood columns, you can stack your wood in between.
Notes
- Use square cut logs or logs with a very flat side for your columns. Save round logs for in your main pile.
One Face Cord = 8 feet wide x 4 feet high x 16" deep.
One Bush Cord = 8 feet wide x 4 feet high x 4 feet deep.
- Use the largest pieces of wood on the bottom of the main pile (in between the columns) so they can support the rest of the wood
- I do 2 logs one way, 2 logs the other way and then fill in the columns. Doing 3 and 3 logs will make a sturdier column, but also take a lot more time.
- The MOST important thing for stacking the columns and your main pile is to make sure they are level. If things aren't level they'll eventually topple over. It might not be today or this week, but they will fall down.
- I stack directly on my flagstone because it doesn't hold water. Do not stack directly on soil or grass if you can help it because that'll rot the wood AND it'll be filled with bugs who happily house themselves in your pile. Just place a couple of long 2x4s down 12" apart and stack your wood on that to keep it off the ground and dry.
- Put any weirdly shaped logs that just won't fit into the pile nicely off to the side. They'll only make your wood pile wobbly. When you're done stacking you can put the weird ones on top of your finished pile.
- To cover or not to cover? If your wood is in open air the best thing to do is cover just the top of the pile with a tarp to keep rain and melting snow off of it. The rest of the pile should be left open to allow for air circulation. The easiest thing to do is to place a folded tarp over the pile and hold it down with a few of the weirdly shaped logs.
My wood order for last year was 2 bush cords. This year I only got half that amount delivered. In January I'll order the next half.
Splitting the orders means you only have to find half the amount of room in your backyard to stack it, plus in January when I get the next order it'll give me a reason to get outside and move my Christmas ass.
Curious about what 2 bush cords look like when they're dumped on the road and how long it takes to stack them? It goes something like this ...
You wake up in the morning and you stack. And you stack and you stack and you stack. And when the neighbour asks if you'd like some help you say NO. Because you're stoic. And hard working. And filled with OCD tendencies about your wood stacking. So no. But thank you.
And hours pass and neighbours pass and you start to feel embarrassed because it's getting late and you're still stacking wood. You're sure people think you're lazy. You aren't stacking fast enough.
And just when you're about to cry a neighbour comes over and starts lugging wood into the backyard. He doesn't ask if you need help. He just starts stacking. And then so does his son. And later on the elderly woman from down the street who recently fought cancer and the heartbreaking death of her husband grabs a rake and starts to help clean up.
And by 9 o'clock or so, almost 12 hours after you started, those 2 cords of wood are finally moved.
And so are you.
→Follow me on Instagram where I often make a fool of myself←
neil e ramlow
Pa always said to stack the wood in such a fashion that a chipmunk can run straight through your stack while the cat that's chasing cannot
Marie
Wonderful stacks, when my willow tree came down, I didn’t have time to even plan a stack, but I sure did come up with 2x4’s to lay the logs on. My tree service didn’t offer to chop... and the next year my neighbor took down 4 pine trees across the front of my yard, I come home in time to salvage all those logs too... but what’s your recommendation for splitting them???
Karen
A splitter. Honestly. Wait to see if your local hardware store has them on sale and get one. Chainsaw them to 16" lengths and then a splitter. Although I gave up on doing all of that myself. Chainsaws are tricky and I know toooo many people who have been badly injured when the chainsaw met a knot and then the chainsaw met their face. ~ karen!
Ms Macaron
Nice stack? Nice Bogs? Nice toque? Nice neighbours? Sheesh. Nice ASS!! :)
Karen
Really? I'm gonna have to go back and look at those photos and figure out which jeans I'm wearing, lol. ~ karen!
Karen P
Karen, you are a poet in the purest and most elegant sense.
I wasn't expecting it. And there it was. A simple beautiful thought.
"The wood is moved and so are you."
You moved me. Thank you.
Karen
That's very nice of you to say, thank you. ~ karen!
Christina Blanchard
Nice stack of wood!.... my god the calories burned cutting a road in the summer, loading in the truck, unloading, stacking... tiered thinking of it
Vikki
I was having an okay day--until I realized how much I miss Red Green. Waaaah! But good stacking; you have piles you can be proud of.
Sandy
Loved the last 2 paragraphs. We all need the kindness of neighbors from time to time.
Karen
Thanks Sandy! I'm always saying no when people offer to help me. I don't want to take up their time. But my neighbours know me enough now to not even ask and just jump in if they see I'm sinking, lol. ~ karen!
TucsonPatty
Those are definitely the kind of neighbors to have, and to strive to be! You've done well for yourself, Karen. I totally agree with the comment that you wrote poetry when you said your firewood was moved and so were you. I love reading and re-reading your posts and the comments. ❤️❤️
Karen
Aw, thanks Patty! You're one of my favourite readers! ~ karen
Mary W
One of a kind and still!!! a pleasure to read even if I have no need of stacking wood. Thanks!
Eric J. Desantis
First off your a hottie. Any girl who stacks firewood for 12 hours is a hottie but heres what ive learned after 30 years of it. First i have pallets laid two deep in a 50 foot area. Than i get slab wood from the local mill delivered and dropped on the pallets. Its cheap you dont have to split it and it burns hotter than chunk wood. Than i fire up the table saw. Yep thats right a table saw. As it goes through the saw it slides on a piece of plywood into the truck. I can fill my eight foot bed in 30 min. Than i drive her up to the house and huck it onto the porch. I never stack firewood. Its a giant waste of time if your just gonna burn it. This method is the fastest, cheapest and easiest way to heat your home with wood. If your chain saw hits a chunk of dirt, thats a 16 dollar blade. The table saw blade lasts over a year. Dont forget gas, oil and bar chain oil too. The pallets keep the wood dry and all the poop falls away down in there.
Leigh N.
Hi there from New Zealand, and thanks for the stacked-wood end-column tip, a great idea that solves my 'how to keep the stack ends tidy and stable' dilemma. That is fairly important to me as two cords of wood is about a quarter of what I burn a year down here, so there are substantial amounts of wood to manage!
A good idea for stacking on the ground, without going to the expense of buying 4x2 or similar timber bearers, is to score some old wooden transport pallets (Many transport operators or general businesses will have a few lying around that they would prefer just 'went away'). I have lined the entire grass-earth floor of my woodshed with them and they not only lift the firewood off the ground, but also allow free air circulation below the stack.
I stumbled on your site after googling for tips on pouring self-levelling flooring compound and your post was so good I now have to go through all your other posts :-) Even if I don't need to do a particular job I do love reading your clever, funny and down-to-earth how-to posts that are properly usable in the real world!
Many thanks (from a man who hasn't done everything and doesn't know it all)
Karen
Hi Leigh! Thanks for sticking around after your initial Google search. Great tip about the skids (pallets). Plus if they aren't pressure treated you can burn them at the end of the season. ~ karen!
Melissa
I thought for sure you were going to say your neighbors were coming over asking if they could take some of the wood, in the case that, I don't know, you just had it dropped there for free.
Ah, firewood. My dad was an arborist and his side job was doing firewood. Growing up, thats how we spent weekends. Lots of people would buy it from us green, and let it dry until next year. My dad would fall a tree, I would use a stick and a crayon to mark the wood in lengths, my dad would follow with the saw and cut in rounds, and my mom would split while my dad threw it into the truck. I'd be in the back of the truck stacking, then we'd drive to wherever we were going and dump (and sometimes have to restack)...then go home and do it again. Or, we'd do the same process but stack it on our property to cure. Fun times.
Karen
I wish my wood was free, lol. ~ karen
Heather (mtl)
I few trees were trimmed down here on my property (I'm in a co-op), so I offered the wood to my brother... so had a few other people, it seems. He ended up with 1/2 of his double driveway stacked 5ft tall with huge logs. After renting a splitter, it became fire-wood - and stacked in the backyard- a few days later. One log alone produced 55 pcs. I still wonder if any midnight wanderers pinched any of his logs from the driveway....
Of course, we'd all like to know what brand your jeans are :)
Karen
Hey Heather! You, you, you just said pinched a log, lol! So gross, lol! That's one of the reasons I was worried about leaving my wood on the road by the way. I didn't want anyone wandering off with any! My jeans (and this is funny) are from a street market in Thailand. They were about $5 and the vendor took one look at me and picked out a size LARGE for me. Yes. I'm a large in Thailand! ~ karen
Trish Gannon
I stacked two bush cords of wood and have two more in a pile in the yard under a tarp, waiting to be stacked. I also moved two tons of energy log "seconds" for my mother's winter firewood (at 86, she handles the energy logs much better than firewood). My second two cords will be done the Scandanavian way, given that most of the wood is green. You might want to try it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6PJMH_9ijg
Buff Ramsey
What a lovely post! To borrow AKing's comment: It started as a DIY, and then became a little something more. Love it!
Karen
Thanks Buff. ~ karen!
taria
It is wonderful to hear about your neighbors. I like them a lot. Why not purchase a cord at a time? We used to buy 2 cords and realized it wasn't any cheaper to get one at a time. The delivery price is included in the sales price and buying early got us no deal. They never seem to run out either. Our firewood, just a cord, is being delivered tomorrow. DD is unemployed and going to help cart and stack. Here in the high desert of so cal we burn a fair amount of wood too. Guy we buy from calls his company 'Bun Warmers'. The year he changed to that from 'Mike's firewood' his business doubled!
Karen
Wow! I guess a name change makes all the difference! And when you said it I right away thought … that's a good name! So, the one cord thing. It would hurt me more to have the wood delivery thing dragged out over the whole winter, lol. I liked to get it over and done with. Most years I get 2 batches. One in October and one in Jan or February, but I always dread the January delivery. ~ karen!
taria
Well, good thing you are all done now. I probably can't even imagine how cold you guys really get there. You burn a lot of wood! Hope you are toasty this morning.
AKing
I really enjoyed your writing in this piece. It started as another (awesome) diy and then became a little something more.
Natika
Wow, that's a lot of work. Kudos to you and your neighbours too for seeing you were in need.
I remember that sweater from a post you did last year! I loved it then too. I tried to buy it from Roots, but they were all sold out. So then I bought a used sweater and some red yarn and had ideas to cross stitch a maple leaf onto it, but it's still sitting in a drawer... Maybe seeing how cute you rock it will inspire me to get going on it!
Barbie
So, your butt looks really good in that shot! LOL
next question, do you cover all that wood for when it rains and snows? Won't it be hard to start if it's wet?
Karen
I'm really gonna have to go back and look at that shot, lol. I will occasionally cover the top of the wood with a tarp. Not the whole pile, just the top to keep rain off of it. But even if I don't, the rain doesn't really soak into the wood. It's just on the surface and after being in the house for a day or so it's all dried out and ready to use again. And only the wood on the top ever gets wet, so I can just move those pieces aside and pick from underneath where it's dry. :) ` karen!
Tracey
Hi Karen!
We've been stacking this way forever, learned by my father, and his father before him, and his father before him and so on.
We come from the Ottawa Valley (and we've all always heated with wood).
I was going to suggest it when you wrote your post about stacking before, but I thought at the time I should mind my own business and let you stack the way you want.
Tracey
Oh, weird.....I somehow deleted half my post...anyway, I just wanted to say I'm glad you found this method, it's very sturdy and we've never ever had wood fall.
We heat exclusively with our wood stove. We only got 10 face cords this year...I'm optimistic about a shorter winter than last year!
Really looking forward to the video chat tomorrow :-)
Karen
Chat? What chat? ;) ~ karen!
Karen
ha! You could have told me. I may have told you to shove it, but whatever. The truth is stacking with those plastic elbow things and 2x4s is MUCH faster. But not nearly as pretty. ~ karen!
Nancy
The Art of Doing Stuff - 'cause it ain't that hard. Any of it.
Really?
Karen
Really. ~ karen!