Log Store

[RossJarvis]

Hello people

I have just joined this site and am planning to build a timber framed log store for the lady next door.  This is Mark 1 which I made for our house;





I need to rethink the front row of shingles to make them more robust and try to improve the quality of the joints.  She'd also like it to be wider so I'm going to make two bays instead of one (or at least fake it with a middle post).

These are my plans, which should be good enough to make a cutting list and get the job done;



If anyone can see any flaws or omissions please tell me.

I'm thinking of making all the joints in traditional British Timber frame style, pegged with wooden dowel.  It'll be made of pressure treated pine with the odd screw maybe and nails, but no glue.  I'm yet to think about chopping all the mortices by hand or possibly using a bench mortiser.  There's also the option of using a brace and bit or Mr Makita.  I'm in two minds whether to go the full hog and do everything with mandraulics or give in to modernity and use the mighty electron!

[PekkaNF]

Hello,

Looks like a nice plan. I like timber frame construction.

Couple of toughts:
* That amount of wood would be consumed here in a week or less when it's cold. Is that secondary storage or just for entertainment?
* I would make legs longer, we get here almost a meter of snow, last ones on the spring would be soggy if they were that close to ground.
* if you use screws with treated timber, make sure the screws are compatible, othervice they will corrode in in few years. I don't see they need to use treated timber in this structure on anywhere else than base and even that should be off the ground ( I see you have done that with a brik). Put a tarfelt or such between block and wood, it will slow rotting. For base I would use something less porous material than a brik or a building block, natural stone or concrete is better.
* Here people put some sort side walls and some shutters to prevent snow from gluing it solid during the winter. They are removable and not that solid, because air must circulate to dry the wood.

We tend to make them whole lot more utilitarian, I respect your effort to make it more designed with the house.

Pekka

[RossJarvis]

Pekka, thank you for your advice.

Yes, that's about a weeks worth of wood.  We don't have much room to store wood and if anything it is more of an "entertainment" than a serious log store.  My wife likes us to use wood for environmental reasons, I prefer coal because I'm the one who has to bring in the fuel, lay the fire, light it, keep it stoked and clean out the grate!  When it gets cold we burn the wood for the first week and then I fill the store with bags of coal!

The lady next door has "seasoned" logs delivered in bags every week or so and likes to have stuff that looks nice. 

Here in the south of England we get snow for about a week a year and no more than 10cm.  The one I have made is not treated timber and seems okay, We have a lot of rain and it is good for keeping the wood dry without sides or shutters. 

I was thinking to use galvanised nails instead of screws and better check to see they are compatible. 

The main reason I actually want to make it is to practice making mortice and tenon joints in a local house building style from about 300 - 800 years ago. I would rather use oak but in England all timber is very expensive and seems to be the stuff that no-one else wants!

[chipenter]

If you want traditional I would take my cutting list to a the New Forest , and find a charcoal burner or forester and ask for some green Chestnut , square it with a draw knife and split it with wedges .


Jeff

[RossJarvis]

If you want traditional I would take my cutting list to a the New Forest , and find a charcoal burner or forester and ask for some green Chestnut , square it with a draw knife and split it with wedges .


Jeff

  Ah, that's next weeks project  the week after that, I'll be taking a felling axe into the wood across the road, tumble a few oak and then convert them to beams with the side axe. Then I'll get out the saw, slick and callipers and by the end of the week I expect to have an entire workshop up and PeteW can come round to install three phase

[RossJarvis]

Thought I'd better check out if I could find the mortiser in the "climate controlled" stores...yep, there she is under the generator;



Now for phase 1, installing on the workbench in the carpentry workshop;



Hmmm, better check the weather forecast before I do any more

Oh yes, now where did I put the mortising bits???

[PekkaNF]

Sounds nice. If the house has timberframe features, making the wood storage somewhat same style is very good starting point. Make it look traditional, but if you don't have traditional tools, use anything you have.

I like using firewood. Tell your wife that she is absolutely right.

If my memory serves right oak eats iron and iron nails tend to turn ugly black spots. One thing to check.

Here trated wood composition has changes so many times I have lost track when to use stainless, when to use palstic coated etc...Older treatments used to have metalic salts (yuk.) and they eat normal passivated or even galvanized screvs like you could actually hear them rusting. Then they got more enviromental and that ate stanless steel.....

Can't wait to see how it comes up. Sounds promissing.

Pekka

[Pete W.]

SNIP

Then I'll get out the saw, slick and callipers and by the end of the week I expect to have an entire workshop up and PeteW can come round to install three phase

Sorry, Ross, I can't do 'install' and/or 'three phase' !           Blame John Prestcott and his Part P!  Besides, three phase can bite!          

Three phase used to be RED     YELLOW     BLUE     but now it's BROWN     BLACK     GREY     (Oops, the palette doesn't have a grey!)

(Or is it BLACK     BROWN     GREY     ?)

I didn't know you had a mortice machine.  If you can't find the bits, I have a set that might fit.  They came as an extra with my Axminster drill press.  Do I gather you might also need to borrow a couple of planes and an oilstone?

[John Stevenson]

The main reason I actually want to make it is to practice making mortice and tenon joints in a local house building style from about 300 - 800 years ago.

By God that mortiser looks to be in good nick for a 300 to 800 year old machine   

[RossJarvis]

I will admit that the mortiser is a modern reproduction

Yes Pekka, if I had a car, I'd collect logs for firewood and split 'em myself.  However, the Health and Safety laws have changed and we're no longer allowed our ancient common right to collect fallen wood from the forests! Too many people have cut off limbs with chainsaws apparently (I thought that that was what they were for!)

Our house is not timber framed, but many in the village are, so it is in keeping with the locality.

Anyway, mortiser fettled and fitted to machinery bench, just need to square the fence and plumb in the electrons, however as I said my square and verniers are now on holiday with a financial consultant in tool kits No1 & 2, so I need to find two wotsits of equal length to square off the support thingies.



Luckily the weather forecast is good for today

PeteW, if you think you're having trouble with your shed you should see mine;



I've been waiting four years for the "Sky Hooks" to arrive.  Once they're here I can install the roof, plumb down the corners to lay a floor and then build the walls. (That's what I told the beloved wife anyway)

Thanks for the offer of tools, The mortice bits (chisels?) were in tool kit No3, but I'm down to my last five planes, which might see me through and I've got four grades of Japanese waterstones for a nice edge. (if you look carefully to the left of the morticer you can see a couple of old retired beech planes, I don't count these as usable any more).

[RossJarvis]

Have just got back from the wood yard, having taken two cutting lists with me, Metric and Imperial and having applied a lot of mandraulics to cut and shift, I now have a flat-pack log store in the back garden.  All I need to add now is some blood, sweat, tears and fine Picto-Celto-Anglo-Saxon words!  You just don't want to know how much this little pile of firewood cost

Am now trying to work out which bit is what

[PeterE]

We also have a wood burning fire place both for cosiness and support during the few very cold spells that come our way in the winter. We live just south of Gothenburg in Sweden and it can get well below -25 Centigrade at times.

So somewhere to store the winter supplies of fire wood is required and I made this one for our house.

Unfortunately the only picture I have is right at the front, but it is a little over 2 meters wide, about the same in height, and about 60 cm (2 feet) deep. That crates enough space for two layers of logs in depth.

The sides are covered with the same panelling as the house and the roofing is the simplest ever, just ordinary roofing tar paper on top of boards.
I divided the storage into two sections, one for burning this year and one for next. That way I can have quite fresh wood to store and suitably dry to burn.

Since the store is high, i made the dividing wall open but wioth standing bars. That way I can place a horizontal stick at suitable levels and prevent the pile to fall out. The "floor" is built with distance between the boaards to enable enough air to flow through the wood stack.

All the wood used was ordinary pine without treatment. After finished build I painted the outside the same as the house with the same colours, and the inside with a suitable wood preservation fluid.

Well, just as an idea not to make the storage too small.

BR

/Peter

[RossJarvis]

That looks really good Peter.  I think your's is a lot more practical than mine.  The one I'm building is just under 2m wide (6 foot), 0.6m deep (2 foot) and about 1.2m high at the front (4 foot).  It will hold two layers of logs.  How long does your store of logs last?  I think this one will take about 60% of yours.  What size wood did you use for the frame?

I like the idea of standing bars in the middle  and will think about how to do this.  The "floorboards" are to have gaps for good circulation of air like yours.  I need to think about whether or not to put roofing felt/tar paper in, however the shingles all overlap so seem to work well to keep the rain out.

Where I live many people have more money than sense so tend to have articles that look nice, rather than being practical.  In a way this is an "Arts and Crafts" style project.

The lady next door has seen similar stores in shops but they are not as strong as mine.  She says they flex when you push them.  My design is a "Space Frame" with" triangulated Braces".  I can stand on the roof with no problems and I weigh 92kg (14.5 stone or 200 pounds).  You could probably park a car on it (or maybe a motorbike).

Mind you, the cost of the wood alone so far is more than buying a new log store from the shops, If I were to be charging labour it would end up 6 times as much!!!

[awemawson]

We have two wood burning stoves, and log storage has always been an issue. So when I re-built one of our timber outbuildings in brick I incorporated a log store into the end of it. The opening is a standard 30" door frame with no door, but it is about 2 metres wide, 2.4 metres high and three metres deep. So realistically about 12 cubic metres as you need to leave air space at the top. I incorporated ventilation into the brickwork at the rear.

Currently I'm swamping in willow, which burns hot but very fast (it was free for the cutting- I have 25 jumbo bags of it in the farm yard and I've stacked 8 more in the wood store to keep dry. I'm confident that we will easily burn the stuff in the store this coming winter.

[doubleboost]

This is mine built from reclaimed fencing and big screws

[RossJarvis]

Grief Doubleboost, now that is a log store I love the "vernacular" style and use of old materials.

Awemawson: One of our neighbours has something very similar on the front of their house, however it is only about 12" deep!  I think it is more of a feature than practical.  It's great to see so many burning wood and the ways of getting it.  The ventilation at the back is really nice.

Unfortunately we have open fires which are designed for coal and are very poor at heating with wood, ideally we'd need a stove of some sort to stop the heat going straight up the chimney.  Additionally, we're short on space outside, what with two wheelie bins, water butt and glass bin, so we don't have much width.  I think I need to put a second storey under mine.

[PeterE]

That looks really good Peter.  I think your's is a lot more practical than mine.  The one I'm building is just under 2m wide (6 foot), 0.6m deep (2 foot) and about 1.2m high at the front (4 foot).  It will hold two layers of logs.  How long does your store of logs last?  I think this one will take about 60% of yours.  What size wood did you use for the frame?

The difference between yours and mine seems to be the height only. We use up about half of the store per winter. Mostly to have a cosy fire and at times to add to the house heating.

The floor part is made from a frame of 125x50 mm (5"x2") with three feet at the front to get about 20 cm (8") of clearance to the ground. The rear frame is secured to the house, in this case my garage. Between fromnt and rear I have 125x50 braces on top of which i put 75x25 (3"x2") floor boards with about 25 mm (1") spaces for ventilation.

Then I made a simple frame from 50x50 (2"x2") at the front and rear corners, as well as in the middle. The rear corner piees were secured to the garage as the bottom frame. Betwseen the corner posts I put braces with a distance of about 60 cm (two feet) to form kind of a ladder on each side. I replicated the roof angle from the garage, still using 50x50 for the framing.

At this point I took a spade drill and drilled I think five holes evenly through the middle "ladder" and using "broom sticks" it became like a fence to separate the two sides of the store. That done finished the framework.

Next up was to cover the roof with ordinary cheap boards or planks about 20x100 (1"x4") onto which I put some roof tar felt. When I made the roof I nowadays think I made a little too small overhang at the front. A little more would have protected the log ends better. After the roof came the sides which is the same type of panel as on the house. Bottom layer is 25x150mm (1"x6") with a 50 mm (2") gap. The gap is then covered with a 25x100 (1"x4") board as a lid. The construction ventilates the panel extremely well. Then the last bit was to finish with trimmings around corners, under the roof edges and the opening. Finally painted to match.

I like the idea of standing bars in the middle  and will think about how to do this.  The "floorboards" are to have gaps for good circulation of air like yours.  I need to think about whether or not to put roofing felt/tar paper in, however the shingles all overlap so seem to work well to keep the rain out.

Where I live many people have more money than sense so tend to have articles that look nice, rather than being practical.  In a way this is an "Arts and Crafts" style project.

The lady next door has seen similar stores in shops but they are not as strong as mine.  She says they flex when you push them.  My design is a "Space Frame" with" triangulated Braces".  I can stand on the roof with no problems and I weigh 92kg (14.5 stone or 200 pounds).  You could probably park a car on it (or maybe a motorbike).

Mind you, the cost of the wood alone so far is more than buying a new log store from the shops, If I were to be charging labour it would end up 6 times as much!!!

Even though I have not used very heavy material, the strength of the total construction is really good. I can easily stand on the roof, something I dod when changing the roof tiles on the garage.

Our wood burning stove is a moderna construction with a traditional design as shown in this link:
http://www.keddy.se/kaminer/latta-murspisar/carisma-2
(Unfortunately the text is in swedish so you have to use the translate button, but it really is a plate cassette inserted into a reinforced concrete case. It is light enough to stand directly onto a standard floor and does not get very hot on the outside. It includes a fan in the bottom that createes an airflow around the cassette and chimney pipe and blows the hot air out into the room through the black ventilator a bit up the chimney. The air for the fire is taken from the outside in a separate flow so as not to use up the hot indoor air. It is very economical and stores its heat from late evening and is still luke warm in the morning.

Such a cassette would perhaps be a good solution to add to your open fireplace for better "fuel economy".

Nice to read and see others solutions as well. Variations on a theme so to say   

BR

/Peter

[awemawson]

It'll be interesting to see how we get on this winter - it'll be the first since we did a major refurbishment.  The back of the house was single skin brick with no insulation, and single glazed windows. Now we've excavated the floor to a depth of three foot, inorporated 100mm high rate insulation and wet underfloor heating over a new concrete slab, put in double glazing and a new inner skin to the walls with insulation between so the heat load will be much reduced hopefully - certainly the bank balance was much reduced

[RossJarvis]

http://www.keddy.se/kaminer/latta-murspisar/carisma-2
(Unfortunately the text is in swedish so you have to use the translate button, but it really is a plate cassette inserted into a reinforced concrete case. It is light enough to stand directly onto a standard floor and does not get very hot on the outside. It includes a fan in the bottom that createes an airflow around the cassette and chimney pipe and blows the hot air out into the room through the black ventilator a bit up the chimney. The air for the fire is taken from the outside in a separate flow so as not to use up the hot indoor air. It is very economical and stores its heat from late evening and is still luke warm in the morning.

Such a cassette would perhaps be a good solution to add to your open fireplace for better "fuel economy".

Nice to read and see others solutions as well. Variations on a theme so to say   

BR

/Peter

Thank you for your reply Peter, I think your construction is good and very solid, similar to much of mine in sizes.

I really like that wood burner, it looks very beautiful and seems a good design.  In our house we have bare wooden floor boards with big gaps.  When the fire is burning the heat and gas going up the chimney pull an enormous amount of air through the gaps, creating very cold feet.  There is no insulation under the floor boards (only damp!!) and the gap is ventilated to directly outside.

I've been thinking of ways to get the "fresh air" ducted inside directly to the fire.  A sealed burner would be ideal with a pipe to outside.  I'll have to ask the landlord.  However we'd have to have a low stove vented through the fireplace and up the chimney.

Awemawson, it sounds like your house used to be like ours.  Our external walls are double skinned, but with single glazing and original sliding sash windows at the rear of the house. As I said there is cold air and swamp under the living room (the sofa is a good way of covering up the rotting boards!!)  I hope you have a snuggly warm winter this year.  With the way fuel bills are going up, you may recoup your bank balance sooner than you thought.

The beloved wanted me to rip up the carpet and sand the boards, after renting the sanders, buying sanding sheets and oiling the boards I found out I could have replaced the lot with oak for the same price!  Wish I had and stuffed a lot of insulation down at the same time.

[awemawson]

Awemawson, it sounds like your house used to be like ours.  Our external walls are double skinned, but with single glazing and original sliding sash windows at the rear of the house. As I said there is cold air and swamp under the living room (the sofa is a good way of covering up the rotting boards!!)  I hope you have a snuggly warm winter this year.  With the way fuel bills are going up, you may recoup your bank balance sooner than you thought.

In 1645 it was a modest oak framed clap boarded 'bothy'. Much added to over the centuries. Someone removed the clap board, and built a brick outer skin, lining inside with lathe & plaster, then later plaster boarded over. Sadly we had to remove the timber frame, building a 7 newton block wall where it had been with a 100 mm cavity and insulation. We kept as much of the original timber that was internally exposed as we could to preserve the character, but although it is in the same place as originally, it is no longer structural but purely decorative. Took a bit of head scratching to get it all right! Mind you the extension that a previous owner put up in 2006 took quite a bit of putting right structurally !!!

[RossJarvis]

Awemawson, Sounds like you did the right thing with the frame The problem with British Timber frame houses is that the timber is on the outside where the neighbours see it and the owner just has plaster to look at, better to keep it to yourself.

As another day has dawned I thought I'd look out all the tools I'll need;



I'm probably being a bit extravagant but "hey ho".  I don't need a tape measure or rule as there's no need for standard measurements, I'll need to sharpen the marking knife, chisels and plane iron, make a double ended pointy stick, make a 45degree cardboard template and find the plumb bob I've been tripping over daily for the past 13 years, which has just decided to hide!

We can also pretend there is no "tinworm" on any of these tools and that I've been looking after them carefully

Just going to do the washing up so that I can use the sink to sharpen the tools.

[RossJarvis]

Awemawson,  I was wondering how much of the frame was left? 1645 eh, good oak should have just settled in and seasoned by now!

PeteW, if I havent bored you to tears already and you're still watching, here's my Japanese waterstones;



They're on the edge of the "ahem" grinding station (don't tell Becka ).  Anyway, the discarded grit cleans the stainless sink up nicely

[RossJarvis]

Front frame laid out, levelled and squared to mark out the tenons.  Couldn't find a piece of string so had to use a tape measure as second best to set the distances between members.  You wouldn't believe the things I've found looking for tools which are no longer there

[awemawson]

Ross,

Problem with the old oak is it was riddled with death watch beetle. I have kept as much as was relatively sound and have it stacked close to my woodwork shop - but I reckon it's frankly not much good

[RossJarvis]

Ross,

Problem with the old oak is it was riddled with death watch beetle. I have kept as much as was relatively sound and have it stacked close to my woodwork shop - but I reckon it's frankly not much good

That's a shame, maybe you can cut the odd bit out for a small project.  The last time I worked some old oak it was about 200 years old, I think it was an old newel post so had been well protected.  It was like cast iron!