What do you lay your timber stacks on?

[Woodworks]

Just working through a pile of roundwood which has sat for nearly a year and the sycamore and birch near the bottom of the stacks has started to rot. I lay old fence posts, telegraph poles etc to put the wood on but it leaves very little air gap when loaded with wonky wood so it rots. Wondering if some elevated rails of some description would aid drying or at least avoid the rot. Would rather avoid any permanent structures as this is in the field 

 

Thanks

[gdh]

Sycamore is about the worst for rotting, I've got some year old stuff from stacks and it's nice and dry but the logs are snapping as we pick them up at the moment.

 

We just put a couple of bigger logs the opposite way as runners when we stack. As long as the stacks not touching the floor I can't see the height making a lot of difference to rotting.

[openspaceman]

With birch if you cannot split it soon after felling it rots before it dries because the bark is so oily it won't let water out. When we were harvesting birch poles for turnery if they couldn't be extracted to the mill straight away they had to have stripes cut out of the bark. Sycamore was not accepted if it could not be in the mill within days.

[Steven P]

Similar to GDH, some longer split logs lengthways propped up on bricks at each end, and then shorter cut and split logs on top at right angles to that.

 

Once dry they go in the garage on pallets.

 

Are your log piles on hard standing or over grass - might make a difference to the height they'll need to be to keep the lower ones dry

[slack ma girdle]

Leylandii make the best bearers,  some of mine are twelve years old,  and have only just started to rot.

[Stubby]

18 minutes ago, slack ma girdle said:

Leylandii make the best bearers,  some of mine are twelve years old,  and have only just started to rot.

I would say sweet chestnut is also up there in that respect . 

[Woodworks]

46 minutes ago, Stubby said:

I would say sweet chestnut is also up there in that respect . 

Looks like good old TCD is going to be able to sort me out with some chestnut bearers. 

[SbTVF]

We just use 12" diameter larch or any other bigger chipwood for bearers rather than hardwood ending up on the bottom. It's usually all processed within a few months of delivery anyway though so never had an issue.

[Woodworks]

7 minutes ago, SbTVF said:

We just use 12" diameter larch or any other bigger chipwood for bearers rather than hardwood ending up on the bottom. It's usually all processed within a few months of delivery anyway though so never had an issue.

It shouldn't have sat there that long but bought in too much and was slow to get around to processing it. Love to say it wont happen again but think it best I get further off the ground than it is at present. Larch would cost me more than chestnut 

[SbTVF]

It shouldn't have sat there that long but bought in too much and was slow to get around to processing it. Love to say it wont happen again but think it best I get further off the ground than it is at present. Larch would cost me more than chestnut 

Only paid a few bob more than chipwood for it. Was only smallish thinnings. 80% of 150t was sub 10"

Down to 25% in 10 months in the stack and makes beautiful firewood. Bark blocks the sawdust sucker inlet up something chronic though [emoji1787]