Verlie Feeney
Last year I decided that I wanted to store some of my firewood closer to the house, for easier access during the coldest days. While practically-speaking this thing isn’t exactly portable, but officially-speaking, this firewood shed is considered “moveable”. I looked at a lot of firewood sheds online to get ideas for how I wanted to build mine. I don’t know much about 3D prototyping software, so I tend to plan out a lot of my projects in 2D, from multiple angles.
So I started out by building the floor beams and posts atop these concrete footings. This ground is somewhat slanted and uneven, so most of the posts are slightly different heights to ensure the shed would be level on all sides.
Proper construction practices would have me space the beams closer together, but being that they are all essentially doubled-up, this thing is incredibly strong and sturdy. I used regular pine decking, and left a gap of a couples inches between each board, to allow for some airflow around my firewood.
I ended up using 6-foot long wooden fence pickets since they’re thinner, lighter, and cheaper than using decking. Since the roof will not need to support any weight except for itself and maybe some snow in the winter, these pickets were plenty strong enough.
Doing this part reminded me or something I previously realized many years ago: I really, really hate doing roofing work. The reason I used an “L” shape for the vertical corner supports was because I wanted to attach the pickets to them in a clean and nice-looking way.
Secondly, I did not build this shed on cemented posts, or tamped ground, or with a substrate of sand or gravel. Because of that, and because this is a heavy shed that’s holding thousands of pounds of firewood, I acknowledge that this entire thing could begin to shift or sink over time.
The reason I mention any of this is as sort of a disclaimer about building a structure without a proper foundation: Understand the potential problems, and do it at your own risk.
