Pile falling over!

[Yamaha_gurl]

My 3-4 foot high x 20 foot long wood pile keeps falling over...lol. Not the whole thing, just parts of it. Driving me mental! At least I know there is a ton of wind there Just thought I'd vent, that's all

 

[jdscj8]

Sucks, we kept having that problem, so i took some t-posts on the side that it kept going over on, put one at each end and one in the middle, took a piece of old clothes line strung it from post to post so it butt up to the wood about a foot down from the top. As my stack got shorter i slid the line down. some stacks i do that to both sides. the wind blows from every direction ya never know.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Perhaps it is not from the wind. Maybe it is frost heaving.

I was laughing earlier today looking at my splitting pile. Some of the snow and ice had melted last week so a part of the pile appears to be held up with...nothing but air! Just looks funny, but I know that thing is going to fall over when the remaining snow and ice thaws. That's okay though as it is just a splitting pile. It won't do that after I get it split and stacked for seasoning. That pile has to hold together for 6-7 years because it will be that long before I get around to burning that wood.

 

[gyrfalcon]

My 3-4 foot high x 20 foot long wood pile keeps falling over...lol. Not the whole thing, just parts of it. Driving me mental! At least I know there is a ton of wind there Just thought I'd vent, that's all

My sympathies. I live halfway up the side of a low ridge, and my one spot of relatively flat ground is reserved for the kitchen garden, so I have to stack my wood on an uneven slope. Had to restack the whole business probably three times in total last summer because pieces of it kept falling over, both from wind and from the soggy, sagging, compressing ground underneath after a solid month of saturating rain in July.

Stringing clothesline around it definitely helps, though, I finally learned. Looks ugly, but...

 

[bsruther]

Sucks, we kept having that problem, so i took some t-posts on the side that it kept going over on, put one at each end and one in the middle, took a piece of old clothes line strung it from post to post so it butt up to the wood about a foot down from the top. As my stack got shorter i slid the line down. some stacks i do that to both sides. the wind blows from every direction ya never know.

This is basically what I've done when I have too long of a run on a stack. It works well.

 

[vasten]

I had this same frustrating problem this summer, turned out it was the sun causing it for me. As the sun would bake on the rows they would start to bow out, until eventually they would just tip over. Alot of frustration before I figured it out. But alot of warmth this winter when I realized how much the sun dried those pieces compared to other rows that didn't experiance this.

 

[LLigetfa]

...As the sun would bake on the rows they would start to bow out...

Yes, wood shrinks a lot and the most exposed face will shrink faster than the backside, causing it to bow. I find that even when stacking very green wood in the shed. I prefer to leave fresh split wood outside tossed loose in a pile to get some of the shrinkage out of the way before stacking it away.

 

[granpajohn]

I have used the tie-it-up method before by mixing cord/rope with one of those ratchet style tie-down straps. Then, after wrapping the pile vertically, (it must be up on blocks to do this obviously), I crank it down tight until the pile is one, monolithic chunk of wood. As is seasons/shrinks, one can simply crank the ratchet mechanism for the occasional fix-up. How do I know this helps?, and Why don't I still do it? Answers: The damn rodents keep chewing through the cords. (Even with dogs and snakes harassing them.)

I now use the fence post method too. Works OK.

Might be worth a try if you have meaner dogs.