Nothing dries firewood quite like moving air. A tarpaulin thrown over a stack keeps the rain off, but it also traps the damp that makes logs hiss and smoke. A proper store solves both problems at once, and it does not need to be big. The design below is deliberately compact — about a metre and a half of wall space — and it is built from treated timber you can pick up at any builders' merchant. One weekend, two trips to the yard, and you have somewhere dry to keep a winter's worth of wood.
Start with log length, not with the garden
The most common mistake is building a store and then discovering the logs stick out of the front. Measure what you actually burn before you cut anything. If you buy in 25cm logs, a 30cm internal depth is comfortable; if your stove takes 33cm logs, allow 40cm. Depth is what usually gets underestimated.
Height is about comfort. Between 1.2m and 1.5m is easy to load and easy to reach into from the top. Keep it low and wide rather than tall and narrow; a squat store is more stable and sheds water better.
Work backwards from your own habits for capacity. A store roughly 1.2m wide, 0.5m deep and 1.2m high will keep a modest stove going for much of the winter, but a household burning every evening will want two — one filling, one burning. If space is tight, put the second against a different wall rather than making the first one enormous.
Choosing a spot that does the work for you
Position matters as much as construction. You want sun and wind on the front of the store, so a south- or west-facing wall is ideal. Avoid the north side of a shed or the lee of a fence, where damp air sits.
- Keep it a hand's width clear of boundaries, drains, gutters and air bricks.
- Do not site it under a tree. Dripping branches and falling leaves undo months of drying.
- Put it near the route you carry logs into the house, even if that means a slightly shadier spot.
- Stand it on firm, level ground — paving slabs or a concrete path, not bare soil.
If the store is going close to a boundary, in front of a window or in a conservation area, it is worth a quick check with your local planning authority before you start. Small garden structures are usually straightforward, but rules vary by area.
Timber, fixings and tools
Use pressure-treated timber throughout and buy exterior-grade fixings. Sawn timber in 47 x 50mm or 47 x 75mm is fine for the frame; feather-edge boards or shiplap make good cladding. For the roof, corrugated bitumen sheets are cheap, light and forgiving to fit, though a profiled metal sheet will last longer.
You will need:
- Frame timber, cladding boards and roof sheets
- Treated battens or scaffold boards for the slatted base
- Galvanised screws or nails, plus roofing washers for corrugated sheets
- Paving slabs or concrete blocks to lift the whole thing off the ground
- Saw, drill, spirit level, tape measure, gloves and eye protection
- A brush-on wood preservative for cut ends — follow the manufacturer's instructions and let it dry before handling
Build the base and frame
- Level four paving slabs in a rectangle slightly larger than the footprint. They keep timber away from soil and stop the base rotting.
- Lay two treated bearers across the slabs, running front to back, then fix the base battens on top with 10–15mm gaps between them. Those gaps let air up through the stack.
- Build two side frames, each a rectangle with a vertical at every end and one in the middle. Make them identical.
- Join the sides with rails along the back and along the base, then check for square by measuring the diagonals. If they match, the frame is true.
- Fix two taller posts at the back to carry the roof, so the front edge sits about 75mm lower than the back. That slope does the drainage for you.
Clad it, but never seal it
Board the back solidly and clad the sides with a gap of 10–15mm between boards, fixed to the outside of the frame so air can move behind them. Overlapping feather-edge boards with a slim shadow gap looks neater than butting them tight.
Leave the front open, or fit a few removable slats. This is the face the wind gets at, and the face you pull logs from. Resist boarding it up for tidiness — a sealed box will sweat, and the wood inside stays damp however good the roof is.
Fix roof sheets with about 50mm of overhang at the sides and 75mm at the front, overlapping by one corrugation, and slope everything away from any wall. Brush preservative on every cut end, and cap exposed post tops with offcuts so water cannot sit on the grain.
Stack it so the air can get in
Split logs dry far faster than whole rounds, so split anything over about 10cm across before it goes in. Stack loosely in rows with the cut ends facing out. Do not wedge logs in tight to fill every gap — the spaces between them are doing the work.
Take logs from the front and refill at the back, so nothing sits untouched for years. Softwoods generally season in a few months of decent weather, while hardwoods such as oak and ash commonly need a year or more. A cheap moisture meter takes the guesswork out; most stove manufacturers suggest burning wood below around 20% moisture, and if yours reads higher, give it longer.
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