Outpost Woodshed modifications

My lovely 12 cubic metre Outpost Woodshed was the first project completed after I shifted to Stewart Island. The well-designed kitset is the best I've seen and I've had outstanding customer service from Jim, the Lifestyle Buildings Specialist. Outpost have an impressive range of relocatable designs with free freight within NZ to your nearest freight depot.

My woodshed has now seen three winters and each year I've tweaked the way I stack wood as I was putting wet wood in front of dry. In hindsight two woodsheds would have been the way to go - one for last year's wood, the other for newly-gathered wood.  In November 2012 I made hammocks out of salmon netting to hold all the small twigs and bark that I use for kindling, see my previous blog (opens in new window) and nailed up some planks to provide a partition. These mods worked better although I kept hitting my head on the hammocks. Earlier this month I removed the hammocks, cut the salmon netting in half and nailed it to make internal partitions going up to the roof.

Woodshed 10 March 2014 with new salmon netting partitions

These have worked well and I can now pile up the kindling, jump on it to squish it down and then pile it up some more. The left hand partition is filled with kindling and in the front I've stacked the logs that need splitting. The right hand partition is full of the bigger firewood and the middle is a mixture of big and small. My cunning plan is to start the fire with a load of kindling, chuck on a couple of bigger logs and then let the fire go out though this may need beefing up when there's no sunshine. My small 45sq m whare warms up quickly and the double-glazing keeps the warmth in - and I can always pop on another jersey to save on wood!

Woodshed 15 March 2014 - filling up

 

Woodshed 23 March 2014 - not much room left now

All clear around the woodshed (east end)

I haven't used my chainsaw for over a year now as I enjoy using the low-tech bow saw and loppers - I'm not so scared of those tools, they don't make a lot of noise or use fossil fuel. Breaking up dried tree-tops is time-consuming but satisfying work and I feel that I'm playing my part in reducing my overall footprint.

 

I haven't completely finished - there's still a woodpile to break up and I plan on adding a bit of a lean-to on the west-side of the woodshed using a couple of pallets and the timber from the hen house that Jen and I dismantled in December. Not quite sure how I go about it yet but it will need to be strong enough to stand up to the westerly gusts of wind.

 

It's great to have the woodshed full and I'll now be able to measure how much I use through this winter. In New Plymouth I'd get a large truckload of kiln-dried pine blocks and spend a day barrowing it to the woodshed. I spend a heap more time achieving the same thing here but at least I appreciate the effort when I'm sitting in a nice cosy house!