» Making a DIY Firewood Rack: 3 Useful Methods

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Making a DIY Firewood Rack: 3 Useful Methods

Whether you live in a house with a working fireplace or you like to have friends over for homemade food straight off your wood-fired grill, you’ll need a steady supply of dry, seasoned firewood.

A practical firewood rack keeps your kindling and logs off the ground, ensuring that this wood doesn’t become exposed to damp or moist conditions.

The best racks also allow dry air to circulate throughout the stack of firewood, helping in the seasoning process and drying out the logs so they’ll burn more efficiently when you put them on your fire.

You’ll find that it’s relatively simple to create your own firewood rack in the comfort of your backyard.

How Can You Make Your Own DIY Firewood Rack?

You could use many methods for making a DIY firewood rack, from adding several short 2” x 4” timber beams in a couple of cinder blocks, to welding together square metallic tubing to create an industrial-style structure.

Here are three simple methods you can use to construct a robust firewood rack.

1. Wooden Rack Method

If you live in a place where there’s plenty of rain and snow during the fall and winter months, you should construct a study, weather-resistant rack with a roof or lid.

The size of your rack depends on how much firewood you need to store outside throughout the year. However, in general, for an average home, a rack 19” wide by 56” long is ideal. For this model, you can get five 2” x 4” timber pieces from any hardware store: ask the employee to cut these lumber beams into standard 8’ lengths.

Once you’ve bought your lumbar pieces, make your cuts. If you have one, use a power saw to cut 4 beams down to 56”, then cut the remaining timber so that you have 6 pieces that measure 2” x 4” x 15” and 4 pieces that measure 2” x 4” x 29”.

You can now start building your rack. Use a drill and a box of 2.5” screws to fix the unit together. Put 2 of the 56” beams at the base of the rack, screwing them to 2 of the 15” pieces to make a rectangle. Use the other pair of 56” timber pieces as cross-sectional supports, so that you have a foundation with 4 sturdy cross beams.

Drill each 29” wooden piece into a corner of the foundational rectangle, then steady the unit by screwing a 56” x 19” timber rectangle into the top of the rack.

Make sure you coat the wooden structure in varnish, linseed, or some form of stain sealer so that it’s waterproof and resistant to rotting. Once the rack is dry, you can cut corrugated metal or treated plywood to size and fit it across the top of the structure, creating a roof that will keep rain off your logs.

2. Metal Tubing Method

You’ll find that this approach is a bit more involved than other DIY firewood rack methods on the list, but with this model you’ll create a rack that has a unique look that lends your backyard or garage an air of class and style. For this method, you’ll require access to an angle grinder power tool, a chop saw, and a welding tool, among other things.

Use a chop saw to cut down some 1”-thick tubing so that you have a pair of 8”-long pipes and a pair of 18”-long pipes. Use a strong, high-quality clamp to hold these pieces in place as you get out your angle grinder and scrape away the rust and sharp edges at the end of each piece. Weld these pipes together to create a rectangle that’s 10” wide by 18” long.

Now, you need to create the arms of the unit: these are the metal pieces that come up from each corner of the frame and hold the wood in place when you stack it. If you have some spare 1”-thick tubes, you could cut these to a suitable length and weld them into the rack’s base to produce an exposed, industrial-style aesthetic.

If you want to produce a unit that’s more traditional-looking, cut a flat metal bar into 4 pieces of equal length, then use a scroll bender to shape the ends of each piece into an attractive, spiral shape. Clamp these scrolls onto your base frame, ensuring that the rectangular frame is raised several inches off the ground by the scrolls’ feet, then use your welding tool to fuse the metal.

Finally, you can paint the metallic structure in any color you want: just don’t forget to finish the rack with a suitable sealant before putting it outdoors.

3. Cinder Block And Piping Method

Photo Credit: Reddit

This method produces the simplest and most cost-effective rack. If your top priority is to keep your firewood off the ground and allow it to drain properly in time for the winter months, you’ll appreciate this easy and practical approach.

All you’ll need for this method is an even number of concrete footings and a pair of drainage pipes or wooden boards. The reason that I prefer pips is because pipes they are constructed from galvanized steel, as this material is resistant to both water and rust. Set up the wide concrete foundations so that they’re in pairs, with each pair about a meter apart from the next couple. Lay the 2 pipes on top of these footings: the concrete should already have built-in trenches so that you can fit the piping tubes neatly into these indentations.

You’ll now have a weather-resistant structure that serves as a raised platform for your firewood: stack your logs on top of these pipes to season them throughout the year. However, this DIY rack won’t have any roof or cover, so if you live in a rainy location, use a tarp or plastic cover to protect your wood supply from the damp.

Doug Stephen

Store and Season Your Firewood With a DIY Rack

When you design and build your own firewood rack, you can store your logs and kindling in a unit that keeps this wood off the ground and generates optimal air circulation. This rack can help to season your wood, keeping it dry throughout the cold, wet, and windy months so that when you get around to using it on the fire, it burns efficiently and effectively compared to wet fire wood.

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