Stacking Essentials

• One of the best ways to stack seasoned firewood so that it is less apt to develop mold and rot problems is to get it on a base that is off the ground.
  
  Woodheat.org has a suggestion for keeping seasoned firewood off the ground that advises using unseasoned wood as a platform. Simply lay some unseasoned wood on the ground, then stack the seasoned wood on top of it. If you have access to wooden pallets, these also make an excellent base for stacking seasoned firewood safely off the ground.
  
  Cover your seasoned firewood with a tarp to protect it from the elements. A dry seasoned wood burns hotter than damp wood.
  
  Keep the wood away from the house to prevent termites and other insects from getting into the house. No matter how tightly you stack your firewood, insects will find their way in. You do not want to give them direct access to your home as well.
  
  

Face and Full Cord

• There are a couple of very good reasons to stack seasoned firewood as tightly as possible. Wood that is just thrown into a pile will become home to insects and vermin such as mice. One day you may reach in to get a log and get bitten by something. The other reason is to help make the wood easier to access when you need it. Instead of pulling wood off a pile, you just have to take it from a stack.
  
  One type of stack is a face cord. The Colestin Rural Fire District, crfd.org, a fire prevention organization in Oregon that provides fire-fighting services and fire safety information, describes a face cord as a stack of wood 8 feet wide by 4 feet high. Lay the wood with its rounded side down; then fit the next row into the straight edge made by splitting the logs. Stack the flat sides together as much as possible to keep the pile tight.
  
  A face cord is actually half of a cord of 24-inch-long wood. If you were to put two face cords together, with one face cord in front of the other, you would then have a full cord. A full cord is split wood that fills a 4-foot-by-4-foot-by-8-foot cubic measured space.
  
  

Vertical Towers

• You can make several vertical towers of stacked seasoned firewood instead of cords. Lay three split log pieces flat side down on a pallet, then stack three more logs across the first three but going in the opposite direction. You can usually make a stack at least 5 feet high in this manner. Once you have reached 5 feet, just move over and start another stack.