First off, tarps die. As the wind rubs them back and forth over the wood, they get thin, and the sun's harsh UV quickly degrades the plastic until it is weak and tears easily. At this point, the tarp is doing nothing to keep rain and snow off the wood, but everything to keep the sun from drying it out again. I considered myself lucky if I got two years use out of one.
Next, tarps are a hassle. They need to be tied or weighted down, and the ties and weights are forever coming undone when you need them so that the tarp blows open when it rains, and when you need to get wood they're invariably frozen in place and won't be budged.
And lastly, since we were using some of the wood as runners to keep the rest off the ground, we always ended up losing some to rot and bugs, assuming you could pry it up out of the frozen ground to begin with.
Fortunately, there is a well known and readily available technology available to answer all of these issues, the woodshed.
Dimensions are not critical. Construction isn't horribly either. You're basically making a combination storage rack and permanent shingled tarp. Sides are optional. You should at least leave the south side open since the sun will do the most work for you in drying the wood. I left the north side open since that's the side closest to the house, and well, the less distance I have to carry the wood over the snow, the better, to my mind. The only thing keeping me from stacking it directly against the house to start with is the propensity for firewood to be carriers for carpenter ants. A little exercise beats replacing house bits every so often.
I then laid a pair of asphalt shingle scraps on the top of each one, to keep the end grain of the posts off of the damp concrete.
Once happy with that, I could start notching my uprights in preperation for bolting on the 2x4 side girts and the 2x6 rafter supports. This was done by repeated cuts with a circular saw, then chiseling out the middle. I used 3x5 landscape timbers since they were cheap, and very much in keeping with the style of building. I could have just as easily used 4x4's, or even built them up out of a pair of 2x4's. Doing that would allow you to avoid some chiseling, at least.
I also cut notches for 2x4 corner braces, which were themselves notched to fit over the 2x6's. I left the 2x6's full thickness. All joints were bolted with 3/8" galvanized carriage bolts.
Next, I put the plywood "T1-11" panels on the ends. My sides are 5-1/2' wide, so I used three pieces, with the two edges of the third piece used to line up with the appropriate edge of the whole sheet on each end. I also planned my roof to be 8' at the peak, and the peak fell at the panel seam. I was also left with two 6" pieces which I used to cover the fronts as a decorative measure. I was debating edging the doorway with pressure treated 1x4's, and filling in the brace triangles with more ply, but decided to leave well enough alone.
Next, I made up all my rafters, which were just 8' 2x4's cut at 30 degrees at the 5' mark, and then the short end was flipped over and nailed back on with a small plywood gusset. For the two end rafters, I used pressure treated 2x4's nailed to the outside of the plywood (and into the corner posts) with no extra gusset, since I could use the whole end for one. I used one of the other rafters and a square to transfer the location onto the plywood so that the outside rafters would line up with all the rest. This also meant one less notch in each post for the rafters.
To nail up the ones in the middle, I marked out where I wanted them to end up, and then nailed a small section of 2x4 onto the face of the 2x6 next to the line, then nailed the rafters both to this cleat and to the 2x6. Sort of a wooden rafter tie, if you will. I used a tape to make sure that I set each one with the same overhang, but still had to trim an end here and there by about 1/4" so that they'd line up for nailing on the 1x4 fascia. I left the rafter ends square, but you could also angle cut them all perpendicular to the ground. If you're doing that, snap a chalk line and cut them all even at the same time.
I then used the rafters as guides for cutting off the plywood end panels and the excess height of the posts, starting with a circular saw and finishing up with a reciprocating saw.
I also added more 1x4's over the outside rafters to act as rake boards, mostly so that the squarer corner would show. Not really necessary. You could probably use just the 2x4 or even just the 1x4, since the plywood end would help support it, but nailing on the roof plywood after would require taking a little more pain not to split the thinner board.
I then trimmed the fascia back even with the rake.
Now the plywood for the roof could go on. I am relying on the dripedge to keep the edges of the plywood covered. If you don't like doing that, you could also use 1x6's all the way around the edge of the roof at both rake and fascia, and have that also cover the edges of the plywood. You'd need the wider boards to fully cover the 2x4 rafters, and not have the bottoms show by a thickness of plywood.
Once the plywood was all on, it was trimmed flush to the ends.
Next on was the bottom drip edge, then the tar paper, so that any moisture that hits it would go over the bottom dripedge, then the rake dripedges, which also help hold down the tarpaper.
With that down, I could start shingling. First the starter course, which are reversed 3-tabs.
Then the rest, which are the same architectural shingles used on the house and the other shed. If you choose not to use drip-edge, make sure you overlap the shingles past the edges by about an inch all the way around to do the same thing to keep the drips from running down the boards.
You can see I'm laying down the rest of the landscape timbers as bunks to rest the firewood on, so I won't have to keep using other sticks of firewood for that. These in turn are resting on concrete bricks. I also added 2x's inside to help support the end of each row, but you might be able to get away with just stacking against the plywood.
Then all that was left was filling it up!
The quality inspectors agree it's done.
Time to get back to important business.
Last updated 11/26/03
© 2003 Glenn S. Lyford, all trademarks etcetera property of their respective owners.