Is Stacking Wood Against Trees Bad?

Doesn’t it look nice? I mean just look at it.

Using the naturally occurring trees at the disposal of keeping your stacked wood in order sounds too good to be true… and it is.

I wouldn’t do it. All this does is cause unnecessary harm to the trees, in particular bark, and also – the wood that’s stacked there will collapse eventually, I find.

Then why do people only seem to gravitate towards this idea? Well, to start with, it sure does look romantical.

I mean, wood piled just right between a couple of trees is a sight to behold.

But as we know, in life, just because a thing feel rights, doesn’t mean it is. Let me go a bit more explaining why you may want to think twice.

Reasons why you shouldn’t go for it

Rubs trees the wrong way

When you stack wood right by wood, I mean trees, it will start digging into the bark eventually.

Wood expands and shrinks – the trees itself grow too, hence the firewood stacked there is going to end up chafing the tree bark.

The fact that the piled firewood is also going to create depressions in the ground, is probably not as good for the root system too.

Now if you don’t care for the trees, sure, let ’em rip. But if it’s a healthy pair of trees you want to see grow, the bark damage may certainly bring them to an end.

Invites pests

Live trees host all kinds of creepy crawlies.

Stacking your soon-to-burn wood right by trees only creates a gateway for those bugs to enter.

Firewood already is a pest attractant – making your life harder by giving them even a better ability to host does not make much sense.

Limits seasoning potential

Trees provide shade – makes sense, right?

Providing shade for split wood you want to dry isn’t really smart then.

The time for firewood to get the most amount of sun exposure is during summer, and guess when trees get the most bushy?

Probably going to fail

Trees sway, that’s what they do. And you know how intense this can get during a storm.

So if your wood is stacked between trees that are in such a motion, what do you think will happen to those stacks?

That’s right, nothing but collapsing.

Then what should you do instead?

Use other kinds of brace for support, of course!

My preferred way is definitely going to be criss-crossing the ends.

I always refer people to this video by Wranglerstar:

It is definitely more of an effort to look for pieces that make good cribbed ends, but it is worth the work.

The end result looks so good. Nothing beats it.

Don’t feel like doing all this? Drive some T-posts into the ground to do the exact same thing. Or really any sort of resistant lumber, or what have you.

All I am saying is that any other way is probably going to be better than putting your wood against a tree.