MIMF

by **David Bingham** » Tue Jun 05, 2012 10:39 am

I have quandry. My mother is elderly and her health has declined dramatically over the last year so I recently moved in with her to help with her care. The good news is that this allowed me to have a nice 12' x 24' shop instead of using the garage. The bad news is that for some silly reason she doesn't want me to store wood in the living room like I did at my house. That really only leaves two options. There is a crawlspace under the house with 4 feet plus of clearance near the access door and room for wood racks next to the foundation but, while water doesn't accumulate under the house, the humidity last weekend after several warm, dry days was 67%. I imagine it will be well above that in the winter. My other choice is under the back porch. It's an enclosed porch so rain isn't a problem and it's open to the air so humidity will fluctuate with the weather kind of like storing it in a barn but clearance is only a little over 2 feet. That doesn't leave a lot of room and I don't relish the idea of lying on my belly under the porch trying to sort through a stack of boards but, if I store it under the house, I'd have to take it out and let it acclimate for quite some time before using it and the risk of fungus, rot, and insects would go up dramatically. Any thoughts?

by **Charlie Schultz** » Tue Jun 05, 2012 11:53 am

Hi David and welcome to the forum. Do you have enough room to store it in that 12 x 24 shop?

by **Bob Gramann** » Tue Jun 05, 2012 12:11 pm

Put high racks around the perimeter of the shop and store it over your head. The crawl space isn't ideal.

by **Chuck Tweedy** » Tue Jun 05, 2012 12:32 pm

No attic space??

by **David Bingham** » Tue Jun 05, 2012 6:59 pm

No attic space and the ceiling in the shop is too low for much of anything overhead. I can put some along one wall of the shop below the windows but I don't want to eat up too much floor space. 12' x 24' sounds like a lot of room until you put in a couple of tables, toolchests, a bandsaw, table saw, drill press, milling machine, thickness sander, edge sander, dust collector with ducting, go bar deck, etc.

by **Steve Senseney** » Tue Jun 05, 2012 7:40 pm

How big is your car?

Or can you rent or buy a small enclosed trailer to pack your wood tightly? If is it rainproof, and sits out side each day in the sun, it should dry the wood very well.

by **Michael Lewis** » Wed Jun 06, 2012 1:14 am

How much wood do you want to store? Are you dealing with milled sets or larger lumber?

As long as there is another source of light I find windows a waste of wall space in a shop. I have enough trouble getting things done without wasting time gazing out the windows. Store your wood, and if you need a view go outside.

by **David Bingham** » Wed Jun 06, 2012 2:10 pm

I have a Toyota pickup but with the bed cover on it doesn't have enough room to store all my wood plus it would play havoc with the gas mileage.

Part of my problem is that Mom is a neat freak and doesn't want me cluttering up the garage or any other place that she can see so I doubt that the trailer would fly.

I probably have more than I'll ever need and while I have some milled sets, it's mostly lumber so it takes a lot of space. I like having some natural light and in fair weather opening the windows for some ventilation. Also, I purposely mounted them at table height but stacking wood too high would also begin to block the electrical outlets.