Introduction: How to Build a Firewood Fence

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I've always loved the images of stacked firewood and wanted to build and entire fence out of about 2 chords of wood. Termite problems in my area prevented this option: it would be a huge nest within a year. If the wood was stacked such that it would dry out, have very little surface contact and be raised off the ground, it would greatly decease the chance of becoming a termite haven. I came up with this.

This is very simple to make. You need the tools and materials as list below. The only trick is to allways drill the holes the same distance apart in each and every piece and reasonably parallel. These are spaced about 14" apart. Making a simple jig might help with this.Pound the bars in the ground the same distance apart: use the firewood for spacing of the bars.

The fence will be as strong as the steel rods you use. I used 1/2" rebar and I might go to 5/8" next time for something over 5'' high.

Firewood Fence or Fence of Firewood?

Ross Asselstine

Step 1: Issues to Consider

Ground: the soil in your area needs to support the weight of the fence by friction on the rods. I.e. if the ground is really soft, you may need something to keep the rods from settling into the ground over time. I was able to just pound the rods into the ground.

Wood: drilling two holes in a piece of wood may not seem like much, but when you look at doing this a couple of hundred times in one session, it can be a lot of work. I'd get one piece of wood first and test it out with the tools you have, before buying a lot of wood. You may need to build a jig to hold the wood, a bigger drill and or a different drill bit.

Rods. The fence is only as strong as the rods you use. I used 1/2" rebar. This stuff is high strength and is very stiff. Mild steel will bend a lot more. I recommend rebar because of it's stiffness and also because the holes will not have to be as large as the same strength in mild steel. This fence is 4'-6" high and the 1/2" bar worked well and with that...... it's not something to lean on. I wanted thin bar to reduce it's visibility and was satisfied with a flexible fence.I placed washers about 4" above the ground level to keep the wood off the ground to keep it dry. A zip-tie, twisted wire or tackweld can hold these in place.

Step 2:

I bought about a 1/2 chord of split firewood. It was mostly pine or fir. Bear in mind you have to drill a lot of holes and the harder the wood the more work the holes can be. I wanted wood that had twists, large knots etc to create some highly varied texture; beware of too much variation, as it's challenging to stack it if it's too wild.

Step 3: Tools

There is not a lot to this: a drill, a drill bit (about a 1/4" bigger than the rods you use) and something to drive the rods into the ground.

Step 4: Close-up

As you can see, it has a simple module set by the spacing of the holes drill. To place the rods in the ground, set one piece of drilled firewood on the ground and drive two rods into the soil. Pull the firewood off and place it as a spacer for the next rod. Keep going until all the rods are in place.

I then threaded layers of wood onto the rods evenly across the whole length of the fence. This allowed me to look at the composition and try to balance the texture of the large, small, twisted and irregular pieces. It took about two hours to stack twenty feet of fence.