Out at the farm, where I’ve been slowly working on building a cabin/shed/shack, I have several piles of lumber that have been collected over the past couple years. The stack of plywood is the most susceptible to water damage and the most critical to get under cover. Manufactured lumber like plywood and OSB (oriented strand board) absorb water very well, and then never really recover to their former state – therefore, rendering them pretty useless for building.
In the past I’ve simply draped plastic sheeting over the pile. For the most part it worked ok, but over the winter the wind blew a corner of the sheeting up and exposed an edge of the stack. Then some animal tried scratching it’s way into the stack in the same place. The damage was fairly minimal, but I’m definitely not going to be able to nail along the edge of those sheets (which was about 3 out of the stack of 20 or so).
I had seen several pictures at MOSES Facebook page (if the link doesn’t work then try their website: Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service). So I thought I’d try and adapt it to a much smaller scale to build a shelter to protect my lumber. What I came up with is perfect to cover a pile of 4′ x 8′ plywood and a few tools.
Materials: 4 10-foot lengths of 1″ PVC, 8 2-foot rebar stakes, 2 short earth anchors, 12′ x 16′ tarp or piece of plastic, miscellaneous rope, 2 metals fencing stakes for the ends.
The hoops in place over the pile of plywood.
A shot showing one of the rebar stakes exposed.
I set them into the ground at least half way of their 2-foot length.
With the tarp on. One length of rope is put over the center, parallel with the hoops – it’s held down with the small earth anchors on each side. Then the ends of the tarp of tied down to the end fence posts through the grommets in the tarp. Everything is pulled taught, but not too tight. I think the idea is to get it tight enough that it won’t flap in the wind, but not tight enough that it’ll pull the grommets out!
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