Avoid A Messy Home With The 12 Best Firewood Racks To Keep Wood Organized

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Firewood racks are really one of those things you should live without for a while (or live with a cheap, very basic version) until you find out what precisely your household requires in one. Do you need a place to store fireplace tools? What about kindling and firestarters like fatwood, the glorious chimney-safe secret to getting your fireplace going fast? Should it be easy to clean under without having to tug a loaded rack out of the way? These are things you'll have a better sense of if you've lived with your fireplace or wood stove for a while.

To find the broadest possible range of great firewood racks, we examined three different types — storage, fireside, and combination racks. Generally, storage racks are outdoor stands designed to keep wood off the ground and are often covered; they're usually measured in feet. Fireside racks tend to be more decorative and are designed to hold a smaller amount of wood stored beside the fireplace or wood-burning stove. Combination indoor/outdoor racks might include features of either storage or fireside racks. They're often designed for use on patios and usually have a capacity somewhere between storage and fireside racks.

Just to keep things uniform, all firewood racks were sourced via Amazon. That allowed us to apply the same standards to all of the candidates. We required that each selected rack have 4.5 stars or more.

In addition, one of the following should be true. The rating is backed by at least 50 ratings/reviews, the product represents a brand with 50 or more reviews on another fireplace rack, or Amazon has tagged the product with one of its "Top Reviewed" labels. For a firewood rack, these labels typically include "Top Reviewed for Durability" or "Top Reviewed for Sturdiness." We would also have accepted "#1 Top Rated" had it been necessary. For outdoor or storage racks, we required only that the rack have a design or set of features that wasn't replicated by a product with a higher Amazon rating. Indoor or decorative fireside racks should include features that promote organization or tidiness, which should be substantially different from those of higher-rated racks.

Depending on your community, you might find that it's actually more fashionable to DIY your firewood rack rather than buy one. There's no shortage of designs for both indoor and outdoor racks — a low-cost DIY firewood rack using scrap wood pallets, for example — but for the same reason you should wait to settle on a store-bought rack, you should also give yourself some time to figure out which features you want to build into a DIY rack. We developed our list of the best firewood racks and features so that it would be useful to you either way.

Amazon's description for the MyFirePlaceDirect firewood rack (4.7 stars, $70.89) is an adventure to unpuzzle, but most of its virtues are obvious at first sight. This is an elegant powder-coated steel rack with a bear motif. It's described as an outdoor rack but comes with the usual complement of fireplace tools — shovel, brush, hook, and poker — that hang on integrated hooks via loops built into their handles. The best part of this rack is the shelf underneath the firewood storage, which can be used for fire-lighting supplies or fireside reading materials, or simply as an easy-to-clean platform.

The VyGrow indoor/outdoor firewood rack (4.7 stars, $33.99) is a combination rack that's at home indoors or outside. And, judging by the product photos, it's perfect when you want to ignore your bag of charcoal and use your grill to burn firewood from a floating VyGrow rack. Photoshop silliness aside, this rack has a lot going for it. It has two tiers, which could be used to separate wood of different types or levels of dryness. But the tiers also improve stability, allowing the rack to hold more wood. The VyGrow rack also has adjustable feet.

The Latihuum outdoor and indoor firewood rack (4.8 stars, $25.59) gets some of its looks and stability from the canvas firewood carrier that hooks over the rack's handles when you bring a load in from outside. Made of one-inch powder-coated steel tubing, the Latihuum rack's U shape gives it a little flair, while its built-in hooks for kindling storage give it some extra organizational practicality. Latihuum says the rack will hold 330 pounds of firewood in a 212-square-inch footprint, though that doesn't quite jibe with the rack's 20.5-by-13.4-inch width and height.

While not including anything unique, the Goplus indoor firewood rack (4.6 stars, $59.99) has a great combination of features. At 36 inches, the rack is quite large for indoor duty. It comes with a hanging poker, brush, tongs, and shovel set fit to one side and a kindling holder that can be positioned on either side of the opposite end. The raised base ensures good airflow around your firewood and, probably more importantly, the ability to clean under the rack without moving it. The Goplus rack is rated for 110 pounds.

You sometimes need to sweep beneath a partially loaded firewood rack. This problem is usually solved with a raised platform for holding wood, or with a solid shelf beneath the wood storage area. Yqbrao (4.6 stars, $14.99) innovates not only with its unpronounceable name, but also with the inclusion of wheels so that you can simply push the cart out of the broom's way. Its casters look substantial, so you might be able to wheel the firewood in from the woodpile. The Yqbrao rack also includes adjustable feet you can use in place of the casters.

Since, at least in the minds of Photoshop artists, fireplaces are mostly at Christmastime, it's handy to be able to fold your firewood rack and get it out of the way for the rest of the year. This is exactly what the OugeWood indoor/outdoor firewood rack (4.6 stars, $26.35) promises. While its 20-by-30-mm tubing is substantial, and on the whole, purchasers are very happy with the OugeWood. Alternatively, you could simply repurpose your log holder into stylish living room storage for the off-season, instead of putting it away.

The DiyFire 4-foot firewood rack (4.7 stars, $132.99) turns the usual indoor/outdoor firewood rack distinction on its end. This four-foot rack holds more wood than the average indoor rack, and its upended design means you can use two or three or six of them at a time, depending on how big of a loan the bank will give you. Yes, they're a bit pricey, but you get a choice of two modern louvered designs, and the product photos show a third, leafy design that doesn't appear to be available at the time of writing.

The Vevor firewood cart (4.5 stars, $55.99) isn't going to win any interior design contests. But will you really mind when it's 12 degrees out and you only have to roll a cart of firewood in once, rather than making five or more trips (Vevor says the cart can handle 250 pounds per load) to lug firewood in by hand? You're probably meant to unload it into a quaint fireside rack, but we say just stencil something cabin-y on it and paint the tires to look like wagon wheels or peppermint candies.

We mentioned before that a lot of people choose to DIY their firewood storage racks, especially the outdoor ones. Shelter's SLRK firewood storage kit (4.5 stars, $22.79) makes the DIY as simple as possible by taking part of the DI off of Y hands. The kit is basically a pair of sturdy, powder-coated brackets. You supply some 2-by-4 lumber and make a storage rack of any size. And there's really nothing more to be said about this particular kit, which is saying something.

When it comes to outdoor firewood storage racks, Woodhaven seems to be the gold standard by which all other racks, including DIY jobs, are measured. This particular Woodhaven rack (4.8 stars, $239.00) is Amazon's highest-rated, but the company makes racks in a number of sizes and finishes. It's a bit expensive at $239, but you can get a version without the cover for only $219, and you should absolutely not do that. Woodhaven racks are made in the U.S., and the craftsmanship shows in the quality of the company's Photoshop work.

Mofeez's outdoor firewood storage rack bracket kit (4.8 stars, $39.97) can use the same 2-by-4s you would have used with the Shelter brackets to semi-DIY a rack that can hold 1,000 pounds of firewood. The Mofeez brackets are made of powder-coated 14-gauge steel with drain holes to protect your 2x4s from moisture. It costs a bit more than the Shelter, but the hours of entertainment speculating about what "Mofeez" means are free. You can also save $2 by buying blue or green brackets, though that's really not much. It's fine to stick with basic black.

Firewood isn't the only thing we store, of course. We keep many potentially useful things around, like dining table leaves, old A/V cables that might be useful if it's ever 1997 again, and mandoline blades that do weird things like julienne carrots. Now, with Connoo's adjustable firewood rack (4.5 stars, $55.97), you can also store parts of your firewood storage. It's adjustable in width (1.4, 2.7, and 4 feet) and height (the company doesn't say how much, but it looks like roughly thirds of the 3.67-foot maximum height).