My neighbors, delivery & service people all like my woodpiles, so I thought I'd share them. The beehive shape is called a holzhausen (wood house) - a German method of stacking firewood. When I moved here, I hadn't heated with wood in a very long time and had to think about how I used to stack it. It was December, in the 20's already, and the thought of having to source wood pallets that were in good shape was just a bit too much. I realized that one of my neighbors stacked their wood like this & I thought it looked pretty cool, so I Googled it & have been building holzhausens since. Now a good percentage of my neighbors also stack their wood this way.
douter wrote:
Interesting shapes, Monika, I like them also. How tall are the domes?
Douglas
Thanks, Douglas. I'm 5'3" and the top, slanted layer ar pieces I basically threw up there, so, maybe 7' tall. They are 8' in diameter. An average height male should be able to stack 2 cords of wood, (a cord is 4'x4'x8') but I have to have a secondary, smaller one.
Lots of advantages. Mostly, the form promotes fast drying. The top gets HOT in the sun and draws air up through the center, like a chimney. It holds the warmth well after dark. I was able to dry August cut wood for use by January (in pretty damp coastal NY). Used to take a year. It also packs a lot of wood in a small place. These are similar to mine and would hold 4-5 cords in an 8' stack. Other than that, they look beautiful in the morning when sipping your coffee. People would stop on the road to take pictures of them. Took me about 2 hours to stack one - there is a learning curve...
bnfotografie wrote:
That looks like a very efficient way to stack. Did you do all the splitting? Lots of work there!
Brent
It's mostly split, but next summer, I'll be doing all the splitting. By hand. Last year I split maybe a cord of the pine. Hardwood is.....well.....hard. The really knotted pieces I usually just cut down into rounds that will fit into my stove. I actually enjoy hand splitting nice, dry, straight-grained pieces. I split all of my kindling with a "kindling cracker" that looks like the blade of a maul mounted blade up in a a circular frame and a 3# sledge. Much easier than using a hand axe.
taildraggin wrote:
I stacked my wood that way, too!
Lots of advantages. Mostly, the form promotes fast drying. The top gets HOT in the sun and draws air up through the center, like a chimney. It holds the warmth well after dark. I was able to dry August cut wood for use by January (in pretty damp coastal NY). Used to take a year. It also packs a lot of wood in a small place. These are similar to mine and would hold 4-5 cords in an 8' stack. Other than that, they look beautiful in the morning when sipping your coffee. People would stop on the road to take pictures of them. Took me about 2 hours to stack one - there is a learning curve... ...Show more →
Another member of the club! When it's in the 70's out, I work really slowly, & it takes me at least double the time it takes when it's in the 20's out (@2 hours in the cold). I stack the bottom inside layer vertically instead of just chucking the pieces in as I found that the pieces that landed horizontally got frozen to the ground in Spring with the freeze/thaw cycles. To get 4-5 cords in an 8' stack, it must have been something like 12' in diameter.
Danpbphoto wrote:
Great photography Monika! Love the geometry in the placement of the logs!
Great tones, texture and detail!
Dan
Thanks, Dan. I've seen pictures of people who make sculptures out of stacked firewood, using different colored wood to make patterns. Even saw one made to look like a dragon!
bnfotografie wrote:
Nice solar panel, too. Are you completely off the grid?
Brent
No, but I was net zero last year! 7.84 kWh, but since it's a ground mount, I get reflection from the snow on the backside of the panels and often get >9kWh. 2 Springs ago, the utility company, in a "pre-emptive" move shut off power to prevent another major wildfire, but we still had 6" of snow on the ground. Down in town, the water treatment plants lost primary & backup power, hospitals didn't do much better, restaurants had major food loss. We were without power for 4 days because they don't just turn the power back on -- have to visually inspect everything. So I got batteries instead of just being grid tied (I didn't understand what that meant initially, but, fortunately, the cost of batteries went down). Now, I don't even notice when the power goes out -- don't even have to reset clocks.
Monika C wrote:
No, but I was net zero last year! 7.84 kWh, but since it's a ground mount, I get reflection from the snow on the backside of the panels and often get >9kWh. 2 Springs ago, the utility company, in a "pre-emptive" move shut off power to prevent another major wildfire, but we still had 6" of snow on the ground. Down in town, the water treatment plants lost primary & backup power, hospitals didn't do much better, restaurants had major food loss. We were without power for 4 days because they don't just turn the power back on -- have to visually inspect everything. So I got batteries instead of just being grid tied (I didn't understand what that meant initially, but, fortunately, the cost of batteries went down). Now, I don't even notice when the power goes out -- don't even have to reset clocks....Show more →
Yes, it's key to stack the inside vertically - allows air to be drawn in and up, like a chimney (when the top gets warm on sunny days).
Without notice, I would occasionally wake up to a friend dumping "old" cherry and apple trunks at dawn in the yard from his giant 20' dump stakeside. He's constantly replacing old orchards with new tress to keep production up. Splitting it is a bugger, but well dried, it burns like coal and smells good. I miss that a lot.
Monika C wrote:
Another member of the club! When it's in the 70's out, I work really slowly, & it takes me at least double the time it takes when it's in the 20's out (@2 hours in the cold). I stack the bottom inside layer vertically instead of just chucking the pieces in as I found that the pieces that landed horizontally got frozen to the ground in Spring with the freeze/thaw cycles. To get 4-5 cords in an 8' stack, it must have been something like 12' in diameter.
This is very useful to me! I've stacked wood like that, but I didn't put in the occasional horizontal pieces like you have. I have them all pointing to the center, which means eventually the stack slopes too much and becomes a bit unstable. With those horizontal pieces, it looks like it locks together better.
