Went outside and started building a Holz Hauzen with the two cord of wood delivered last weekend. Nice stuff, all oak, about as green as can be but in a couple of years it should be outstanding. Some people find Holz Hauzen's tough to build but I am finding they practically build themselves..... Grinnin', Duckin' and Runnin' She is even stacking the center this time The two on the right of the one she is working on are the last two cords purchased a couple of weeks ago; that wood is pretty dry and would burn this winter if needed but I would like to give it another year to get really dry. Besides, those things are about the most popular critter habitats I have ever seen: you just cannot believe the number of nests, snake skins and other building / living remains inside of one until you take one down. I think I am supporting 1/2 of the rodents and small livestock in the state in those things. No problem with me- everything needs someplace to live and they are not bothering me at all so I say.... enjoy! Brian
Brian we've met I am totally not surprised your wife is working while your busy talking just kidding great pics
Actually, I was upstairs finishing up the last of the [never ending, I will not live long enough to finish this] wiring. And when I was all done.... I was not all done 'cause I forgot a can in the master bathroom. DOH! Should take care of that tomorrow and start in on the plumbing, at least along the outside walls so they can be insulated. She builds a mean Holz Hauzen though, doesn't she? And getting much, much better at keeping an angle in the outer walls; all of her previous ones blew out and had to be re-stacked, sometimes more than once. But this one is holding a nice angle so I believe it should survive the winter, snow load, etc. And as I said, that is all red Oak and as green as wood ever got so it is extremely heavy; my guess is close to 5,000 lb. / cord, and she is more than 1/2 way there. Brian
No. We did the first time a few years ago but after that, we just kind of stack them and ignore them. There is a school of thought that they should be covered with splits, with the bark on them and facing up, and the top layers tilted the other way to make a point; in effect, it makes a bit of a roof. But some of the splits fall off, and as soon as a hauzen is broken to retrieve any of the wood, the 'shed' shape is long gone. We stack them that way because it makes a very dense way to stack wood; there is a lot of wood in those hauzens and as you can see, the height can be raised easily. Two cords is easy and five is not all that tough. Brian
If you put the interior splits vertical you end up with a "chimney" effect, one of the advantages to a Holzhausen...so I've read.
We tried that when we started making them and found it to be a gigantic pain to stand the wood up (Easy Boys!). And they were much more difficult to break down also. After that, we just put up the ring and threw the wood in the center loose, not stacked at all. Now it appears Andrea is stacking the wood flat in the center; that might be a bit slower drying but it will also pack tighter and that hauzen can sit there for another year to make up for any slowing down on drying. I am a bit doubtful about the various effects of stacking the wood and certainly have not found any methods that have a great impact on curing. One advantage they do seem to have is that they get pretty warm in the sun, it seems quite a bit warmer than wood- rows, so that may be the actual advantage. ?? In the end, we do it this way because it makes a very dense way to store firewood, makes it very easy to separate different runs of wood (different seasons, different sources, etc.), they are very easy to get to differernt ones as opposed to stacking in rows, which end up with the older rows behind the newer ones and tough to get to the wood, and believe it or not, they are extremely easy to break down. And of course, my wife likes stacking them. So: A woodstove: $3,000. A year's worth of firewood: $800. My wife liking to stack the wood: Priceless! Brian
[looks to the left, looks to the right]..... I want to ease you into this Dennis but she loads the trailer from the Holz Hauzens too. Sometimes I just put the trailer next to a hauzen, go away for a while and when she comes into the house, the trailer is full of wood and ready to go on the porch. She helps with the house too but does not have any natural tendencies toward square, plumb, your left, 'no, the other clockwise' and a lot of other things. So it washes out mostly. And she will not and can not deal with the any part of woodburning so all of that is on me. Still, just stacking the wood is a tremendous help. Brian
Good woman right there BDF My wife isn't keen on stacking unattended (most times), but she more or less loathes cribbing the ends(or rather I loathe fixing them ) but given pallet bookends, she can stack as well as she runs the splitter vertically
I think you ought to submit a picture with her and those stacks for our calendar. Grizzly Adam what do you think of these pics
I've built a few of those in the past before I had a wood shed. They sure look better than a boring straight row. Mine were something like 8' tall, 10' wide and held 3+ cord. Had some collapse as well.
Well Brian, I'm certain you don't have a problem with those little downfalls of hers. Besides, that part of no natural tendencies toward square, plumb, etc methinks is sort of built into most ladies. We just live with it. Besides, they have other things that are just super great!
Yep, lots of good parts about human females. Er, I mean..... they definitely have their good points. Er, rather..... some of their functions.... no, er, I mean...... I likes da' Wimmins! BTW, she went out early this AM and finished that last Hauzen, I will post a photo or two later on. Brian
We have had a bunch of them 'blow out'; one particularly large and tall one blew out one night while we were watching TV and the ground shook a little (seriously). The key seems to be the angle on the outer ring; if it is well pitched inward, they are very strong. If they approach flat, the wood inside just pushes the walls out. And it happens slowly, over months. We have watched all of them expand and expand until a portion of the outer ring, along with a LOT of the internal splits, falls away from the hauzen. Some people build them with a taper as well, and I think that would make them much stronger also but of course those have less capacity. Our first ones were quite large, also 10' if I remember right, and with the internal wood stacked on end, they held a LOT of wood, something like 5 cord each. But they were tough to build with a lot of walking the wood around such a big area, and the vertical stacking becomes a nightmare due to the different sizes and lengths of the splits.... they start to interleave and the layers mingle as the next row of splits falls in-between splits below; it becomes dangerous to walk on and is actually very difficult to break down and use the wood when the time comes so we 'got over that' in one season. They are certainly a big hit with the neighbors and their friends and families. Most people have never seen one so it is quite the novelty, exactly as it was for me the first time I saw one (which was on the 'Net; I have never seen any other than our own). When properly and carefully built, they are kind of nice looking, which is not something that applies to most 'wood piles', even those neatly stacked IMO. Ours (Andrea's, really) are no longer quite as nice as the very first ones were but again, we only do this to literally deal with a large volume of firewood, and have all the various 'piles' accessible at any time; I believe these things really are the most efficient way to store firewood without any external support or device(s), and be able to access any one at any time. If done in rows, some wood would end up behind other wood and make it tougher to get to the older wood, the hauzens are compact enough that I can drive the trailer up to any of them because none of them blocks access to any other ones. A relatively small amount of land can hold a huge amount of wood this way. Brian
Yep. Hey, she could be up for grabs 'cause it is looking like this house is going to kill me. It would be like that 'ad' for a wife with a boat, send photo of boat but in this case, you could be looking for a fine woman who stacks Holz Hauzens and you already have photos of the hauzens. Andrea does NOT run the splitter- she just does not have sufficient care (or is it fear?) and only the two OEM hands so I think that is a bad idea. But she certainly help me use it and moves a lot of splits as well 'manning' the other end of the large pieces of wood going into the splitter. She is certainly not afraid of either work or getting dirty and over the years, has worked on about everything around this place including my backhoe (two guys at the local hydraulic store proposed to her while she was there buying 5 gal. pails of hydraulic fluid and valve / pump parts!). Just as an aside, she cleans up pretty well also- a little washin' and wearing ironed clothes, she impersonates the CFO of a local investment firm by day. Building holz hauzens is not even her main vocation. Funny story: we have two sons, both grown and gone (30 and 34) but I refer to the older one as 'her son' and the younger one as 'my son' in conversation. Sort of a running joke but it turns out I have been doing it so long that some very good friends of ours think we each have one offspring from previous relationships (nope: we are pretty old- fashioned, married once, had kids, etc.). One day at a fairly large social event, one of these people asked me if I got along OK with Andrea's son, to which I replied 'Meh'. Then we realized he was serious and thought the our children were not, in fact, 'our' children. Too funny! Brian
Understand. Sometimes I speak about my first wife. Of course, we've been married for 55 years but she is still my first wife.
We can do that. Here she is standing in front of the last one she built: This was the first two cord of wood bought this year. The holz hauzens in the back are a couple of years old and have been built and re- built maybe 4 times (not enough angle on the outer ring and they blow- out). Note that from my second floor, which is where this photo was taken from, you can see all the way to America (the flag on my neighbor's shed) : Those two cord stacked: This year's four cord stacked into three holz hauzens. The two on the right are seasoned (bought that way) while the one on the left could still be revived as a living tree I think.... : See how the piles are flat on top? And that flat section goes down about 3 -4 feet on the sides with no sideways spacer splits at all? That is why they blow out, not enough angle in the outer ring. So Andrea ends up stacking the same holz hauzens at least three times each. I have offered to make her an angle gauge along with a bunch of ideas and thoughts but she just stomps her little foot and refuses. ?? She claims she finds stacking them theraputic (probably 'cause I am not there ) so maybe she is looking for more therapy than just stacking the wood one time? These are the very first ones we built. I put a vertical stick in the center of the one in the middle to watch the wood shrink; as time passes and the wood dries, you can watch the top of the stack drop in height. Those were finished by reversing the angle at the top, with most of the splits stacked bark- up. Not worth the effort so we do not bother doing that anymore. But the first ones were put together were very round, had very straight sides and were kind of nice looking actually. And all the center splits were stacked vertically: it makes the hauzens far more dense and <may> make a chimney effect but it is a huge increase in the effort to stacking them. But we were far more careful building those so they are both more round and have straighter sides, as well as maintaining the outer ring angle.... none of those blew out. Brian
