How about a thread dedicated to just Holz hausens. Questions, building progress, pictures of your pride and joy, etc… maybe there’s already a thread dedicated to them …. If there is the mods can delete this. I’m fixing to try my hand at one this winter, actually I’m kinda geeked up about it. In my mind it’s gonna be awesome & you’re gonna love it. In reality it will probably be a lopsided POS that won’t stand up much longer than it took to build. So how about it? Let’s see em. And any advice would be great.
If you've recently quit any addictive bad habits, don't try it. You'll relapse. Good luck & send pics, I don't have the patience.
I've had a couple. I did my first when I ran out of racks. Just take your time. Keep it leaning inward and periodically put stringers all the way across at various heights. That'll keep it upright as the wood shrinks. The one pictured was about 10’ diameter and ended up about 8’ tall when finished. . You can hide your shorts and uglies in the middle. Mike in Okla
We must be on the same brain waves, I have been entertaining thoughts of building one & have had the same misgivings about trying to construct one.
If I can find some plastic pallets I would like to build one with my family. How better to honor the last of my ash hord. All ash minus the cherry and a BL log leaning on the front of the pile.
I just made the deal today for 6 plastic pallets that I’ve had my eye on for awhile. 6 of em for $20. Planning to use 4 of them for my first attempt at a HH. stay tuned
Well, construction has begun 9 foot 5x5 pressure treated stringers that have been lying around work for years. plastic pallets I got last week. This is all the honey locust I have split up, so probably not gonna see much progress till maybe next weekend. I was hoping to make it all HL, but I don’t think I’ll have enough to fill the center. I didn’t realize how much space is in the middle, I’m sure I won’t have enough chunks and uglies to fill it. I may make another inside ring of black walnut or silver maple that I have to get processed. I figure something that dries a little quicker would be better in the middle. Shooting for 8 ft tall with all HL on the outside
Welcome to FHC! Please don't take this the wrong way, but if your wife needs part time work she could make some $ building me a few of those, that's very good work right there!
I was going to say you should spread out the pallets so they are not butt up against each other. It gives you more room (i.e. bigger holz hausen) and also allows for more airflow. I have 21 stacks at the moment...... I got close to 30 plastic pallets for free from a local business machines company that was just throwing them out. In fact they had a company come to remove them and luckily I called just in the nick of time. They were ecstatic that I wanted to take them and offered me however many I wanted going forward. I only have 3 left so I'm due for a reload! That's some very patient stacking there Sandhillbilly! One thing to remember is to put shims (i.e. splits but pointed sidways) to maintain that downward angle. With shrinkage, wind, and snow, especially if built on slightly sloped ground, or if you used poor quality wooden pallets like I did originally, you can have stacks partially collapse if that downward angle towards the center is not maintained! Last pic is my pine only hausen that is in the progress of being filled one truckbed at a time from a huge scrounge.
Holy crap these things take a lot of wood!! I got it done, well not quite, needs a roof and a few other details. But the main structure is done, all honey locust one the outside. Inside is probably 50/50 between black walnut and HL chunks shorts and uglies. Just a little bit low in the center, so I’ll probably finish it up with a few random ash rounds that need split and silver maple if’n I need to. They are pretty time consuming and I didn’t get it tapered in slightly like I’d hoped. In fact it gets slightly wider up higher in places. basically 6 foot tall I guess we’ll see if it will stand the test of time.
