Came up with a plan for my year 3 stacks. I've wanted to try a holzhausen, and it turns out I have just enough pallets left to make a 10x10 square. A 10' diameter holz should hold about 3.5 to 4 cords, which should be enough 'regular season' fuel, minus shoulder, that I'll need in a year. Hopefully. I'm going to put it here after I get this moved up the the porch. I think it's going to look really cool next to the spruce trees, almost like it's one of them. This spot gets quite a bit of sun, and it's right across the driveway from the house. So, looking at the species I got up at the house, I think this one is going to be barkless Black Locust, with some Cherry on top... The cherry will make nice Nov/Dec fuel, then I'll have some BL for the dead of winter. I think most of the BL I scored lately might even be dry enough to burn by next year. But I already have next year taken care of, so this will get at least another year or two. Grabbed one more barkless BL from the gold mine. Hoping what I have up at the house now stacks out to a generous 2.5. Probably needed a bit more cherry to do the roof - maybe a cord and a half. There's a pile of smaller logs to the left of the BL branches, but it's maybe half of that. So I found some more and hauled that up. Probably 14" at the widest part. Can't wait to start on this thing. I can fit a full cord on the front porch, so most of that current stack will be gone, hopefully in the next couple days. The spot where I'm putting it is close enough to level already, so I probably won't need to do anything in that regard. Stay tuned for pics of the progress!
Good job, Shawn. We are jealous of all that BL you're getting and you have a worthy project ahead of ya. Looking forward to pics of the beehive stack.
Also ran this load of mystery wood over to my BIL. Pretty sure it was norway maple, but some of it was a little punky. I split it all up for him and everything, but still felt almost a little guilty... The wood snob in me just wanted the tree out of the way, so I could get at the BL tree I wanted. Probably a NY face cord, split and delivered, so what do ya want? I could hook him up from my gold mine if he needs it - but I've already sent a bunch of nice dry ash and maple his way... There's also a whole bunch of dry elm we could cut.... Took this pic of my trails. It doesn't even begin to capture the beauty of this scene. This is a great time of year to be playing in the woods. I'm living the life, my friends! Here's a couple pics of my process. Might not want to try this with your sawbuck!
Your kicking ash man (and BL) Definitely take lots of pics! The HH is something that i haven on FHC yet (unless I missed it somewhere) and pics from start to finish would be an awesome addition to the gallery.
Update - got 1/2 of the stack moved up to the porch. I should be able to get it all up there before the weekend. Got one trailer full of splits restacked each night this week. Should all fit if I go about 5' high - so ill have 1.25 cord up there. And it's no more than 10' from the stove!
Laid down the pallets today, and started splitting some of the locust. This stuff is almost dry enough to burn right now!
The HH should look nice there. BL even at that moisture will be slow to light off - good thing you're waiting 3 years
Got the first trailer load stacked. Starting to take shape! Its large enough to fit 3 rings of splits. I'm going to try to get away without stacking any pieces "crosswise". So far, the shorts and uglies are doing the trick to bring everything back level. I don't think I'm going to worry as much about keeping the inner rings level. They'll naturally want to tip against the outer ring anyway. I'm going to use all the BL branches I have as "cross ties", to link the rings together.
A word of advice, keep the rings angled down and in. I learned the hard way. I would just chuck it all in a pile in the middle vs making 3 rings too - its one of the beauties of a HH
From a few years back. I put the pole in the center and put a rubber ring at the peak of the HH "roof" to see how much it shrunk - if I recall it was around 10" after a couple years.
