It's all about what makes ye the happiest. What makes me happy is being able to get and stack as much as my space allows, and that space is not very big (.55 acres with 4,000,000lbs of granite boulders everywhere). I am in the middle of combining 2 dry stacks. One was 100% spruce and the other a mix of red and sugar maple. Need room to stack the cherry and locust loads I got so the previous two are now going to be one. What I noticed while moving the maple is that man I just split and stacked A LOT of shorties and uglies back when I started. My new stacks the splits are ALL 16" and while not perfect they are a lot more uniform and therefore much easier to handle. I am grateful I have several ways of getting rid of the wood that does t meet my specifications. Hahahahahahaha. Here's the spruce stack that now has some maple in it.
Here's a picture of my first attempts at making the Holz Hausen formations. The stack on the left is all Black Locust and the one to the right of it is a combination of hardwoods, White oak, Red Oak, mostly. If you look over the top of all of the stacked wood you will see a bunch of cut and split wood out in the field, which is mostly Black Locust. There's probably a cord laying on the ground out there. The Holt Hausens are about 7 ft tall or better. The traditional stacks by the fence are over 5ft tall. The real dark wood at the top of the traditional stack on the right is Sassafras on top of mostly Pin Oak. I also got a couple of face cords of Red Cedar and about that much Osage Orange cut and split, to haul in and stack. None of this wood will be burnt this year, and a lot of it will still be around for the year after next, I figure.
Hey fellow south central PA club member. I do single rank top covered on all my oak, works great if you have have the room. Exposure to sun is key in my opinion.
The only reason a holz hausen takes up “less space” is because you are not storing as much wood. A holz hausen 5 feet high with a five foot diameter has less volume than a square stack five by five, five feet high. A cube with equal sides to the same length diameter of a cylinder contains more volume. It’s just high school geometry. A Holz hausen doesn’t dry any faster. You can’t store more wood in the same space. They just look more cool and are more fun to build. Perhaps they are more stable though.
JDU where are you located in Perry County, I have family in Shermansdale. I decided to try the holz hausen because Iam several years ahead on my firewood.
I think it has been proven that a Holz Hausen doesn't dry wood any faster, but it is very friendly to use when you have a bunch of ugly's to throw in the middle. It's possibly more stable if built right, but not all that stable until you have tied it together with the upper tiers, and you have to be careful when throwing the wood into the center, as a bad throw can knock over a section of the outside wall. They are kind of fun to build, and might shed rain better, if no cover is used, but I suppose that could be debated. I kind of like using it, because I don't like ricking wood up free standing, and I am starting to run out of fence to stack against, at least fence I want to use, anyway.
It takes up less space because traditional stacks unsupported are usually no higher than 4 and also because a standard cord is 4 x 4 x 8. So a 6' tall 8' diameter holz hausen stores more wood than a traditional stack. If built with minimal angle assuming it's tightly packed the math there is pi * 4 * 4 * 6 which is just under 19 x 4 x 4. That makes it 2.375 times as much in a hausen vs a traditional stack. But the appeal is accessibility and stability. The hausen is extremely stable and a lot of people won't have the ability to stack 80' long stacks of wood 4 ' tall. People like me with lots of trees on the property and little space. With that layout I'd have a real hard time maneuvering around rectangular piles. And I wouldn't be able to store "as much" wood as with the hausens. It's not a competition to see who is "bigger". It's just a different way of storing wood. Enjoy whichever way makes it easier for you to stack, retrieve, and/or split. Have you built one btw? How did you enjoy it? How big of a diameter did you build? I've built 21....with a few rebuilds already as I have burned through several stacks....and it works for me. Mine are 8' diameter x 6' high and on 4 pallets loosely laid out (small 10" gap between them).
I'm pretty sure people who are building them to actually "save space" are building an inscribed base of ten feet and 6 to 10 feet tall. Which is an impressive mass of wood. If you're not good at high school geometry then it's probably easy to believe one is better than the other despite anyy math involved. They do look good, but there are some impressive stacks of wood out there too.
I think I will build one more Holz Hausen out of Black Locust this winter, maybe a bigger one. Maybe a mix of Black Locust and red oak.
Buts it’s pi x radius squared, not diameter, x height... changes things quite a bit...just think of a three inch square vs. a three inch diameter circle. Does the square fit into the circle or does the circle fit into the square? The circle fits inside the square with the four corners sticking out beyond the perimeter of the circle. Now just build your stack as high as your holz hausen and it will hold more wood in the same length footprint. But no, I’ve not built one other than one two feet high for some leftovers one time, but that doesn’t really count. But I do admit they are nice to look at and in cases of picky neighbors that complain holz hausens might chill them out a bit too. And in cases like yours where there are lots of trees and limited linear space they would be a good option. And I think in windy locations they hold up better too. There is actually a home builder that makes round houses for hurricane prone areas based on this concept: Hurricane Resistant Homes | Wind Resistant Homes | Custom Coastal Homes | Deltec Homes
I know it's radius squared. That's what I wrote. An 8' x 6' high holz hausen's rough volume is pi * 4 (radius) * 4 (radius) * 6 (height) assuming minimal angle. I wrote it that way so you can see the 4 * 4* cancels out and you're left with the difference of 8 vs pi * 6 where pi * 6 is just under 19. So therefore, a multiplying factor difference of 8 vs 19.
I'm calculating it based on a cylinder volume. In that case it's the area of a CIRCLE * height. That's pi * radius squared. Then you mutiply it by the height. Sure you have slightly less volume because a holz hausen tilts in towards the center.... Base * height * radius squared is not a formula I am familiar with.
I built mine with space to maneuver the rubbermaid garden cart easily around them. Plus since I wanted them on pallets to build them any bigger would entail going to 2 x 3 pallets or, in order to be symmetrical, 3 x3. And I don't have the space for either. While I try to keep one stack one species most of them are mixed with a bunch of different wood because you don't always get 2+ cords of the same wood. I have 2 stacks of spruce, one of pin oak, two of mostly ash for example....and it's more about keeping track of how long a stack has been drying vs reaching for a specific wood to burn. I just happened to get a lot of that wood at once. I try not to mix something like green spruce with green red oak because I know the spruce will be ready way before the oak. Stack planning!
Here is the side of the house so you can see a few of the stacks and the terrain I'm working with. The trees, the SPACE.
So the corners of the pallets are space you could be using that is going to waste ... which is exactly my point— stack it square and you can get even more wood in the same footprint. I really don’t care what design people choose for their own needs or their own likings. My contention is that a holz hausen does NOT allow you to put more wood is less space. I see that all over the Internet repeated over and over. Space is space. Volume is volume. Unless we are talking about using a mechanical compactor, a piece of wood (or anything else for that matter) cannot be “squeezed” into a lesser area.
I think the use of the the phrase 'taking up less space' is not meant in scientific or mathematical aspects but in the physical space the stacks take up in your yard. Matter is matter and volume is volume, so you are correct. However, for example, I stack linearly in stacks 32" wide by 12' long (at four feet high that is one cord). A standard Holz Hausen on an 8' by 8' pallet base holds about 2.5 cords. If I stacked the same amount using my layout, the area it would take up would be 8' by 12' (two one cord stacks and one 1/2 cord stack - the vertical height is irrelevant) so in essence, it would take up more space (an 8' by 12' space for my stacks versus an 8' by 8' space for the Holz Hausen). And since I prefer to leave 30" between my stacks, my hypothetical 2.5 cords now take up an area of 13' by 12'.
If you want a 30” space in between that skews the whole equation and now we are comparing apples to oranges. An 8 foot cube of whatever height vs. a cylinder 8 foot diameter of equal height has less volume than the cube. This is not that difficult. So if someone wants to maximize space, don’t waste the corners by stacking in a holz hausen—stack in a cube.
Rusty Ranger 44. I live beside Little Buffalo State Park. I lived in Shermansdale for 4 years. Being of German decent, I'd like try a holz hausen too. Happy New Year.
