Stacking Wood like the Oldtimers

You might find this intresting, most of you proably know and might even build one yourself.

Bauanleitung einer Scheitholz-Miete | Holz traditionell Lagern

Its in English too, used to very common around here - you can find them sometimes, somewhere deep in the countryside. Takes time and some good Space.

 

I love the look of the Holtz Hausen, but I just don't have the time to spend building them.
Then I wouldn't want to tear it down because it's too pretty!

 

I am cross stacking because I can do it on a pallet and don't have anywhere to really stack in a row. It takes more time to cross stack but one advantage is that it does have more air spaces so the wood does dry faster. However, you have to make sure you take the wood off evenly across the stack or you risk the stack collapsing.

 

We usually call them Holz Hauzens, which I believe means roughly 'round house' in English. Or at least that is our American version of your German wood stacking method.

This is our first attempt a few years ago:



This is this year's wood supply




There is even enough room in one to make a true Hauzen for some critters:



I spent some time in Germany when I worked for a German firm. The company was in Remscheid but I stayed in a beautiful little town named Wuppertal. I guess it is fairly well known for its elevated train system. I rode that thing many, many times after purchasing a ticket but without realizing the ticket had to be stamped in the bottom of the vending machine. No one ever asked me to see my ticket(s) though so I never got to see the inside of Wuppertal's jail....

Brian

 

They do take alot of practice and time to build. Thats why my stacks look more like yours... just not so straight. No offence taken, i just wanted to give some infos about stacking culture around here. I bet your stacks are dry in no time!

 

hahaha i like zhis!

 

Thats about how i do it too, i wish i had a Football Pitch as extension of my Yard. i Would make a Fence out of Woodstacks

 

Did these pictures make it on the calendar I hope?! Especially the legend himself for the calender cover

 

Very nice! Watch out you gonna end up with a Bear goin into Hibernation inside your Holz Hausen = sounds like Germish to me .
I would translate it Woodhouse but Round House cant be wrong either as its round as it gets.
Oh yeah the good ole Schwebebahn, Grandmaw and Grandpaw got brought up around Wuppertal.
I still got kin around there but never really spend much time there, sounds like you got good memories.

 

Someone mentioned that they have a fence of firewood and that people stop and take photos in front of it.

 

I stop learning how to play it about 20years ago - never started again Sir.

 

Ill gonnae read through it the morra - worshipping the beergod right now.

 

Very many good memories. I loved my time in Germany and another week in The Netherlands (I just kind of tagged some vacation time after my work time). Wuppertal especially is a nice city, and I enjoyed traveling between the two cities (I purposely stayed well outside of Remscheid so I had to commute each day) through some beautiful valleys and surrounding woodland. That area looks a lot like the northeast US, where I live! In fact, I said at the time that if I woke up in the local woods, I would start walking expecting to find myself near home.

Got a great story you may like: on a different trip, two other Americans went to Remscheid and of course, flew into Frankfurt (an main) as we all did. They rented a car, left the airport and opened a map to find their way (I navigated using GPS but they were too cheap to buy the European software). So the first thing one does when reading a map is to find out where one is, and they looked at the autobahn signs for the city they were in or near, and then tried to find that place on the map. But they could not find it, which was surprising because many of the exits had the same name, meaning the city they were in must be quite large. ?? They spent over one hour looking for the city to no avail, it wsa no where on the map. Simply amazing....

The name of the city they were looking for was..... wait for it...... Ausfahrt. To the non- German speaking folks, ausfahrt literally means "out way" or "out drive" in English but it would translate as "Exit". Those two guys (engineers too!!!) spent an hour looking for the city named 'Exit' in Germany.

As far as things living in the Holz Hauzens, yep, every time we take one apart, we find dozens of nests, certainly rodent (probably gray squirrels or mice) and quite a few snake skins. No poisionous snakes around here and we are not afraid of squirrels or mice so no harm done. Everything needs a place to live, and if something takes shelter in my woodpiles, that is fine with me too. The kittens were the only animals we ever actually saw in a hauzen though.

Brian

 

hahaha, the good ol Ausfahrt. Yeah its rollling hills down there - i like it alot too.

 

I tried this for the 1st time (dont mean the boxes... thats more of an accident).
Made a Tube out of an construction grid, put a pallet at the bottom.
Stacked around 3 cubicmetres of mostly hardwood...some pine in between.
On top i put another pallet - to assure more airflow, added a raincover and theres
a modern Holzhausen or Holzmiete. Not as pretty as the original one.
But way easier to handle and if is good to go - i just take a boltcutter make a little window
and take it out. For the next refill - i just close it again.

Unfortunatly we had for the last 3 month plenty of rain and its - at least on the outside,
constantly wet. Wont ruin it but the looks of it aint pleasing.