*** The results are (finally) in and the winner is Standard Ricks. More details on page 4 of this thread or you can click through to my blog with results and experiment data here ***

G’day All,

Having accumulated enough wood for a Holz Hausen and having been keen to build one ever since I discovered them a couple of months ago, I plan on commencing my splitting and holz hausen stacking early spring (in the next few weeks - check my location if this doesn’t make sense) and I was planning on measuring and determining some differences between a HH and a regular stack.

Before I begin though I thought I’d ask and see what everyone would like me to do in the way of measuring and experimenting. My primary reason is to validate or refute the claim it can season wood in 3 months, or up to 8 times faster than a normal stacked row. Here is what I was planning on doing:

1) Build an approx 8’ diameter and height HH. Clear and level a spot with good northern exposure (sunny) and decent airflow. Put some treated pine timber down to raise the HH off ground a little (prevent it becoming a snake house). I might get a bit engineery with the platform/base so it will last for years if the HH proves a success and I keep building them. I plan on marking the centre pole every 2 inches / 50mm or so.

2) Split my timber and set aside 36 pieces. The 36 pieces will be 3 different timber types (probably 2 x hardwoods eg bluegum, turpentine or yellow stringy bark and 1 x softwood eg conifer) of 3 different sizes (small eg 1/4 of a 6” round, medium eg 1/4 of 10”-12” round and large eg 1/4 of 16” round) each of 4 pieces. These will go in the bottom, middle and top of the HH at each point of the compass.
Each piece will be moisture-meter tested, weighed, measured and recorded after splitting. These measurements will then be used to determine how well each piece in the pile has seasoned over time, and whether pieces on the northern (sunny) side season much faster or negligibly faster, and whether height in the pile makes any difference (eg higher might get more airflow).

3) I hope to find some scrap pieces of pvc pipe to put some additional constant measure pieces into in the HH. This will allow easy removal and re-insertion of constant measure pieces for constant measuring, and I can compare their end progress with the other 36 pieces, to gauge whether the PVC pipe surround has artificially helped or hurt their seasoning (ie extra space around the wood might help season it slightly faster. or not).

4) I have ordered a cheap moisture meter, and a weather station which logs temps/humidity/barometric pressure/rainfall/wind speed and direction to my PC. This will allow me to build an automated Excel spreadsheet to both calculate averages during seasoning and allow others to guesstimate their seasoning progress based on my results. I will log everything in metric but it shouldn’t be too hard to convert to imperial

5) I will take weekly pics of the HH and post in the forum thread for “progress” along with some initial measurements.

6) I plan on building 2 small rows of wood, one running east-west and the other north-south, nearby, and placing some pieces in them also measured as above, to use to compare with the HH at the end of the experiment.

Any suggestions or requests?

I haven’t seen any posts here that verify or refute the HH claim to dramatically superior seasoning, and I reckon it’s in all of our interests to resolve this. I for one am dirt curious!

well- if you’re going to have specific pieces to measure- you may be better off weighing them.  A moisture meter will mean that you have to split them every time you want to measure the internal ‘true’ %mc.  If you weigh some, then dry similar pieces in the oven or measure several with a moisture meter- then you can estimate starting %mc, and monitor the others just by weighing them.

Adios Pantalones - 27 August 2008 08:38 AM

well- if you’re going to have specific pieces to measure- you may be better off weighing them.  A moisture meter will mean that you have to split them every time you want to measure the internal ‘true’ %mc.  If you weigh some, then dry similar pieces in the oven or measure several with a moisture meter- then you can estimate starting %mc, and monitor the others just by weighing them.

Yep, I am going to weigh them AP (#2 above) in the beginning and end and those constant measurement pieces, er constantly throughout

I was also going to use the moisture meter at the start and the end in addition to weighing them. At the end I might split them again so as to measure the middle of the pieces moisture content more accurately.

There were all these words and so I got confused and distra… hey look- a quarter!

Adios Pantalones - 27 August 2008 09:11 AM

There were all these words and so I got confused and distra… hey look- a quarter!

ROFLMAO

Yeah, I get a little detail-oriented sometimes, it’s the engineer in me (choleric/melancholic for those that know the temperaments) but I did read a monster detailed post of yours recently regarding a kiln Q and A Just out of interest, is that you in that avatar? Not the cartoon dude, the one with the paintbrush?

No- that’s Bob Ross- had a painting show on TV for years- had a very recognizable voice and was too mellow. Look him up on Youtube for a couple laughs.

I know what you mean about detail- I put the “anal” in “analytical chemist” LOL

I did a test two years ago with the straight rows vs HH. Don’t waste your time and energy, there is no difference in drying times. The main advantage of the HH is it’s real cool looking and you can stack alot of wood in a little space. Either method will still take 6-12 months for hardwood to dry, best to get 1 or more years supply so your ahead of the game.

I stacked in HH configuration at the end of last burning season. I had all intentions of weighing and measuring and everything else so i could make a fair comparison of my own. I wound up stacking 3 holz hausens in the yard but had no wood or room or patience left for conventional stacks. Anyway, my location and yard size dictated where i could make the HHs. I put them in the sunniest spots working around the kids play set and everything else. I split some pieces today and used a moisture meter to check. NONE of the wood will be ready to burn this year. The moisture readings were anywhere from 36% to over 50%. The meter is rated to 44% so I have no idea how accurate it is after that. The HHs are 7ft by 7ft and have been split and stacked for 5 to 6 months. NO it did not work in my situation. Maybe its the location of the stacks, maybe I should have covered them instead of using the bark facing up at the top, maybe all the pieces should have been stacked with the bark up, who knows…. All I can say is it DID NOT WORK!!!!! and I definitely have had them stacked for more than three months. Maybe in the perfect situation or should I say location, the HH would work but not here and not for me. It is still a good way to get a lot of wood in a small area but not for faster drying. They look good, but are hard to build. The worst part of this is that I have no seasoned wood to burn!!!!! Yet again.  Well, I have wood for next season, I hope.

I must have posted twice.

What do you mean it did not work?  Were you under the impression that it would dry in half the normal time?  Most wood normally takes about a year to dry properly. 

BTW- has it been super rainy this summer for you?  That definitely effects drying times.

Adios Pantalones - 27 August 2008 10:39 AM

What do you mean it did not work?  Were you under the impression that it would dry in half the normal time?  Most wood normally takes about a year to dry properly. 

BTW- has it been super rainy this summer for you?  That definitely effects drying times.

There are claims that an HH will dry your wood in as little as 3 months due to the chimney effect it creates. I found no difference in dry times between it and straight rows.

I didn’t know what to expect. It has been stated that the wood in an HH will season in as little as 3 months. With that, it did not work. We did have a lot of rain this summer, maybe that was it. Either way the HH will hold lots of wood in a small space, but that to me is the only advantage.

3 months!  never heard that claim- I have read the claim of “quicker”, but I have doubts about that.

As for gravity draining the logs- unless you see water dripping out of them, and you won’t, I doubt it would be an effect.  I guess if water concentrated in one end, then it would evaporate quicker, but that would only happen until the bulk water was released- not more than a couple weeks.

By the way- try it with white ash or white birch- it may be ready in as little as 3 months (holz or not LOL)

As little as 3 months was exactly the claim. Search it!!!!!!

archer292 - 27 August 2008 10:54 AM

As little as 3 months was exactly the claim. Search it!!!!!!

Hey- I believe that someone made the claim, I just don’t believe that it would work (unless it was thin split wood that seasons so quickly anyway).  I like the holz stack because of space saving and it looks cool.

This is a really interesting experiment and I’ll look forward to following the objective data.  I built my first Holz in 2006, and another one last year, and based on what I saw, I am on the fence as to how well they work compared to other methods of stacking and drying

One downside was that in each case, despite using level and stable ground (and in the 2007 incarnation using shipping pallets as a base to get the lowest levels off the soil) in each instance, as the wood dried and shrank unevenly (despite my having built it carefully), my HH-es shifted, and eventually avalanche-ed-sideways- and when they did, it was a formidable release of force in a very short interval. 

So I would definitely be cautious about building an HH in a location where kids might end up playing on it or next to it (including unauthorized or unexpected kids who may wander near it).  For that matter, keep any valued inanimate objects out of an HH’s potential tumble zone, too.

The only way i could see a HH being more effective at drying times is to do the following. Make a tarp the covers all but the 1st foot of wood from the ground up. cut a hole in the top of the stack and tape a large square fan to it so the air is directed up and away from the HH. Theoreticly it would draw air in throught the bottom, through the stack and out the top. Without this aid the only chimney effect would come from Delta T which I doubt would be very efective. I built my HH out of seasoned wood

Adios Pantalones - 27 August 2008 09:23 AM

I know what you mean about detail- I put the “anal” in “analytical chemist” LOL

You are all mere amateurs in that regard unless you’ve wondered and worried about whether use of an italic type text font achieves, or should achieve, italicization of the period at the end of the italicized sentence.  I once had to interact with a well-credentialed professional who actually devoted serious thought and discussion to that…