A 2 cord HH, should be what diameter?

[FatttFire]

Hello everybody! Its been a while since I have been here, and it is nice to be back after a horrible summer! I have my 4 cords of wood to the house and ready to go, and I was going to start splitting for next year. I wanted to start a HH, and was wondering what size it should be for 2 cords, or even for 4 cords, which is what I burn every winter. Can anybody tell me?

 

[adrpga498]

I would recommend building 2 hh with a 6 to 7 foot diameter base and go maybe 7feet high. I think if you try to make 1 large hh you may not get the "draft" effect of air circulation throughout. Just my opinion.

 

[jdinspector]

+1 That is exactly the dimensions of mine which is around 2 to 2.5 cords.

 

[Wood Duck]

I build Holz hausens that are 8 feet in diameter, and make them about head hight (i am 5 ft 8 inches tall) at the outer edge, sloping up to a peak of about 7 feet in the center. Each one calcs as about 2.25 cords when built, then they shrink a little to about 2 cords of dry wood. I build them head height because if they were much taller it would be a hassle to remove the wood from the top when it is time to burn.

With an 8 ft diameter, the radius is four feet and the basal area is 4 squared times pi, or 16 times pi, or about 50 square feet. A cord is 128 cubic feet, so each 2.5 feet of height is about a cord of wood (2.5 ft high times 50 square feet is 125 cubic feet of wood). That means a five foot holz hausen is two cords, and my approx. 6 or 6.5 ft holz hausens are about 2.25 or 2 1/2 cords. I had originally planned to build 8 ft diameter by 8 foo tall holz hausens, and each would then hold pi cords of wood, but I realized that it would be a pain to get firewood down from the top of an 8 ft stack. I really don't know if my holz hausens are built properly to create the magical chimney effect that seasons wood in three months. I am just happy that they don't fall over, look nice, and stand up on their own.

 

[LLigetfa]

They say figures don't lie but liars always figure... A cord is 128 cu ft when neatly ranked up parallel while loose tossed is somewhere closer to 180 or 200 cu ft. Since a holtz is stacked in an arc, there will be more air than in a straight row so a simple calculation using pi and based on 128 cu ft per cord won't quite cut it.

 

[Wood Duck]

Also, I stack my holz hausens with a lot of air space, so that reduces the volume of wood I put in there. Still, a 6 ft tall by 8 ft diameter holz hausen contains about 300 cubic feet of space, so I am confident that there are at least two cords of wood in each one. I'll stick with my original answer to the original question - make it 8 ft diameter by 6 feet tall to create a 2 cord holz hausen.

 

[Wood Duck]

If anybody has a free afternoon, please go out and stack two cords of wood into a holz hausen and see how large it is.

 

[FatttFire]

LOL.................... wood duck! Excellent I will go for the two HH idea I like that one, I can just see my short ass ( 5' 9" ) trying to jump up to get the last piece on and collapsing the whole thing!

Thanks!

 

[Apprentice_GM]

I had originally planned to build 8 ft diameter by 8 foo tall holz hausens, and each would then hold pi cords of wood, but I realized that it would be a pain to get firewood down from the top of an 8 ft stack. I really don't know if my holz hausens are built properly to create the magical chimney effect that seasons wood in three months. I am just happy that they don't fall over, look nice, and stand up on their own.

WoodDuck, I built my fist HH that way precisely to have pi cords of wood as well I calculated the outer height of the HH was 7'8" whilst the centre height was 8'8", because the top sloping roof part is like a cone, which is 1/3 volume of a cylinder, given radius and height the same Mind you my HH fell over so I made the 2nd HH smaller then wrapped chicken wire around it.

I am disputing the magical chimney effect and currently running a HH vs normal stacked row seasoning experiment Down Under, I will have the results when I burn my wood this autumn (~April to May) so a few months away yet. My signature has more experiment details . . .

 

[Wood Duck]

Apprentice, I think the idea for a holz hausen containing pi cords of wood came from you. It definitely wasn't my original idea, and I got the idea here at Hearth.com

 

[Birdman1]

I like pie

 

[Bigg_Redd]

My soon to be complete 10'x20' WOODSHED will hold about 9 cord if stacked 6' high. I hope this helps.

 

[gzecc]

How many pies is a chord of wood?

 

[lexybird]

I was going to start splitting for next year. I wanted to start a HH, and was wondering what size it should be for 2 cords, or even for 4 cords, which is what I burn every winter. Can anybody tell me?

do you want the measurement to be before ~ or after that euro heap hauzen falls over .those things are a big waste of time
wood needs maximum air and exposed space and sun(or atleast warm temps ) to season *in a reasonable amount of time*
they do look pretty though

 

[pulldownclaw]

If you have access to some pallets, put 4 of them together in a square and get the HH off the ground, it will be about 7' diameter for standard sized pallets. I like to put bricks under my pallets to get a few more years out of them as well.