Stacking round piles

[Spirithelper]

Does anyone stack their wood in round piles? I saw this for the first time this year when I was heading ice fishing. Snapped a quick pic and just looked it up tonight. There are a few YouTube videos on how to do it. Typically there is a tarp or plastic on the ground. Then the wood is peaked at top, another piece of round plastic over that, and then wood stacked tile roof style to cover and hold down the cover. Thoughts?

 

[MongoMongoson]

My wife likes to make these... and I don't like stacking wood so I love them. We cap ours with tar paper. One thing I like about them is that the center is a jumble of uglies and oddballs. The only stack is the ring around the outside, at least when she does them.

Ours are stacked on pallets. 4 normal sized pallets in a square works well.

We just started doing these 2 years ago so I can't say how well the wood has been seasoned. I guess I will find out some time in December or January.

 

[Spirithelper]

My wife likes to make these... and I don't like stacking wood so I love them.

Lol! Been trying to get my wife to help stack for years. She does like running the splitter, which I appreciate.

 

[Hap Shaughnessy]

Yes I used to stack rows but they would fall over more then I liked. Started doing these and havent had one failure. I stack them on plastic pallets.

 

[DonTee]

I have a friend who stacks like this. I was just at his house the other day an asked him about it.

He was saying he puts a small stake in the center and uses a 4’ dog leash to make the circle. He stacks the outside pieces all with a slight angle to the inside. And once the wall gets to a certain height he starts throwing pieces in the middle. Then he top covers with a tarp.
He’s only a part time burner, and says he burns one of these a year. Looked like he was 3 years ahead

My Buddy was boiling some maple syrup and I wanted to check out his setup. I gotta make some syrup next year!

 

[DuaeGuttae]

I built one once when we ran out of space, but I never got to use the wood from it because we ended up moving that summer. We had numerous racks of wood, but we gave all those away and dismantled the racks before we put our house on the market. We left the holzhausen, however, as it was stacked so sturdily, and it was a “feature” to go along with the wood insert in the basement. We laughingly referred to it as our “organic yard art.”

Try searching “holzhausen” or “holz miete” on this forum, and you’ll find examples and discussion. I used four pallet for the base of mine if I remember correctly. I really liked being able to store the chunks and uglies inside it.

My 85-year-old mother has just run out of space in her woodshed and still has a lot of wood to process (courtesy of a heavy snow/ice event in January), and she was just thinking of making another holzhausen. She had to try it after I had done it, of course.

 

[kennyp2339]

Years ago I did a big one of those on 8 pallets, I think I had close to 2 cords in it, it was 10ft across by 10ft high, it was fun creating it and it looked pretty interesting, but the method did not dry out my wood, the center was as wet as the day I stacked it, decided 2 rows on pallets were better after that.

 

[Spirithelper]

... but the method did not dry out my wood, the center was as wet as the day I stacked it, decided 2 rows on pallets were better after that.

View attachment 293731

Looks cool. Are those Christmas lights on top? Also, did you put plastic roof on it before the final layer of wood? I did see a YouTube video where a guy moisture tests several pieces of wood from a round pile and single (or double, I forget) row. They both were stacked about the same length of time, etc. The straight stack was drier and in the 12-15% range, where as the round was 20-22%. I know there are variables, like was the center wood tossed in or stacked standing up to get a so-called chimney effect. Thanks, I appreciate your (and everyone's) answer.

 

[kennyp2339]

I didnt use plastic for the top cover and the splits were just random thrown in the center

 

[Spirithelper]

I didnt use plastic for the top cover and the splits were just random thrown in the center

Most of the videos I've watched use some sort of cover. Maybe that was why yours was damp in middle. But also, it only makes sense that with a thicker pile, the air flow in center will be less. I like the lighted pile at night.

 

[Dredge]

I built this in January. For a covering I split shingle thickness slabs and laid the roof shingle style. The interior does not get wet and this pile appears to be drying faster than any other piling style I’ve accomplished this year. It took a lot of time to do this and it holds over 3 cords.

 

[Spirithelper]

I built this in January. For a covering I split shingle thickness slabs and laid the roof shingle style. The interior does not get wet and this pile appears to be drying faster than any other piling style I’ve accomplished this year. It took a lot of time to do this and it holds over 3 cords.

Nice job. I'm sure this was probably how they did it in the old days with the shingle style roof. The thin shingle pieces could be split later for kindling.

 

[Dredge]

Nice job. I'm sure this was probably how they did it in the old days with the shingle style roof. The thin shingle pieces could be split later for kindling.

Thanks. The shingles also allow for a lot of air flow as well. Cheers.

 

[Isaac Carlson]

What are the dimensions?

 

[Dredge]

The cylindrical segment is 9 feet in diameter and 5.5 feet high roughly and the roof section is about 3.5 feet high.

 

[stoveliker]

looks good, but I'll never going to stack in a way that I need a driver and screws in many pieces of wood.

 

[Spirithelper]

looks good, but I'll never going to stack in a way that I need a driver and screws in many pieces of wood.

I don't think anyone spoke of using screws. If I go this route, the weight of the wood shingles should hold everything in place unless we get a tornado or something. The wood used for shingles is probably an inch or more thick. So they really shouldn't move. Keep in mind this is a technique goes back centuries, before the time of screws and drill motors.

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[stoveliker]

The picture in post #11 to which I responded shows them being screwed down.

You may have less wind there - here 2*4s can blow away, let alone a 1" thick shingle. I suspect they will at least move, and loose the water shedding capability of the overlapping structure as a result.

 

[Spirithelper]

The picture in post #11 to which I responded shows them being screwed down.

You may have less wind there - here 2*4s can blow away, let alone a 1" thick shingle. I suspect they will at least move, and loose the water shedding capability of the overlapping structure as a result.

Well I'm with ya. I'm not into doing that either. We do get our big blows, being near the big lake. Storms with 60 mph or more wind gusts are not uncommon. But I always use wood to hold down tarps on top of the piles and it usually holds. But we do have a lot of trees and hills to break up the inline winds a bit. I see you're L.I., they may be worse indeed.

 

[Spirithelper]

The picture in post #11 to which I responded shows them being screwed down.

PS. Yup, I see the screws in 11. Good catch.

 

[stoveliker]

Yeah. Splits don't blow away here, but such shingles might move - if the wind gets under them. Weight vs wind drag ratio is worse than for splits.

 

[Dredge]

Your over analyzing boys. I used what I had on hand which was lots of wood, time and used screws from a deck job. Was it easy and fast? No, but don’t forget there are already a lot of people that think that us wood burners are crazy in the first place for all the time and effort we devote to this. I thought about splits and tarp configurations for the top covering but tried this instead. In my opinion the tarps won’t allow proper ventilation and the splits will leak. If anyone wants to roof their house with a tarps or with splits I’ll cover my next holzhauzen with the same. All the best.

 

[Isaac Carlson]

I have really been thinking of using wood shakes to reroof our buildings, now that the original roofs are going bad. We love the look, and splitting shakes doesn't really cost anything.

 

[stoveliker]

I like the looks too. Do people know what the longevity is of (good, high-quality) wood shakes?
(though next to my solar panels it'd look mighty strange, I surmise )

 

[Isaac Carlson]

Our wood barn shingles must be close to 100 years old and they started going bad about 10 years ago. The house was built in 1860, so if the barn is anywhere near that, it's probably been redone once, so maybe 80 years?