One day McMoonter will realise that a Holzhaus is only a tempory way of keeping warm and a Passivhaus is the long term answer. The TV, a computer and three of us in the room has raised the temperature from 20.3°C to 20.6°C this evening (it’s 11°C outside).
MTG, top tip, cut the outside ring of logs as large as will fit in your firebox. If they are all much the same size you will be able to build a much neater stack than I did. Mine were a bit random. It’s surprising how quickly it grows upwards. You might want to have an assistant hand logs up the ladder to you to.
If the centre was empty and could act as a chimney and there was provision for an air supply at the bottom, it could absolutely rage.
There’s a vid on arbtalk of a chap using a hollow log as a stove – just lit some kindling in the middle and it was off like a little jet!
Well got round to trying to build one at one of the coppices I work at.
This was the pile of wood that we had cleared and chopped already.
Started building the circle, we planned to build the walls three rounds thick then back fill. Sorry forgot to make sure the wood was facing the correct way, and sloping in, still it should be a giggle.
I know it looks a bit rough, next time if we do it, we will make sure we cut and split the logs a bit longer. probably make the base a bit smaller and peg and rope to make a perfect circle 😉
We ran out of chopped wood at this level, but we have still quite a few dead trees on the ground to clear that we can finish it with.
That looks great Ski. You’ll find as it climbs inwards you’ll use a lot less wood. Next one I build I’m not going to faff around keeping the bark sides down. I could build it stronger if the logs are knitted together more. If you have long straight poles in your coppice, I’d cut them the diameter of the stack and stitch them in every now and again, it should help hold it together.
We had some pretty strong winds over the last few days and mine stood up with nothing being blown off the top.