I’ve never been a fan of the week between Christmas and the New Year, so this year I had a plan. My brother and I have been collecting logs on Monday mornings for the last month. We’ve got enough for two holz hausens.

I spilt a trailer load the other day and made a start. It was a beautiful clear morning, dry with a hoar frost. Perfect for splitting and building. By the time darkness fell I was up to waist height with another full load in the trailer to build with first thing.

I’m off fat biking with Coastkid, Sanny and Italspark on Saturday, so maybe by Sunday I’ll have it wrapped up.

Gratuitous Fergie shot

Lining up the black dot with the log edge to mark the circumference of the circle.

That’s very impressive wood….

Snap! Albeit on a much, much smaller scale…

Snap!

Excellent work HH. How big is the diameter? Are you splitting the logs by hand?

I’ve never had to put that horizontal band in to keep the logs pitching inwards. I’ve found that when the logs reach about eye level they are horizontal, that’s where I start to create the roof. By then the rainwater will bed more easily shed off the sides.

It’s about 5ft in diameter and, yes, all split by hand! Have an Oregon saw horse and a Makita electric chainsaw; the combination makes cutting the lumber we collected from Tentsmuir quite quick – its the splitting that’s the hard bit!

The electric chainsaw, only £100, has turned out to be ideal for my needs as I work in one location and constantly stop/start – and its just as powerful as domestic petrol chainsaws.

I’d always wanted to build a Holz Hausen after seeing them abroad over the years; I just didn’t know what they were called until reading about yours on here.

That’s a lot of hand splitting. Yours is a lot neater than mine.

I like to way that rack works. Latterly I’ve not used my saw horses much, I’ve stacked the logs as you have in a lattice and just cut them up there a layer at a time. It saves handling.

I try to keep the longer lengths to build the outer ring. I think they are easier to build with and they bind with the next inner ring a little better. I bury the uglies in the middle.

Its important to try and build the middle at the same rate as the outer. It binds it all together. I needed a second pair of hands to pass the logs in to me to build the middle once I’d built the outer.

Mine is eight feet in diameter. I think the bigger circle makes it easier as the logs have more room to point into the centre. The smaller circle means you need to split the logs a little more. It does however mean you need a lot more wood.

Keep an eye on the pitch of the outer ring. As each log dries it contracts. If they slope outwards too much too early it will burst outwards. If they slope inwards it can only implode against the the mass doing the same from the other side.

Keep the pictures coming.

Plenty of ‘uglies’ buried at the bottom to sacrifice themselves and rot away. Filled in the middle today as I soon realised it could fall inward!

We’ve got the medium Dovre Vintage so I wanted to keep the logs to 250/300mm or so in length – but it does make for a lot of manual labour. Next project, perhaps even tomorrow, is to cut up on old tyre (a big one as it’s off my wife’s 4WD) and make it a much smaller diameter so it’ll sit atop my modest chopping block and stop the split logs flying off in different directions!

Plenty of ‘uglies’ buried at the bottom to sacrifice themselves and rot away

I don’t think rotting will be an issue. I’ve still burned logs that have been at the edge of a pile and been exposed to the rain. I think there will still be plenty of airflow even in the middle of an eight foot circle to prevent rotting.

I want McMoonter’s life……

Rain has stopped play for the afternoon, however, this morning I stacked the last load I split yesterday and I split another load for the next time.

I’m almost there, about a couple of barrow loads to go. I tried to split the roofing logs into flatter shapes like shingles. Every one is a learning experience.

That icon with the shades on does not cover that. Do we have an improved ‘cool’ icon?

Nearly there, just needs a bit more on the top to round it off. Reckon I’ve used 20% of our £45 Forestry Commission timber. As time has gone on the lengths have got a bit longer and the split segments larger… good exercise, cathartic and satisfying!

Excellent work HH. Be warned it is addictive.

Hooray, a build thread 🙂 A ray of light amongst the bickering threads I was wading through up till now. Ta.

The storm before Christmas brought down a few trees at my inlaws place.

McMoonter and others efforts inspired us to have a go at building one, so here’s another for the stw festive holz hausen build thread.

We went for a 7ft diameter with a base of bark and old fence posts. After the downed trees (a snapped one is visible in the top right of the photo below) were sliced up with a chainsaw, they were hand split and stacked.

Everyone got involved in the build.

The finished stack, complete with wood/bark shingles.

A fun, strangely relaxing and satisfying little project. I think I might need to get some woodland and a chainsaw.

But what happens when you want to use the logs? How can you bear to spoil such wondrous structures?

Nice work Debaser! As you say is a rewarding thing to do on many levels.

But what happens when you want to use the logs? How can you bear to spoil such wondrous structures?

That is a very real fear. My strategy is to build as many as I can so that the loss of one is less dramatic.