# Anybody with cordwood building experience?



## Kris in MI (May 30, 2002)

Dh is finally talking about building me a garden shed (after nearly 10 years. . . ) I'm kind of thinking cordwood, but he's not too sure since that's not in his realm of experience (for reference, we designed and built the house we now live in--2x6 stick-built--and our barn--pole, but monitor style. His father was a builder for nearly 4 decades and dh worked for him while growing up and first few years of college.)

We have a lot of dead ash trees that are anywhere from the circumference of a man's arm to a man's thigh in size, well over 100 of them, and that is what I was thinking of using.

Does anyone know if ash is suitable for this? (Dh is talking stick built shed, with purchased T-11 siding, and using the ash for firewood instead.) Also, how does cordwood compare in time/money to conventional builds?


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## texican (Oct 4, 2003)

Little experience with ash. I don't think ash comes to mind when I think of rot resistant woods. 

I actually cut several cords of cypress bolts to use in a cordwood building. Knew I needed to let it dry for a while... came back a few months later, and even the 'rot resistant' cypress was rotting away. If you decide to 'do it', let the wood dry out first, or your going to have thousands of joints to repoint.

Imho, the amount of money saved on material is minimal (you still have to buy mortar mix materials) and your going to be dealing with joint issues forever, unless your climate (humidity) remains the same year round. 

I'd rather spend a little time gathering the proper woods instead of saving a tiny amount of time/money, than building something out of improper materials and have it all go horribly wrong in a few years....


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## ErinP (Aug 23, 2007)

> I don't think ash comes to mind when I think of rot resistant woods.


Ash is a hardwood (what do they make baseball bats out of, afterall?) but they're susceptible to ash borers. I don't know if it has to be _live_ though in order to attract them...
And I don't know if it's a hard _enough_ wood to be rot-resistant.


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## kvr28 (Feb 15, 2009)

my understanding is you want to stay away from hardwoods due to expansion when they get wet, I believe cedar is the most ideal wood to be used plus the rot resistance


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## Kris in MI (May 30, 2002)

Thanks for the replies. 



texican said:


> If you decide to 'do it', let the wood dry out first, or your going to have thousands of joints to repoint.
> 
> Imho, the amount of money saved on material is minimal (you still have to buy mortar mix materials) and your going to be dealing with joint issues forever, unless your climate (humidity) remains the same year round.
> 
> I'd rather spend a little time gathering the proper woods instead of saving a tiny amount of time/money, than building something out of improper materials and have it all go horribly wrong in a few years....


This is standing dead wood, been dead for a number of years; DH and I marked them two summers ago as dead--after noticing them bare for several previous summers--and have been slowly getting to cutting them down (slowly because we keep halting that to clean up downed wood/widowmakers after storms and stacking that as future firewood instead of cutting down anything that is still upright.).



ErinP said:


> Ash is a hardwood (what do they make baseball bats out of, afterall?) but they're susceptible to ash borers. I don't know if it has to be _live_ though in order to attract them...
> And I don't know if it's a hard _enough_ wood to be rot-resistant.


I believe they are dead because they were all ready a victim of ash borers. The buggers went through this area about 10 years ago, and most of the ash in my neighborhood was affected.



kvr28 said:


> my understanding is you want to stay away from hardwoods due to expansion when they get wet, I believe cedar is the most ideal wood to be used plus the rot resistance


Okay, something to think about. No cedar here, just tons of hardwoods (esp. white oak and red maple, and the all ready dead ash). Guess I have some reading/research to do this winter.


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## tarbe (Apr 7, 2007)

http://www.cordwoodmasonry.com/


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## gerold (Jul 18, 2011)

Be nice if you had a small mill or could get your trees cut into lumber. Make some great projects from Ash. How big a shed ? Time wise take you a lot longer to build with cord wood. You could use Ash but it would have to be treated or use a good paint on it. You still have to frame in for doors and windows. What kind of floor in the shed? What about the inside walls? Elec. outlets? Shelf and place to put your tools on the wall. With cord building creates all kinds of different problems. What about the building codes in your area. Can you insure a cord build shed. Ok not trying to talk you out of it just saying a standard type shed would be easier to build and cheaper in the long run. 

Good luck,
Gerold.


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## Farmer Chris (Mar 10, 2013)

www.cordwoodcontruction.org
Richard Flatau or of course, Rob Roy. Both are experts in cordwood construction.
We attended Richard's workshop last summer in Fountain City, WI. I'm absolutely in LOVE with cordwood. You cannot use a hardwood of any kind in cordwwod. Best is cedar, it is, if dried properly, rot resistant and with a dip in borax, insect resistant more than usual. Pines work too. You do not have to use mortar you can opt to do cob mortar instead. We will be constructing our new home partially in cordwood and hopefully this year. With 16" log ends we will have approximately R25 value in insulation which is a heck of a lot better than the wadded up R11 and newspaper mix the builder of our current house used...


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## Riverdale (Jan 20, 2008)

My great-uncle and grandfather built several buildings (some still up) and one was used as a potato storage (24'x 40') cordwood style.

Northern White Cedar was the wood of choice


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## Tobit (Mar 25, 2013)

Farmer Chris said:


> You cannot use a hardwood of any kind in cordwwod.


This is simply not the case. Hardwood can be used if a few precautions are taken into consideration. Rob Roy and Mr. Flatau have stated, on several occasions, over the years that, although not ideal, hardwood can be used if you have no other options if you factor these considerations into your plans:


Do not over-dry your hardwood, no more than one month is ideal.
Build your frame work and roof first, a simple timber framed skeleton works well when working with hardwood, as this will give you a dry area to build up your cordwood walls.
Begin your hardwood walls a couple feet off the ground to limit rain water splashing up onto your walls soaking the bottom rows.
Build your roof with at least a 16", 2 to 3-foot ideally, overhang to further limit splashing rain water.
The problem with hardwood is expansion when it gets wet not shrinkage. Shrinkage is easy to fix down the road. However, when hardwood gets wet, it is easy for it to expand making repairs difficult to impossible. I have seen some sources state to split all hardwood to minimize expansion but I have not verified this yet with anyone who has built using all hardwood. 

Disclaimer: I have not begun construction yet of my cabin but I have been a follower of Rob & Jaki Roy along with Richard Flatau, et al. for a number of years and have studied this method extensively. I have also had discussions with Mr. Flatau regarding my plans and he has no issues with my cabin design using the white oak and hickory found on my wood lot in the Ozarks. Additionally, I will be spending a week with the Roys this coming July.

One source to backup the content of my post can be found in several posts in the wood section of Rob Roy's Cordwood Q&A page.

Kris, since you are Michigan, I would strongly recommend, as others have, to use something other than ash if possible. In addition to expansion issues if not done properly, softer, airy, woods have better insulation properties compared to hardwoods. If you were to use ash, your would have to make your walls much thicker, maybe even building using a double-wall construction, than if you used a softer wood.

Sorry if this seems like a rant to some, I just wanted to point out that hardwood can be, and has been, used.


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