10 Benefits of a Round Wood Pile for Stacking Firewood
Drier wood, faster stacking, space for awkward pieces, and steadier stacks are just a few of the benefits of a round wood pile.
Since we started heating our home with wood three years ago, winter has become one of our favorite times of the year. Once you start using wood heat, you can’t go back! There’s just nothing like spending the evenings in the glow of a roaring fire while the outside world is cold and dark.
But a 24/7 fire also means going through quite a bit of wood in the winter, and spending many hours stacking and unstacking (as anyone who burns wood knows)! After trying a number of methods ourselves and growing up burning wood, we’ve found that round wood piles (commonly referred to as Holz Hausens) are the way to go.
They naturally repel water, stack up quickly, don’t require a lot of space or a specific setup, and they look cool, too!
If you’re debating which method to use for stacking this year, here are 10 reasons why you might want to give a round wood pile a try.
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10 Benefits of a Round Wood Pile for Stacking Firewood
- Dries wood effectively
- Helps avoid rot
- Doesn’t require extra equipment
- Naturally repels water
- Easy to cover
- Creates a space for awkward pieces
- Allows for faster stacking
- Won’t topple
- Saves space
- Aesthetically pleasing
1. Dries Wood Effectively
Using round piles can help to quicken the drying process for your wood. The round stacks create a chimney affect, which allows the air to flow through the pile and up out of the top of the pile through the center.
Regardless of the method you choose, wet wood dries best when it’s not packed too tightly. Stacking around a circle naturally creates some space between the logs, which may also help to get more air flowing between the pieces. (You can see what this looks like in our Holz Hausen tutorial).
Plus, with this type of stack, you’ll be throwing small and awkward pieces of wood inside the circle. Naturally, these awkward won’t be stacked very tightly, which makes it easy for air to flow into and up through the center.
2. Helps Avoid Rot
Because a round wood stack tends to get better air flow than other methods, it can also help reduce moisture content and the chance of getting rot on your wood.
For the best chance of avoiding rot, use gravel or bark to get your base off the ground, and consider adding a tarp to the top of your pile in wet weather.
3. Doesn’t Require Extra Equipment
A significant benefit of building round wood piles is that it does’t require t-posts, pillars, or a wood shed. You just need the ground. As long as you pay some attention to your stacking, it’s not difficult to create a very sturdy pile that stands on its own.
We generally build our stacks about 9′ in diameter, which makes for an easy-to-stack, stable structure. However, you can vary the size some depending on your needs. Regardless of the size you choose, a round firewood stack is ideal for any property. It doesn’t require specific infrastructure and might be able to help save space, too, depending on your set up.
4. Naturally Repels Water
The German method for making a round stack creates its own little roof on top the pile. The pile is finished off by creating a shingle-like pattern with the bark side facing up. (You can see how we did this in our Holz Hausen tutorial blog post).
This simple method helps to shed water and maintain dryer wood!
5. Easy to Cover
Although the shingled “roof” top covering definitely helps to shed water, we also like to add a tarp during wet seasons. The benefit of the round stack is that you can use one square tarp to cover the whole thing, rather than stretching multiple tarps over a long row of wood (or multiple long stacks of wood).
It holds a lot of wood, so you really get to use the tarp effectively!
6. Creates a Space for Awkward Pieces
This is one of the best benefits of a Holz Hausen! After you create the base of your outside row, you can start throwing all of your awkward, hard-to-stack pieces right into the middle of the pile.
We did a timber harvest a few years ago and ended up with a lot of wood to burn. However, many of the pieces were just not easy to stack. Our Holz Hausens provided plenty of room for our oddly shaped pieces of split wood that would not have stacked well in a traditional wood stack.
If you have odd-shaped pieces of firewood, a Holz Hausen is the way to go.
7. Allows for Faster Stacking
…and even if you don’t have awkward pieces, the open middle still provides an easy place to throw pieces in quickly! The round wood pile doesn’t waste dead space. It just makes for faster stacking. It’s easy to un-stack when the time comes, too!
8. Won’t Topple
Because of the wide base and the integrated nature of the building process for a round stack, it tends to be much sturdier than a traditionally-stacked pile of wood. The wide base (our piles are roughly 9′ in diameter) also means that you can build it even on slightly uneven ground. To do this, you just need to add larger logs to the lower side when you’re building the bottom row.
It is important to make sure you build a stable, well-stacked bottom row to create a solid base for your pile. After that, as long as you keep stacking fairly evenly, you’ll end up with an incredibly sturdy stack that can easily withstand the elements.
9. Saves Space
Holz Hausens are great space savers! Not only can you make one anywhere (since it doesn’t require posts, walls, or any other equipment), but they tend to stack taller than a regular row stack. Unlike a one-row pile, a circular stack has a very solid base that allows you to stack fairly high, as long as you take care to place your logs intentionally as you go.
If you only have a little space, you can get quite a lot of wood in a small area by using this method!
Since we have plenty of room, we prefer to build our piles about chest high and just create more of them. This just makes them easier to unassemble later since we’re not having to reach so high.
For reference, each of our piles hold about 2-3 cords of wood. We generally use 2 – 2 1/2 stacks per winter, so each one goes a pretty long way.
10. Aesthetically Pleasing
Lastly, these stacks just look great! Although this method might be fairly common in Europe (which is why it’s often referred to as the “Scandinavian way” or the “Norwegian wood stacking method”), you don’t see these stacks too often in the U.S.! It’s so satisfying to look out the window and see our thick huts of wood ready to go, and it’s usually the first thing visitors comment on when they come up the driveway.
If you want something that looks unique and comes with a host of other benefits, the Holz Hausen method is the best way to go!
How to Build a Round Wood Pile
To build a round wood pile, you’ll just need a tape measure or a long piece of string.
- First, find a relatively flat piece of ground (it should be about 6′ -10′ in diameter).
- Next, choose a center point and measure your diameter at at least four different points around the circle.
- Place split pieces of wood bark side down around the circle to form the circumference.
- Then, start stacking your first row perpendicular to the circumference round, bark side down, This will help you get airflow to the bottom of the pile.
- Continue stacking around the edges while throwing the awkward pieces in the middle.
- Lastly, build your roof by overlapping the pieces to create a shingle-like effect. Make sure the bark side is up.
- Tarp your pile (if you’d like!).
For full instructions, a picture tutorial, and tips for building your pile, check out our blog post, How to Build a Holz Hausen Round Firewood Stack.
