2. Cost - The cost of building a cordwood house can be considerably less than a standard wood frame house. It all depends how much of the labor you can do yourself and it depends how frugal you are in finding all of the necessary components to build the house. After reading numerous books and listening to those who have built, you can easily cut your building costs in half compared to a standard wood frame house built by contractors. It's a lot of your own labor, but your labor is cheap!
3. Energy Efficiency - Cordwood houses provide two benefits: good insulative values and thermal mass. Since the inside mortar joints are insulated from the outside wall, the mortar acts as thermal mass to keep your house at a more consistent temperature. The cordwood itself is sort of an insulator and the density of the wood will have a slight effect on its efficiency. Sawdust or other materials fill in the cavity between the mortar and help insulate the walls. Cliff Shockey has written a book Stackwall Construction - Double Wall Technique.
   
   Cliff lives in Saskatchewan, Canada and knows what it's like to build houses in cold climates. In his book, he discusses the benefits to building two cordwood walls with a vapor barrier and insulation in between. With this technique, you can expect to gain even greater energy efficiency.
   
   Rob Roy states that a 16" cordwood wall has approximately an R value of 20. Cliff states that a 24" (8" cordwood + 8" insulation + 8" cordwood) double wall has an R value of 40. Cliff's double wall technique is more time consuming and may require additional post and beam framing, but for those who want a better R value this might be the way to go.
4. Ecology Friendly - Although a cordwood house uses natural resources, it is made of materials that you can "harvest" yourself. There's nothing wrong with thinning trees from a woodlot when a woodlot is managed properly. By cutting your own
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   Double Wall Cordwood, Alberta, Canada
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   wood, you have control over preventing any ecological damage to the land and animals. You can also recycle glass bottles and use them in construction of your walls. The walls look nice with colorful bottles.
5. Easy to Build - Cordwood houses don't take a lot of skill to build. As long as you are capable of stacking logs with mortar and have basic carpentry skills, it's not too difficult to do yourself. Just make sure that you have the necessary building code approvals ahead of time. Rob Roy also has workshops available if you would like to try your hand at it before attempting to build it by yourself.
6. Pride - There's a lot of pride and joy associated with building your own dwelling. Cordwood houses make it possible for just about anyone to experience the thrill of building your own house.
7. Fire Resistance- In the 1994 CoCoCo (Continental Cordwood Conference) papers, there's a good article on fire penetration and flame spread of a cordwood house. The article discusses a real life fire that occurred when a propane-fired freezer exploded. Although the house did eventually burn, it took a two days for the house to be destroyed. The insurance company after witnessing this, dropped their insurance rates on cordwood houses finding them far superior to conventional stick frame houses.

2. Time Consuming - Building a cordwood house will take more time to build than a conventional house. Depending upon how much free time you have will determine how long it will take you to build. Building a cordwood house is labor intensive. You're making a trade here with your time vs. your money.
3. Resellability - I don't know if this is a big problem or not. I haven't seen too many cordwood houses on the market, but it might be harder to sell a cordwood house just by the mere fact that most people have never heard nor seen a cordwood house. But then again, once you live in your own cordwood house, why would you ever want to leave?
4. Building Permits - Although I had no problem in getting our building permit, I'm sure that it would be more difficult to obtain a permit in urban areas. Residential areas are always more stringent on building permits. Again, most people (including building inspectors) have never heard nor seen a cordwood house and are surely going to be skeptical of its integrity.
5. It's Addicting - After you build your first, your likely to want to build another...

Frequently Asked Questions About Cordwood Masonry (a.k.a Stackwall)

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Q. What is cordwood masonry?</big></big>

A. Cordwood masonry is a wall building technique commonly used to build homes, barns, saunas -- just about any structure that uses walls above grade. The walls are comprised of debarked cordwood and some form of a mortar. The widths of the walls are equal to the length of the cordwood. Typical wall widths vary from 8" to 24". Various species of cordwood can be used and typically builders use species that are commonly found in their area.
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<big><big>Q. What is the difference between cordwood masonry and stackwall?</big></big>

A. Cordwood masonry, cordwood construction, stackwall, log-end and stove wood all describe the same type of housebuilding method. Canadians tend to favor the word stackwall while us Yanks tend to use cordwood masonry. Other names for cordwood masonry are: stovewood, stackwood, log-end and cordwood construction.

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<big><big>Q. Where did cordwood masonry originate and how long has it been in use?
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A. Cordwood masonry's origins are unknown. There are some homes in Canada that are between 100 and 200 years old. In the United States, there's a house at the Old World Wisconsin Museum that was built in the 1884, complete with a cordwood chicken coop. There are also known examples over 100 years old in Sweden.

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<big><big>Q. How much does it cost to build a cordwood home?</big></big>

A. This varies based on how much of the labor is done by the builder and by the materials used. If you have your own supply of wood, the only cost to building a cordwood wall is the mortar and sand. The foundation, roof, floors, plumbing, electrical and fixtures are all up to the home builders discretion and therefore can vary the cost greatly. If one fells their own trees and barters construction materials, a house can be built for around $10 per square foot. (Cost of well, septic and electric not included.)

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<big><big>Q. Are there any species of cordwood that are not recommended for building cordwood walls?</big></big>

A. It is best to use softwoods but if in your area hardwoods abound, it is still possible to use them in certain circumstances.

Different species of hardwoods can have quite different expansion capabilities. It is highly advisable to build a test wall first to see how they expand after being mortared into the wall. IF the hardwood is extremely dry, there's a chance that the wood will significantly expand causing structural damage to the wall. (There is a known instance in which oak cordwood expanded to the point that it lifted a post and beam frame off of a bolted foundation plate. ) Test first!

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<big><big>Q. How do you know when the wood is dry enough to build a cordwood wall?</big></big>

A. The debarked wood is dried just like any other piece of firewood. Under protective cover, wood is typically dry in 6 to 12 months depending upon the species and weather conditions. If you take two pieces of wood and hit them against each other they should make a "clinking" sound. If they make a "thud", there probably still too green.

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<big><big>Q. Do the logs shrink after a while?</big></big>

A. Yes, this is true. Especially after the walls are dried out by internally heating the house. There's a good chance that you may need to caulk around the logs after a couple of heating seasons, but you should only need to do it once. Silicon caulk or Permachink are commonly used due to their elasticity. The key is to let the wood dry out first before applying the caulk.

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<big><big>Q. How much maintenance is there to a cordwood home?</big></big>

A. Not much other than the initial caulking. The walls will probably outlast you as long as there is an adequate overhang on the house to keep the walls dry the majority of the time. Other maintenance such as the roof and internal wear of the house is pretty much standard maintenance just like a conventional home.

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<big><big>Q. Is it hard to build a cordwood wall?</big></big>

A. No, just time consuming. There's a lot of manual labor involved in building a cordwood house. Building the walls can be done by just about anyone, but it is labor intensive.

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Q. Do you need to point the mortar?</big></big>

A. Pointing is the process of smoothing out the mortar around the logs and giving some "relief" between the mortar and the wood. Some people prefer the flush wall look and others like the logs to extend outwards slightly from the mortar. Pointing tends to give the wall a more finished look, but does extend the amount of time that it takes to put up a wall. It's a personal preference.
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<big><big>Q. What's the deal with the bottles?</big></big>

A. Some builders like the look of adding colorful bottles to the wall. Bottle-ends as they are called is nothing more than two bottles (necks inwards) wrapped in tubing, mortared into the wall. If you want to use colored bottles, make sure that one end is clear otherwise they will be too dark. It's not a necessity, but quite a few builders use them. It also helps bring in outside light to a dark room such as a closet.


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