While unique, cordwood wouldn't be their next housing choice.

Countryside: I feel I have to respond to the recent articles on cordwood with my personal experiences with this building method. My wife and I designed and built our earth sheltered, passive solar home, and have been living in it for 20 years now. See it at www.countrysidemag.com/issues/2_1998.htm and go to the first featured article. The house looks totally different on the outside now. My home is designed to be energy efficient; unfortunately the original design of the cordwood wall was the weakest link, the leakiest wall of them all by far. Cordwood is very labor intensive; it has too many wood-mortar interfaces. It is inexpensive, but only if you don't count labor. (Check out my article at www.daycreek.com/dc/html/doug_kalmer.htm.)

We first air dried winter cut Eastern Red Cedar (Juniper). After 15 months of drying time, we could wait no longer for the cedar to dry further, so we started building with it. First I built a shaving horse and using a drawknife, I had to peel all of the bark from the cedar. I later learned that if I had cut the cedar in the spring, when the sap is up, it would have peeled more easily, but taken longer to dry. Laying two strips of sawdust-rich mortar along the inside and outside of the wall, I laid the 16" cedar lengths onto them, filling the inner space with fiberglass or Styrofoam[TM] insulation.

Soon after moving in we noticed drafts where the wood meets mortar--air infiltration. Maybe the drying time wasn't long enough, but wood expands and contracts with changing humidity levels, while mortar does not. This makes many gaps open up in the interfaces between the wood and mortar, allowing infiltration. I tried to caulk around each log end inside with clear silicone, even that opened gaps over time. When the wind blew rain through the wall, I knew I had to cover the outside of the cedar. I first used 6 mil plastic, covered with hand split oak shakes. It helped with the infiltration, but insects found the shakes provide a good home, several types of wasps and even a bat moved in. I finally removed the shakes and plastic, tacked 5/8" closed cell Styrofoam[TM] board over the cedar, and stuccoed over the entire outside wall. This stopped the insects and infiltration, but my solution to cover the outside causes concern about moisture build-up in the winter, and possibly rot.

Moisture from the living space will condense inside the wall when outdoor temperatures are low. I can't imagine how a sawdust-filled cordwood wall would ever dry out, if moisture got into the sawdust. Cordwood can leave lots of places for rodents and insects. I installed a fan in the cordwood wall between the attached greenhouse and the house. It was very difficult to open a hole in the wall, and to seal it around the fan.

I've tried to be fair about the pros and cons of cordwood. My wife and I like the unique attractiveness of the wall, but realize the time, effort and energy inefficiencies involved are not outweighed by the looks or low cost. I did not recommend this method to a friend who wanted to build a similar home to mine. Sorry, but that's the way we see it. We really like the slip formed stone walls. They are inexpensive, attractive, unique, airtight, bug tight, rot proof, fireproof, waterproof, contain large thermal mass, and will easily outlast us.--Doug Kalmer, [e-mail]