Clay, which makes up about 20% of the amount of firewood, is important for turning a simple log into a strong wall for a firewood house.
To keep the house warm and prevent cracking, you need to mix the clay with finely chopped straw, which should be about 10-15% of the clay’s volume. Mix them well.
The foundation of the wood-fired house is quite basic. It involves a simple strip footing with layers of stones held together with liquid mortar, filling all the gaps.
The foundation should not be more than 1 meter deep because wooden walls are lighter than brick and don’t settle as much. A depth of 40-50 centimeters is ideal, keeping the house warm in cold winters.
Building the walls with wood and mortar is straightforward but requires attention to detail. Place the wood on the mortar with thin joints. To make it warmer, use clay-salt mortar in two parallel lines to create an air layer in the clay, preventing cold gaps. When building corners, use a technique similar to bricklaying for better strength.
The house is 9×9 meters with one and a half floors. It’s built using 40 cm long logs on a layer of clay. The walls are made to look like stacked logs, with rows overlapping at the corners. Strips of inch-thick boards at 50-70 cm intervals are used to keep things level.
Build each wall in three rows of firewood at a time. Don’t rush to add more rows, let the clay dry properly to prevent squeezing the logs below.
There’s no mention of using molds for the walls. Instead, movable shields made of three boards are used, both inside and outside the wall. They’re attached with screws at the bottom and a spacer at the top to maintain the right wall thickness and keep the logs in place.
For windows and doors, containers the same width as the wall (200×100 board) are made and put in place in the wall. Additionally, a fifth wall (a frame of timber 150×150) is added inside the house with its ends embedded in the walls.
