Luke and Amy Metzger have built a wonderful cordwood home in Spartanburg, SC. They have a basement, a post and beam framework, an open ceiling and a loft area, beautiful porches and more. They offer the “wood-be” cordwood builder some great and timely tips. I will use quotes from Luke’s emails to share his (and Amy’s) knowledge and wisdom.
- Nice shade, porches, beautiful cordwood walls, post and beam framework.
The following are Luke’s words. “The house although only 4 years old is holding up well. We used red cedar that was debarked and seasoned for 1-1/2 to 2 years. Only the largest of logs shrink in the winter…but only 1/32″ max…we heat with a wood stove. And when the spring returns the logs expand back. We have front and back covered porches and the gables have a 2′ overhang. This really protects the cordwood and was a really good decision with the rain and humidity of the south.”
- The post and beam framework. The roof went on before the cordwood infill.
“What we did was complete the entire structure first. This was was done for two reasons. First, the building inspectors had never seen cordwood masonry and they wanted to ensure that the structure and the integrity of the house would be sufficient on its own….the cordwood would simply be an infill. Of course the infill with the logs and mortar gave increased strength, but they were concerned none the less. Second, since it was just me and Amy doing the building, it took us alot longer than conventional construction. So by getting the structure up in the dry, we had a nice place to dry store the cordwood and it allowed us not to worry about rain as we worked on each infill section.”
- Luke used a special method of inserting his floor joists so there would be no deflection.
“One other design detail was the basement: I did not want the weight of the cordwood walls to sit on a joist system. I was afraid that the joists (cross grain) would move with humidity which might cause additional cracks in the lime morter over time. So as you can see in the pics, I created pockets between the cinder blocks on the last course for the joists sit down in. Therefore a 2×10 sill plate was anchored directly to the foundation falls….hence the entire weight of the cordwood falls directly on foundation and not on the joists. The wall were 10″ thick.”
- The cordwood was dried and then stacked under the roof and between the posts. Very smart because it keeps your wood and materials dry and under shelter.
- Coming down the steps from the second floor gives one a birds eye view of the cordwood walls. The section to the top left is cordwood siding!
“The cordwood coming down the stairs on the gable ends were 1″ thick slices glued and screwed to the wall (cordwood siding). We painted the wall with a sand and paint mixture to match the color of the lime mortar first. ”
- They heat with wood and love the natural feel of their lovely home.
- It doesn’t snow all that often in South Carolina, but when it does, it sure looks grand.
All pictures are courtesy of Luke and Amy Metzger. Thank you for sharing your wonderful story of having a goal, planning for that goal and reaching it with a most excellent result. Congratulations.
To find out more about Best Practices with cordwood construction go to: www.cordwoodconstruction.org
Happy Stacking,
Richard Flatau
If you have any questions, please contact me at Flato@aol.com or richardflatau@gmail.com or call 715-212-2870
Richard Flatau, Flato@aol.com, Cordwood Construction, 715-212-2870 Cordwood online bookstore,
