Q: I am in a difficult situation and need a small piece of wisdom. I am hoping to build a small shelter this spring/summer out of necessity - long story - and I just sent you an order for your Stoneview book. I'd like to get a Stoneview-like cottage up this summer but I have no cordwood yet. What would be the dangers/problems of building with green cordwood? The house we were building was to be strawbale and after attending your Timber Framing for the Rest of Us class last summer I was inspired. This building, my temporary shelter, will eventually be used as a studio/guesthouse. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

A: Stoneview is built with 8" log-ends, so they dry pretty quickly. Get your wood cut into log-end length right away and stacked in single ranks, off the ground (such as on pallets). Do not place one rank of wood up against the other. On pallets, put a rank at each edge of a row of pallets, with about two feet of space between ranks. Cover the tops of the ranks, but not the sides. Let the sun and wind get to the wood, plenty of ventilation. With 8" log-ends, a lot of drying will take place in a short period of time. Tip: for stability of piles, put a 4-foot long "sticker" (stick) to tie the two ranks together, every 3 feet or so. Goes a long ways towards stopping the stacks from falling over. (Eight-inch wide stacks are inherently unstable.)
     It will take you time to do the foundation and the framework. The wood can be drying all this time. And a lot of it will get additional drying while you lay up the first panels. Hopefully, you will not have a major shrinkage problem.
     But if you do: There are log chinking products which will close up shrinkage gaps of a quarter inch or more, and they are flexible, so that if there is any further expansion or contraction of the wood, the product will move with it. Two good ones are Log Jam by Sashco Industries and Perma Chink by Perma Chink Corporation. Get the 5-gallon pails, not the 32-ounce caulking tubes, much cheaper. Apply the product to the mortar joints, thin as possible, making sure that all shrinkage cracks are filled. Do not do this until at least a year has passed. the products are expensive and you don't want to do this more than once. Apply it with a pointing knife, but draw it out with a water-dampened 3/4" paint brush.
     If only a few large log-ends shrink, just get a couple of tubes of clear siliconized caulking and caulk the shrinkage gaps. Clear caulking shows less than white or gray.

Q: I live about an hour west of Edmonton, Alberta, and plan on using the local poplar as cordwood for our home. I was wondering what would be the most efficient way to debark the trees without using an expensive machine. I was also wondering if you knew what month is the best to catch the sap up in the tree. I am having trouble finding information about the growth pattern of what I believe to be "Quaking Aspen" in this area.

A: You are right to try to bark the quaking aspen while the sap is rising in the spring. The sap rises between the wood and the bark, in a layer of soft cellular tissue called the cambium, forming a greasy lubricating layer and making bark removal a satisfying joy. When the sap is not present, or has dried, the effect is that the bark is "glued" onto the cambium layer, which, in turn, is connected to the outer wooden layers. That's when draw-knifing or powered barking tools, such as the Log Wizard come into play. The Log Wizard, incidentally, is a chainsaw attachment made by Goldec International Equipment of Red Deer, Alberta, not far from you.      

Local woodcutters should be able to advise you as to when sap normally rises in your area. Of course, normal seasonal variations (and maybe global warming) can change this by a month or so, just as maple season (sap rising) can vary by a few weeks where I live in the east. The good news is that you have a window of opportunity of a couple of months or more. So the best advice I can give you as this: Cut one of your quaking aspens on April 1st (no fooling) and, right away, try barking it with a sharp-pointed tool such as the pointy end of a strong mason's trowel. You should be able to get the tip of the trowel under the bark easily, and  work it back and forth a little, until you can get your hand in there and pull wholesale (8 to 10-foot) strips off the log.    

It is important to get right on the barking job right after the tree hits the ground and you've cut it into convenient 8-foot to 10-foot logs. After even a week, the sap begins to stiffen and act as a glue instead of a lubricant, and you have lost your advantage. If it is difficult to get the bark off, wait two weeks and try again. And again. And again. I don't know when sap rises near Edmonton, and it can vary from year to year, so keep trying. A week of warm weather should give you a good clue.

Q: If we cut the aspen this winter and peel it, will mid spring ( May/June) be an appropriate amount of drying time for the wood? I am thinking that I will gather about 10 bush cords this fall to set out till then.

A: It could be difficult to peel wood cut in winter, but is worth a try. You do not indicate the length of log-ends that you will be using. This impacts drying time considerably, as does splitting the wood. Therefore, it is difficult to answer your question as to whether or not using the wood in May or June is "appropriate drying time." Even with the answers (length of log-end, split or round), I would be guessing. You will probably get some wood shrinkage, but if you really need to build, then build. You can attend to the wood shrinkage down the line. Is a "bush cord" the same as a "face cord," defined as an 4' by 8' rank of wood cut at some particular log length?

Q: We anticipating cutting the wood over the next month. This is still warm enough to work outside comfortably. The sap is still high in the trees. We want to build the double wall version with each wall being 10 inches thick.From a log splitting perspective, we will try and keep the logs ends round, but I anticipate anything over 12 inches through the center will be split in two. Not as appealing to some, but still usable above the doors and windows if placed decoratively, we think. The plan is to harvest wood from 12 inches down to about 5 inches. The leftover wood will make excellent starting kindling for the hearth.

A Bush cord is 8 feet by 8 feet by 4 feet. A Face cord is 8 feet by 4 feet by 16 inches. One thing that you mentioned in our last correspondence was the laying out of the logs in order to avoid the fungus that attaches to drying aspen. It seems to create a punk wood, sponginess that obviously makes it unsuitable for this project. Can you re-explain the correct way to dry it and thus avoid this scenario?

A: Yes, bark the wood, then cut it into your 10" lengths. Stack these "log-ends" in single ranks, covering the tops, but not the sides. Old metal roofing makes a good cover. As 10" log-ends are somewhat unstable, you may want to stack two ranks on a pallet, with 3 feet between them, and tie the ranks together with frequent 4 foot long one or two-inch stickers.