Angelika Dittrich
Sandy (sandman) Clidaras
Want to know a little more?
For those who don’t know us, we’ve been actively involved in the Cordwood building community since 1996, bought our land just North of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. We built little by little, over the years and live in our Cordwood home since Nov 2004. Our full address is
25 des Plained, Ste.-Anne-des-Lacs, Quebec, Canada, J0R 1B0
You can say that our weather here where we live, gives us a full 4 seasons to test our Cordwood home. Summers get as high as 97degree F (36 degrees C) and winters can get to –33 F (–36 C), for several days at a time. We also have to deal with substantial snow loads here in the mountains & ski areas.
We wrote several articles that were part of the CoCoCo (Continental Cordwood Conference) 05 Papers and did a presentation Focus group on Log preparation & foam insulation. We’ve also been active members in the daycreek.com discussion forum from the start.
Following are some comments from several prominent Cordwood people about our work and involvement in the Cordwoood Community……………………………
Oct 25, 2009
Posted on Daycreek.com forum by Richard Flatau -
Howdy,
I'd like to say how helpful Sandy's website was when we were planning the foam insulation at White Earth in September of 2009. His detailed instructions and his informative phone conversations helped us get the right product, in the right amount for the job. He also was instrumental in giving us instructions on how to heat the canisters (in the car with the heat on full blast) so we could get the maximum amount of foam from each kit.
Sandy's collection of information is also incredibly helpful when folks are planning to dry their wood. Sandy and Angelika used a borate treatment, stained the ends with a UV blocker and sealed the two 4" sections of log end where the mortar beads would be placed (this helps the mortar to set slower and the sealed 4" strips keeps the moisture in the mortar and it does not migrate down into the log end.)
There are also many, many more tips and techniques (like his foundation) that are worth a look-see.
Sandy is basically offering this CD for the price of a blank CD + shipping and handling. If you are planning on building a cordwood home, this would be a valuable addition to your research collection.
Oct 25, 2009
Posted on Daycreek.com forum by Alan Stankevitz – web master
Hey there...
Since we're on the subject, I've gotten around to updating Sandy's web page here on daycreek.com. His page is under the "Meet the Masons" section.
Click here to go to Sandy's page.
Thanks Sandy for all of your talents and energies over the past number of years on this forum. Your input and knowledge is always welcome.
~Alan~
July 2005.
This is taken from the Continental Cordwood Conference Papers
It’s an editors note made by Rob Roy
The article we wrote called “Log end treatment and Insulation techniques”
Editor’s note: When the three editors received Sandy’s papers on log treatment and on closed cell insulation (combined into one paper for this volume), we all had the same first initial reaction, something like “Wow, Sandy’s method looks like a lot of work, compared to what others have done. Can the results be worth it?” As Sandy was a former student of mine, 19999 workshop, and he lived just over two hours away from Earthwood, North of Montreal, I Volunteered to edit the paper and research it with a personal visit, to try and answer our initial concerns. On February 10, 2005, Jaki and I drove up to visit sandy and his home. And are we glad we did! As we approached the home, set on the edge of a small lake, we could see that the home was something special: architecturally attractive and beautifully detailed.
I wanted to see Sandy’s log (or “Log ends”, as we call them), to see if their quality justified the work. But first some background:
Sandy’s little lakeside neighbourhood is composed of a number of attractive quality homes, all different, Chalets, contemporaries, homes of various materials including wood, logs. and stone. The common denominators were that the homes are attractive and that there is a neighbourhood pride in evidence in maintaining a certain standard. Sandy and Angelika didn’t want to “upset the apple cart”.” so to speak, by building something out-of-keeping with the prevailing standard. At Earthwood, they got to see our log ends “up close and personal.” And decided that the weathered look was not for what they wanted, and presumably, a little too rough for the neighbourhood.
Not being in a hurry, they devised the log treatment regime described in this paper. Og prep combined with wood seasoning took about 5 years, although they did the actual cordwood masonry of their 40 –foot diameter home I just 2 months during the summer of 2004. I was surprised to see that the log ends looked great, inside and out, but the home was barely six months ld, and the couple had only been living I it for two months when we visited. The log ends should look good, shouldn’t they?
Well when Jaki and I looked at the large stack of leftover log ends outside, log ends that had been out in the weather for over 5 years we were flabbergasted. The log ends that had been treated as described were still in perfect condition, just as bright and new as the ones in the home. A control pile of the same cedar log-ends, but untreated, had weathered like our cedar log-ends at Earthwood.
Now, we like our weathered look and don’t see anything wrong with it in our isolated location- and the inside of our home looks just like the day it was laid up in 1981 – but Sandy’s log-ends were immaculate, the best preserved by far of any we have ever seen, and we’ve seen a lot. They accomplished what they had set out to do in terms of appearance and quality. There are no gaps around the log ends, and I am convinced that they will remain stable, bright and attractive for a long time into the future. Air infiltration is probably the least of any single- walled Corwood home that we have ever seen. The home is so tight that sandy installed air to air heat exchanger in the home to prevent stale air. Sandy laughed when I told him that Earthwood had 3000 little air to air heat exchanges, which I called “log-ends”.
Now what about foam? Sandy has pushed the envelope here too, widening cordwood’s “ Build Quality” parameters on the top end. Yeas, the method described is expensive. Yes, it seems to me a lot of trouble and potentially very messy, although sandy worked out the details to make the job run smoothly.
The result is a tight home (very little heat loss through infiltration) and, probably, one of the best insulated of any single wall cordwood home ever built. The mortar portion of the wall has to be worth at least R 42, with tremendous thermal mass in his large joints on both sides of the wall. Because of the large mortar spaces between logs, the home has a very high percentage of mortar compared to wood (by skin area). I estimate 35 to 40% wood, compared with Earthwood, which I have measured at 60 % wood. Thermally, large wide mortar joints are good. This is the part of the wall with the superior thermal performance. The 18” cedar portion of the
wall has an R-18 to R-20. The average R-value of the home is probably something in the neighbourhood of R-34. And the house is round so it has the least amount of wall skin area to enclose unit floor area. And all that great thermal mass works to keep the house a steady temperature, summer, and winter
Sandy and Angelika’s home has in- slab radiant floor heating, with a very attractive textured surface and they also have a very impressive wood pellet stove an the centre of the home. The house was very comfortable indeed on this cold grey day north of Montreal.
Finally, I should mention that Sandy’s log-ends extend about 2 inches proud off his fairly rough mortar joint. This gives Sandy the option a year or two down the road, to install a new finished mortar joint when he is satisfied that the log ends will not shrink any more. My own view is that they have stopped shrinking. To Begin with, white cedar has the lowest shrinkage of commonly available woods, and all the drying and careful treatments have, in my view stabilized the log-ends as much as can be expected from wood.
Sandy and Angelika’s beautiful home is a great example of “top-end” Cordwood masonry. Whether or not the time and care they took over the log-ends is worth it is a function of individual builder’s goals and time constraints. And the spray foam insulation? I guess I tend to agree with Sandy, who believes that it is a good long-term investment for this, his retirement home.
Rob Roy, editor
