The Cordstead

Phase III - Littlestead - The Final Cordwood Structure

2011-12-16T17:04:00.024-05:00

Well, We made the decision last fall to go ahead and build our last phase of our building plan "Phase III ", " Littlestead" .

Littlestead is round of course, with a connecting hallway, yes it's round as well.

It's been a busy year

The fall had us running all over the place (up to a 1 1/2 hour drive) hunting down building materials from all over Quebec and eastern Ontario

We managed to do some building site preparations before the snow flew. These things made it easier to build in the spring. Final adjustments & details were made on the plan.

Armed with a detailed plan , approved by the city & a fairly complete materials list, we searched the local internet classified adds, flea markets and hardware stores.

The trailer once again was put to work and soon the garage and our shed & garden house looked like a warehouse storage facility.

The surveyors came and marked out our building zone and then the excavation started.

Things move fairly quickly once the weather dried out from all the spring rain. Fortunately the weather for the better part of the summer was co-operative. Late fall had us rained out on several occasions.

The foundation was completed with the plumbing and radiant floor heating pipes installed

Before we new it the walls were up and we were having a roof raising gathering.

I have to say what great family & friends we have and the support that was there for us through out the course of the summer.

The Cordstead could not be what it is today if not for all their help.

Thank you all!

We managed to get things closed in just in time before the winter hit and are now working at a more leisurely pace since we can stay dry and warm!

I've put a photo album together showing the steps we took with the building to date, Just click on the tittle below if you would like to view it

Littlestead

If you prefer, you can view it as a slide show, just click on view as slide show at the top.

More photos will be added as the building nears completion.

The Cordstead

2009-10-05T14:40:00.002-04:00

Mission Accomplished

Angelika and I are both recycled from previous relationships, & found each other later in life. We discovered we had the same cordwood interests and enthusiastic energy to embark on our building journey. The Laurentian Mountains north of Montreal were the perfect location for both of us since we independently had frequented the area in previous years. So we set sail on our cordwood journey in 1996 searching and finding our land.

We sold our house, moved into a small inexpensive apartment where we spent several years preparing, as our budget allowed us, gathering materials for our home, allowing our logs to dry, & installing the well & septic system. Our research & needs set our design to a 3 bedroom, 1 story, 40 foot round cordwood home.

We started with a Frost Protected Shallow Foundation design using an insulated concrete form system, slab on grade and installed hydronic radiant floor heating tubing.

The walls are single wall 18” mostly round cedar logs. We went with a super insulated wall injecting closed cell, expanding foam, into the cavity, as we built it in sections of 2-foot elevations.

The roof is engineered roof trusses and finished with asphalt shingles, with copper detail highlights, & an insulated attic space with 18” of blown in cellulose.

There are 2 heating systems, radiant floor heating with an electric boiler, and a 35,000 btu wood pellet burning stove.

Our experience has been that the journey of self-built cordwood homes is a long and labor-intensive process, requiring endless hours of dedication & focus.

Once having committed to this process there is no turning back. There are many preparations that are needed prior to the actual building of the home that can dull the enthusiasm through out the years. But once you overcome these hurdles and the skeptic people, by keeping focused on your goals, the true cordwood builder will triumph in the end. In our picture above there is more cordwood waiting to be mudded!

Below is an excerpt from the last entry of our Memoirs.

Friday, 19 November 2004

We made it. We beat the snow!

This is the first entry I have made sitting at my desk in our new cordwood home and may be the last for the Memoirs. We moved in last weekend and I’ve been scrambling to finish several things to make it liveable. There now is a usable kitchen space & the final connection for the bathtub goes in today.

The long years of planning and hard work all come together now. There are many moments of triumph and disappointments that you endure along the way.

We cherish all the celebrations we had as we reached each goal, as well as the open-minded people we met and befriended throughout the building process in person or the internet.

So many people to thank.

Thank you to you readers of our Memoirs, who have taken the time to share in our experiences.

Our Disc is Available
“The Cordstead Collection”
first edition 2010
Available for a small donation of $14.95 USD
Free Shipping Continental USA & Canada,
Please send your Paypal donation to our e-mail address &
we will ship to your PayPal registered address,

or
via good old snail mail, cheque/money order
payable to
Sandy Clidaras

25 des Plaines, Ste-Anne-des-Lacs
QC, Canada
J0R 1B0
All others email us your address for shipping charges
Call or email to order your copy
sandyangelika@gmail.com
or call 514-669-2596
Sandy (Sandman) & Angelika

Cordwood Construction

2009-10-05T14:32:00.001-04:00

Cordwood Construction

is the art of building a log home using short logs (usually 12"- 24 ") with the round ends exposed. They are laid up on 2 rows of mortar, one on the outside of the house and the other on the inside. The cavity between the mortar rows is filled with insulation making for a highly efficient, solid and super insulated wall.

This is labor intensive and usually home owner built over several years. This art of building is also known a Log end, Firewood, Stackwall, Log house, & Cordwood Masonry. Many have mistaken these walls from far away for stone masonry.

"The Cordstead" is our Labor of love of over 8 years and the result of a blending an old world building system with new world technology and products. Angelika and I completed our home and moved in in Novemeber 2004.

"The Cordstead Memoirs" are a recount of our building experience over the entire 8 years . They include the emotional rollercoaster as well as technical details of the building process we went through.

We have decided to make available

“The Cordstead Memoirs”

with over 140 pages, & 50 photos in PDF format.

as part of our disc.

Our Disc is Available

“The Cordstead Collection”

The Cordstead Collection Disc

2009-10-05T13:20:00.001-04:00

Available for a small donation of

$14.95 USD

“The Cordstead Collection”

----- Disc includes -----

“The Cordstead Memoirs”

in the Memoirs we have tried to share the emotional as well as the technical data & experiences we encountered through out our 8 year journey. From the land search to moving in.

Events Post Building

These articles are short periodical reports

(every 1 or 2 months) touching on the houses performance & progress over almost a 5 year period. Including the recounting of building the out buildings, Garage, Shed, Wishing Well & Landscaping.

We tried to also share the cordwood community’s evolution over this period.

“Techniques”

– Under this section I have available some papers on different methods that I have used. Some of these were published in the (CoCoCo) Continental Cordwood Convention 05 papers collection.

In these papers I give detailed descriptions of the methods and procedures I used to build with including,

“Log Selection Preparation & Treatment for Cordwood”

A detailed description, step-by-step, on seasoning, treating, & preparing logs for cordwood wall building

Frost Protected Shallow Foundations Basics for Cordwood

Detailed account on how we used FPSF foundation system on our 18”cordwood wall building.

“Expanding Foam Insulation For Cordwood”

An in depth explanation on installing injected foam in a single log cordwood wall.

“Studies” - “Single Log - Double Log”

Cordwood wall comparison evaluation

Looks in to the specifics of each method,

Compares materials, insulation values, and labor.

“Floor Plan” of “The Cordstead”

Showing the divisions & dimensions & more of our 3 bedroom 40’ round Single story Cordwood home

Our Disc

“The Cordstead Collection”

first edition 2010

Available for a small donation of $14.95 USD
Free shipping Continental USA & Canada,
Please send your Paypal donation to our e-mail address &
we will ship to your PayPal registered address,

Or
via good old snail mail, cheque/money order

payable to
Sandy Clidaras

25 des Plaines, Ste-Anne-des-Lacs
QC, Canada
J0R 1B0

All others email us your address for shipping charges
sandange@hotmail.com

Sandy (Sandman) or Angelika
514-862-8674, 514-669-2596

Who Are We?

2009-09-01T05:54:00.001-04:00

More About Us

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.

Richard Flatau
www.daycreek.com/flatau

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

Now Available

“The Cordstead Collection”

First edition 2010

Available for a small donation of $14.95 USD

The Cordstead

Phase III - Littlestead - The Final Cordwood Structure

The Cordstead

Cordwood Construction

The Cordstead Collection Disc

“The Cordstead Collection”

----- Disc includes -----

Orvia good old snail mail, cheque/money order

Who Are We?

More About Us

Oct 25, 2009

Or
via good old snail mail, cheque/money order