Cordwood Masonry is a very old building technique and buildings hundreds of years old are still standing. We discovered this method when researching alternative ways of constructing a home while reading Rob Roy's book Mortgage Free. After finding a building site with the need to thin the forest, cordwood appealed to us since the land provided the resources we would need. If you are willing to do the labor, this is also a very inexpensive, energy efficient way to build a house. Here are the numbers:

Supplies and cost of building our Cordwood Masonry Walls

(2003-2006)

The following materials were needed for our 1400 square foot home.

Lime 51 lb. bags x 31 Bags = 1550 lbs.

Clay 100 lb bags x 88 bags = 8,800 lbs.

Masonry 70 lb bags x 156 bags = 10,920 lbs.

Sand Bought by the trailer load = 17,290 lbs.

Newspaper Bought in bails from Waste Management = 2000 lbs.

Split Wood From our property = 6,336 pieces (approximate)

We mixed up 528 wheelbarrow loads using Alan’s formula (www.daycreek.com) and it took a total of 214 days spread out over three summer’s of weekends.

Total cost of the above supplies = $2,931.09 divided by 12 walls gives us the cost of $244.26 per wall!