Cordwood

Cordwood construction, also called cordwood masonry, is a building technique in which short lengths of debarked log are laid transversely into a wall, their ends exposed on both faces, and bedded in a mortar or cob matrix that fills the gaps between them. The technique produces a distinctively textured wall, the circular end-grain of the logs studding the mortar surface, and has been used in vernacular building in forested regions of North America and northern and eastern Europe, favored as a low-cost, low-skill way to use short offcuts and small-diameter wood unsuited to conventional framing lumber. Builders favor low-density, rot-resistant species such as cedar, juniper, bald cypress and Pacific yew, which shrink and swell less than dense hardwoods as the debarked logs dry, and a 24-inch cordwood wall has been measured at roughly R-35 insulating value.