Exploring the artistic Norwegian method of stacking firewood

By Ben Olson
Reader Staff

I grew up in a log cabin in Westmond where firewood was our primary source of heating. My dad used to trade neighbors home-brewed rhubarb wine in exchange for cutting up dead wood on their property to burn in our stove. It was one of my jobs as a kid to split, stack and bring in the wood. I loathed the task — especially on those cold winter mornings when the last thing I wanted to do was rummage through the black widow-infested shed to fill the firebox.

Now, as an adult, all I ever want to do is harvest firewood, then split and stack it for my own wood-burning stove. Such is life.

Since my new house doesn’t have a dedicated woodshed, I researched methods to keep wood dry without shelter. I came across a unique design called the “Norwegian round” that immediately caught my eye. It’s both functional (because it keeps the wood dry without needing tarps or shelters) and artistic (because it looks rad).

My family originated in Sweden and my partner’s in Norway, so I was already stacking my wood in my mind before the first piece was split.

Stacking firewood — or vedstapling — has been a traditional part of Norwegian culture for centuries, and this practice has likely been passed down from generation to generation. While some online sources claim it originated in Germany, which calls it a holz hausen (or “wood house”), it’s unclear who perfected it first.

Either way, I’m calling it a Norwegian round. 

The procedure is fairly easy to follow. First, pound a stake in the center of where you want to store the wood and tie a four-foot-long string to the top of the stake. This is to help keep your stack aligned during the crucial first stages, because the round tends to want to lean outward. 

Place a tarp on the ground so groundwater and moisture doesn’t come up and get the bottom pieces wet. Then, scribe a circle with the rope and stake, stacking the first pieces so that the outer edges are aligned with the end of the rope. Space them slightly apart — you want to promote a clean circle without sticks jamming into one another along the inside. Now start stacking in earnest.

Put heavier pieces along the bottom and then place each piece carefully, putting the bark side up when possible. Keep layering along the entire circle for a foot or two and use a straight stick to clean up the outer circle as you build.

By the time the round reaches your knees, the pieces will start to angle down on the outside. You can use pieces of bark, kindling or other wood scraps to insert laterally along the outside edge to help shore up the structure so the next pieces you stack will lie flatter.

Keep going until the stack reaches your stomach. 

Now, let’s add some support. Use small poles or scrap two-by-fours — anything that can reach across the eight-foot radius of the round. Place two of these poles perpendicular to one other, making an X, then stack wood on top of them until they are held into place by the outer ring. These poles will help keep the round together.

By that point, the stack should be around chest high. Now, start tossing wood in the middle. These internal pieces will help the structure stay together, while also “baking” inside to dry out nicely.

The final stage begins when you reach the ideal height of the wood house — usually around shoulder-high. 

I hope you saved plenty of pieces with bark, because those will come in handy to finish the structure. Douglas fir is great for this, as it has thick, protective bark that will help keep the entire structure dry.

Make sure the pieces you toss into the center mound slightly higher in the middle and slope down toward the outer ring. Following that, you can either start stacking pieces from the outer ring and layer them inward — bark up — to complete a peaked roof. Or, if you want another layer of protection, first cut six-millimeter weed plastic or a tarp into a circle slightly smaller in diameter than the round, place it over the structure, then stack your roof pieces on top of that. 

This is how I did it, because I didn’t want a tarp on top for aesthetic purposes, but also didn’t want to chance seeing a couple of cords of wood slowly rot in my backyard.

Meanwhile, take all the bark pieces that fell off during splitting and lay those atop the roof pieces as shingles.

When finished, you’ll be left with a visually appealing structure that I never get tired of looking at.

There are some downfalls to this method. It’s used for stacking and seasoning wood, but once you start pulling pieces out of it, the whole structure will likely collapse. So all the work I did for this year’s wood house is probably going to be my wood for next year, meaning I had to go back out foraging for another couple of cords to burn this season. 

The structure also covers a pretty large footprint, so you need a roughly eight-foot circle of ground to spare.

Now that it’s finished, my Norwegian round has become a conversation piece, with passersby often stopping in the alley to admire it. I catch myself staring longingly at my wood stack, too.

I think I might have a problem.