Cordwood Window Boxes: How to build

Making a well built window box (also called window buck) for your cordwood home is crucial.  Done properly your windows will open and close with ease in perpetuity.  There are a couple of important points to follow.

1.  Buy your windows first so you can make the right size window box. 
2.  Make the window box out of dimensional lumber for added strength adding 1/4″ to each side (called the rough opening).  Have windows of all the same size:  make a template like in the picture above. 
3.  Secure the window box to a post, top plate, lintel or framework.  
4.  Brace the window box diagonally so it stays square, level and plumb.
5. Stack your windows safely out of the elements and then install carefully to keep them level on the outside of the window box.  If they come with a nailing flange, make sure it is nailed securely to the outside edge of the box. 
6. It is possible to float small windows into a cordwood wall.

7. More photos of well built and well installed window boxes.

8. These tips  work for all natural building styles.

9. Door frames and window boxes attached and ready for cordwood infill.

Should you wish to learn how to build a cordwood cottage, cabin or home, please visit www.cordwoodconstruction.org   While you are there, click on the pictures, read the brief articles, check out the latest workshops and newsletter and if you are interested click on the Online Bookstore to see all the cordwood literature available in print and ebook format.If you have questions that aren’t answered on the website you can email me at richardflatau@gmail.com  

Readers have requested a brief bio, so here goes:   Richard & Becky Flatau built their mortgage-free cordwood home in 1979 in Merrill, Wisconsin. Since then, they have written books, conducted workshops, facilitated the 2005,  2011 and 2015 Cordwood Conferences and provided instruction for thousands of cordwood builders.  Cordwood Workshop Video (2017),  Cordwood Construction Best Practices (2017) and Cordwood Conference Papers 2015 are the newest publications available from their online cordwood bookstore.   www.cordwoodconstruction.org

Here is a picture of the Cordwood Workshop Video cover, featuring the Cordwood Education Center.

For more information on Cordwood Construction, click on the picture or visit www.cordwoodconstruction.org   Below is the 30 item Video menu. 

 

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Cordwood in Kenai, Alaska

                                    The cordwood home of Mark & Chelsea in Alaska.

Here are Mark & Chelsea in front of their cordwood home in Kenai, Alaska.  The walls are 14″ spruce with foam insulation in the center cavity between the two 3″ mortar beads.

Mark and Chelsea are holding moose sausage harvested from the moose that ate their garden.

They used a log wizard to craft the beams, posts and rafter.  Alaska provides ample solar time to work during the summer, but in the winter it can be a challenge.

Inside the second floor with doors and windows framed.

Riding the wheelbarrow up to the second floor. Don’t try this at home! Nice job Chelsea and Mark.

New photos from Chelsea and Mark of a cordwood addition.  Note the stone fish and the Big Dipper in bottle bricks.

Chelsea and Mark recently completed a cordwood sauna (2017) with bottle ends and a huge moon shaped piece of pine.  

Here they proudly display a 24 hours of sunlight mega-Alaskan zucchini.

Chelsea wrote a detailed article about building this cordwood masterpiece for the Cordwood Conference Papers 2011, which was then shared at the Cordwood Conference in Winnipeg, Canada in June of 2011.  The Papers are for sale as an ebook or a print version and the quality of information and the breadth of subject matter is outstanding.

Should you wish to learn how to build a cordwood cottage, cabin or home, please visit www.cordwoodconstruction.org   While you are there, click on the pictures, read the brief articles, check out the latest workshops and newsletter and if you are interested click on the Online Bookstore to see all the cordwood literature available in print and ebook format.If you have questions that aren’t answered on the website you can email me at richardflatau@gmail.com  

Readers have requested a brief bio, so here goes:   Richard & Becky Flatau built their mortgage-free cordwood home in 1979 in Merrill, Wisconsin. Since then, they have written books, conducted workshops, facilitated the 2005,  2011 and 2015 Cordwood Conferences and provided consultation for thousands of cordwood builders.  Cordwood Workshop Video,  Cordwood Construction Best Practices (2017) and Cordwood Conference Papers 2015 are the newest publications available from their online cordwood bookstore.   www.cordwoodconstruction.org          Here is a picture of the Cordwood Workshop Video cover, featuring the Cordwood Education Center.

 

For more information on Cordwood Construction, click on the picture or visit www.cordwoodconstruction.org   Below is the 30 item Video menu.