It also took Abe forever to heat up enough water over the fireplace for the Jacuzzi.
Not sure if they have them in the US but it might be worth researching prefabricated Scandinavian timber homes like this too.
Neighbours of mine in the UK bought a two-storey one. It arrived on the back of two semis. The foundations had already been laid, and the walls were bolted onto them and put together by four or five guys with a crane over the course of just two days like Lego. The thing was astonishingly well designed, with the windows and doors already in place, as well as insulation, plumbing and wiring. They were able to move into it in just a week.
Hah! I forgot to ask. I wouldn’t have been surprised if it thought those little poop trails it made were some kind of art.
I’m curious about insulation. The log cabin pictured in my link is one I stayed in during a winter weekend. It was cold outside (in the low 40s) but not freezing and it stayed pretty warm inside. Now, maybe it’s because that cabin was so small, but it was very comfortable in there. How can people rent out cabins in winter if they’re so poorly insulated as to be very uncomfortable?
Big wood stoves, or high heating bills.
I didn’t notice that the heat was running constantly in the cabin where I stayed. It seemed to be cycling as normally as it would in any house.
In my fantasy the interior walls are also log walls, so I hope I wouldn’t be setting myself up for high costs, either in building or in heating, to achieve that fantasy.
It’s time to investigate log home builders and see how they tackle this problem…will come back with pie.
My friend heated the place with a big woodburning stove (also had a fireplace). He lived on several acres of woods and spent a lot of time cutting down trees for firewood. He also burned pellet coal for a time. Both methods left a sooty film over everything, so you might want to look into other ways to heat the place. Also, if you google ‘insects and log cabins’ you will get over a million results - the wood has to be treated properly, not to mention bugs getting in through the tiniest chinks. That’s all I got, from what I observed of this particular log cabin, something to think about.
Logs by themselves don’t offer much insulation, especially round logs with thin areas where two meet. You can fill the gaps with caulking, but you’re still talking relatively low R values. If you plane the logs you get smaller gaps, and therefore tighter walls, but you’re still looking at 8" - 10" of wood which isn’t a great deal of insulation.
Some kits basically have half round logs on either side of a framed wall that contains insulation. Some route grooves down the tops and bottoms of the logs and put insulated splines running the length of the logs which helps. But basic log homes walls are inferior to frame walls for insulation.
http://www.lincolnlogs.com/buildingsystems.html
http://www.wisconsinloghomes.com/log-homes/insulated-building-system/
I once lived in a 100-yr-old log cabin with a wood stove. I loved it, but I was younger, tougher, and crazier than I am now.
I’d recommend the modern log homes everybody else is talking about here.
We built a log home in 2001-2002. 10 year anniversary in May :eek:. We bought the land (on NYC watershed) in 1997 and paid it off over the next few years. During that time we checked out different types of structures and settled on a kit log home made in the area. The manufacturer had booklets of different models, and I took elements of a couple different models and mashed them up into our 20’X28’ palace. I used a cheap CAD program to do the design. I’d send the design to the sales guy and he’d have rough ‘real’ drawings made and work up estimates. When we finally settled on something in our budget we contacted general contractors and got bids. Once we settle on a GC we had to put in a driveway, septic, run electric from the road to the site, a french drain to catch run-off from the hillside, and so on…
The kit was delivered and the crew got to work. A few months later we had a lovely home with all the modern conveniences. We use an oil-burning furnace/forced air to heat it. We financed the construction with a construction loan and then converted that into the mortgage.
I live in an old log cabin. We can’t quite tell how old, but somewhere between 75 and 100 years. Log cabins are great. There is nothing like living inside a natural wood structure. There are some things to consider though:
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What kind of wood you use. Pine is inexpensive, but requires ongoing maintenance to prevent rot. My cabin is made of white cedar which is naturally rot resistant. In one section that was in horrible shape I began to dig out the rotted wood, and found the rot had not penetrated more than inch into the logs, this was after more than 25 years since it had been damaged. But white cedar is considerably more expensive than pine.
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What kind of interior do you want? My cabin is made from D profile logs, which means the interior walls form a flat surface. The traditional round log style will give you uneven interior walls and you may need to finish over them in some rooms.
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Logs require maintenance no matter what type you use. They’ll need periodic treatment with oil, and sometimes pesticides too unless you like woodpeckers tap tap tapping on your house. If you use a ‘chink’ system, the ‘chinking’ (actually just a type of caulk) will need to be redone at least once as the cabin settles. Other types of one off maintenance are needed as the logs dry and shrink.
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You have to plan carefully for running wires, ducts, and plumbing. I’d suggest always have a full basement where everything can be routed right under the rooms. Lots of regular interior modifications work differently because you don’t have ordinary walls. On the other hand you can mount things anywhere just using wood screws. No more molly bolts and the like. And if you remove a screw, just fill it with some wood putty.
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Log walls, even with light colored logs will not reflect light like painted drywall does. So prepare for more lighting than you would use in other houses.
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If the cabin has a southern or western exposure it will pay off in the winter time, but kill you in the summer. The back of our cabin gets the afternoon sun in the summer, and you can see the heat waves radiating off the logs. On a hot afternoon I’ll hose down the back of the house to get rid of excess heat.
Despite a few drawbacks, I’ve never heard of anyone unhappy with a log cabin.
I have no idea if it’s still in print, but the Hometime show “Log Cabin”, although it was a high end home, was an excellent introduction on the techniques and some of the ideosynchrasis of log homes.
**Bolding mine. **I just have to note that this made me chuckle.
If the low 40s is cold where you are planning to put this log cabin, I don’t think insulation is as big an issue for you as it would be for me here in Minnesota. You could probably heat that little cabin in the picture with just a wood stove.
Or Dorthy Ainsworth, who built a log cabin twice! http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/ainsworth86.html
Is fire a bigger concern with all that extra wood in a log home, or are the logs treated with some kind of retardant?
Well, I’m kind of chuckling too, because I might have had a MUCH different experience feeling comfortable in that cabin if it were -10° there, but the landlord can’t control the weather when people rent that cabin and I’d expect they wouldn’t rent the cabin if it weren’t livable, so I kind of hopefully assumed that a log cabin like it would be relatively insulated year round.
I have pics saved at home of the interior walls of this cabin I stayed in. Clearly I’m in love with this cabin I stayed in.
I ought to post them and see if anybody has anything to say about this particular style of log cabin with regard to the insulation thing/bug thing, etc.
We live in a log cabin/home in the middle of 15 acres. Here’s a pic.
We’ve lived here since 2001.
I’ll be short and sweet: a log home is an absolute pain in the ass. Don’t do it. I so wish it was a standard brick home.
Some houses are much colder than others, and in general, log cabins are colder than insulated frame houses. You may need a wood stove running a good chunk of the day, or wear warmer clothes around the house, or pay lots in heating bills. Or all of the above. It’s one of the reasons most people don’t live in log cabins today.
Although some fire deparments consider log homes a fire danger, IIRC, there is no evidence that log cabins catch fire more often than other structures. My knowledge of this subject, though limited, would show that hollow walls are a major cause of catastrophic house fires.
It is counter intuitive but most wood log cabins are very fire safe. It is hard to catch such a large log on fire. Once they do go up, they burn hot and not much saving it, but so do most houses. There isn’t any additional risk to living in a Cabin as apposed to a stick built house.