My boyfriend and I want to build a log cabin on 2 acres of land. He is an excavator and will clear the land out before we build the log cabin…but we have no idea where to start or the things that will come up that we should know? How costly is it all? We want to put electricity in it, plumbing, and all that eventually. Shower, kitchen…etc
A Google search gives lots of advice:
https://www.google.com/search?q=build+log+cabin
I would discuss things with your insurance agent first. My buddy built a new cabin out of old cabin logs, and it turned out nice. But it’s not a “standard” home, and is difficult to value. He used propane stove for heat, they would not insure anything that burned wood for heat. That was a bridge too far I guess. If you’re planning on sewer hookups and connections to city utilities, then maybe there’s a lot less issues. Just do your homework ahead of time, particularly with respect to code requirements.
Most people who are building cabins for primary homes purchase kits with some level of prefabrication.
Depending on where you are, this may be fairly easy or almost impossible. Some places don’t have much in the way of regulations. Other places may require you to submit plans that have been approved by a structural engineer before you can build. You may even have to provide insulation calculations done by a certified engineer to prove that your design is energy efficient in some areas. Make sure you know the legalities of your area before you start this project. At the very least, you’ll probably have to adhere to standards like the International Building Code. If you have no idea what that is, then you definitely haven’t done anywhere near enough homework to build your own cabin.
As already mentioned, insurance companies may place additional restrictions on your home. Find an insurance company that is willing to work with you and then work together to come up with a building plan that makes both of you happy.
Have a good plan to deal with water (the rain type). Grade the land so that it slopes away from the cabin. Start your first course of logs at least a couple of feet above ground level. Make sure your roof has large overhangs to drop the water as far from the base of the cabin as possible.
Where is this two acres of land located? If you’re out in the middle of the woods somewhere, there may not be existing electricity and sewer lines and such to hook into. You may be looking at things like having your own well and septic system and maybe your own generator. Believe it or not, internet can be arranged for places like this in some cases. Some rural internet systems exist that use wireless to daisy chain from one farm or cabin to the next until they get back to civilization. Some of these systems aren’t the most reliable in the world though.
If you are close enough to utilities, make sure you know the costs of getting hooked up. If they have to dig a couple of hundred yards of trench to hook you up, that’s gonna cost you a lot more.
If you need to use your own well water and put in your own septic, make sure that the ground perks well enough in that area for a decent septic system and also make sure that the groundwater is close enough to the surface that you don’t need to drill an excessively deep drill to get your water.
Keeping your cabin shady will also help keep it cool in the summer. As you are clearing your lot for the cabin, make sure you keep shade trees close enough to the cabin. Don’t just level everything.
If you are heating your cabin with firewood, 2 acres is about the minimum amount of land you’ll need to grow your own firewood, maybe a bit more or less depending on how far north you are and how much heat you need. There’s another potential reason to be careful about how much land you clear around your cabin.
Design your cabin with sunlight in mind. Don’t just plop it down and hope for the best or you may end up with the sun coming in rather annoyingly through the windows at times, or you’ll have favorite rooms that don’t get enough sunlight and are dark and gloomy.
Give us more info about exactly what you are planning and we can give better advice.
Surely, the very first thing to do would be to talk to any potential neighbours. They may have already gone through the process, but even if they didn’t, they will point you in the right direction.
I imagine that you already know whether or not your local zoning/building laws will allow you to build in the first instance.
Logs are a terrible building material. I strongly consider something more conventional (e.g. brick or siding).
A friend of mine built his home (four bedrooms, 3 1/2 baths, full basement) not really as a kit, but with precisely scheduled delivery of components. He secured a construction loan that converted to a mortgage once the house was finished.
He worked a full time job while he built the house and it was very difficult. A few times he couldn’t be on site when deliveries occurred. When they delivered tons of gravel for the basement he was thirty minutes late. Instead of dumping gravel into the basement, the driver just dumped in the yard. Friends with wheelbarrows were contacted and we spent hours that night moving the gravel.
It was a very stressful project!
I hate to say it, but if you have no idea where to start, you’re going to be way, way over your heads. You need to take some lessons before you try to take the final exam.
I would add a few extra words: you’re going to be way,way,way,way,way,way,way,way,way,way,way, over your heads.
First, you need serious, professional advice from a licensed architect in your local area who knows the local zoning regulations.
Then you need serious, professional advice from a licensed contractor.
And along the way, you need serious, professional advice from an electrical engineer, and a couple civil engineers (to design foundations, wastewater, access road, and more)
And you need serious, professional advice from a lawyer, a tax assessor and an insurance person.
All this advice will cost you thousands of dollars.
Then, only after you have all this advice---- you might be able to start.
Get a builder/contractor or you’ll be sorry. There are some that specialize in log homes if that’s what you really want.
In spite of Crafter_Man’s non-recommendation, there are modern log homes with hi-tech designs that still retain the look & feel of an Abe Lincoln cabin.
IIRC one of the problems with logs is that as they dry out (which you want for a log cabin) they may split radially, especially depending on speed of drying. Find a professionally built log cabin and a lot of these splits have been filled with some sort of wood filler.
But yes:
-if you have no idea where to start, let alone how to build one properly - you better start studying for a year or three, or hire a pro.
-unless you live in a remote area; odds are a fairly well settled area has zoning laws that require all building plans to be approved, inspected, meet code - specifically so people don’t just throw up home-made shacks that are fire-traps, and worse yet, put in heating or electricity that could burn the place down.
Keep a logbook.
Just kidding.
Yet another issue is that, especially as the house ages, it’ll develop chinks between the logs that let in a draft.
My parents bought one of these. They didn’t construct it, they were, I think, the third owners the house had.
Although they never lost their love for the Rustic Americana look, one thing Mom hadn’t expected was that if you have rounded logs on the inside walls, you have to dust the logs regularly, all the way to the ceiling. Their model had a cathedral ceiling in the living room, so they ended up hiring a service.
Of course, it’s possible to finish the inside walls, so they don’t have to be dusted.
The StoneMilll homes I linked to offers square logs.
Again StoneMill (and I’m sure there are other builders – this is the only one I have personal experience with) seems to have considered this. Their chinking remains flexible and they allow for settling, instructing the owner to loosen some bolts, let it settle, then tighten them up again on a periodic basis.
These are not your grandfather’s log homes.
Log cabins are wonderful homes. You should buy a kit. You can use pine logs but you are much better off with some insect resistant wood such as cedar or cypress. You can use hardwood but it will be very expensive. Don’t listen to anyone who has not built or lived in a log cabin, they’re just repeating some hearsay. Start looking on the internet for information there is tons of it. As logs dry they will shrink, but there are building techniques to deal with this. Kits will eliminate all the concerns with that. You can get logs that have been milled on the interior so you will have flat walls or just line the interior walls with other material so they are flat if that matters to you. For anything but a very small cabin you will have post and beam type trusses to support the roof which will be made from heavy planks. Plumbing is not substantially different from conventional houses, your pipes will just run under the floor. Wiring is a little trickier, mostly you’ll just run wiring under the floor as well. Your house won’t need any insulation, log cabins have a very high thermal mass which holds the heat more efficiently than insulation in conventional homes. The cost of building varies with the type of wood and size of the cabin. For smaller cabins the cost is no different from conventional framing. As the size goes up the cost increases over conventional construction but you are building something that will last much longer. You will be very happy living in your log cabin.
In the few scenarios I have seen people do this the finished cost of the log home was more than a stick built so there is little to no cost savings time and material wise. It was the style they wanted.
As others mentioned if you have no experience building a house the material of the house is secondary at this point you first need to nail down the county and state code requirements for zoning, setbacks, well and septic, and a laundry list of structural, electrical, plumbing and related construction codes you will have to follow.
You’re talking about this like it’s going to be a fun project, but effectively you are building a code compliant residence using non-traditional materials and neither one of you has significant residential construction experience. It can be done but do not underestimate the cost, time and complexity of what you re undertaking.
Kit builds might be the way to go and educate yourself with as much Googling as possible. When we looked at log homes we were going to go with something like this one based out of Calgary. We didn’t becuase the plans we wanted would have used our entire budget with no room for overages. There are always overages when you build so we decided to wait until we had more equity.
I don’t think they develop the chinking on their own; you have to add that. (Chinking is the caulking between logs. You’re probably thinking of checking.)