Beyond Know How

Luxury Log Home

Log homes- OK, you’ve decided you want a log home, but where do you start? If you pick up a log home magazine a whole parade of suppliers and companies parade past your eyes. How do you know which options are right for you?

Log home kits include: fully pre cut options in a weather tight package; partially pre cut; and random length logs. Before you make your decision think carefully about who will be building the home. If you are hiring an experienced contractor you may do fine with a random length company. If you are highly concerned with high quality of cuts, accurate joinery, and up most weather tightness, consider a fully pre cut package from a name brand company. For someone who is somewhere in the middle, a partially pre cut log home is not a bad choice. Partially pre cut means that that corners are cut so that they stack, but all of the rest of the cuts have to be done on site. There is about a 3 month longer time frame of construction required if choosing a partially pre cut package instead of a fully pre cut. Random length logs extend construction time even more. So consider the weather in your area too when making your choice. A log home is a dream that can be turned to a nightmare if you try to conserve costs too much. Consider paying you contractor well and making up for the cost difference with stock item cabinets and carpet for the floors. Those things can always be improved in the future, but the constructionof your home should not be left to amateurs.

Log homes are lovely and also a very substantial form of building. Through hurricane Katrina in one hard hit area a log home was the only building that survived.

Over the years more and more features with these special homes have been improved. One such design enhancement can be found in the joinery used in the butt ends of the logs. A butt joint is where one log ends and the next begins. Sometimes logs are simply cut and the pushed up together. Then caulking or foam sealant has to be pushed in between the holes.

Another way to seal the butt joints is a spleen system. The logs must be notched and then a 2×4 or vinyl spleen is slid down in the hole. This is fairly good form of joinery, but if one spleen is left out the needed seal is not obtained. Then outside weather elements can penetrate right through the hole.

The best form of joinery is a “finger joint”. This is where the log actually is cut with little fingers. Then the fingers ‘weave’ together to form the joint. This is the tightest in the industry and also there is no chance of forgetting to install the spleen.

Currently there is only one company in the USA or Canada using this top of the line form of joinery, Lake Country Log Homes from British Columbia. For more design ideas and photos take a look at Log Cabin Construction .