Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Any Log Home owners on this forum?

OK, it is a long story, but we are considering selling our home we built in 2001 (this will be hard to do) and purchase another home that is for sale in our development. This is a Log Home that is up on a hill and oversees a very large valley, gorgeous views and more privacy. Also he has 6.5 acres versus our 2.5 with a location where I could put in a pond.

Anyway, I've been reading a lot about the benefits of Log Homes versus stick built, and many myths that are not true. I guess I'm looking for information on upkeep/maintenance, or anything else you want to contribute.

Thanks, Randy

mdrew is your man.

Randy,

I owned a log home in the 90's for about 3 years. I loved the views (up on a hilltop as well, 5.5 acres), and I loved the solitude.

For me, the biggest negative was that the house was not as air-tight as a stick built house. I would get a lot of insects flying into the house. Now, it may be that the house was just not built well, but in the springtime I would be sweeping up flies like there was no tomorrow. Also, I did get a carpenter ant infestation in the 2nd year. Needed a spendy extermination.

The other problem with a log home is the lack of drywall. While this may seem to be a positive, it also means there is no way to hide wires inside the walls. Any wiring additions will be visible.

Thanks Steve,

I'm sure building quality varies from home to home as from builder to builder. I believe this home is built with 6-8" logs. They guy that lives there now went to college with me back in the late 80's-90's. One of the things he commented on was how efficient the homes are because of the themal mass the logs provide over a stick built home. They don't use R values on log homes, because thermal mass is not considered, however, I'm reading that a 6" log home is more efficient than a stick built R15 exterior home. Also the logs give off heat in the winter because of their nature, not sure.

This is a Pine log home that has the required treatments, but you do have to maintain the exterior with a certain wash/protectant every 7 yrs or so I believe.

He did mention that from time to time you see lady bugs, but heck we get those in our current home. Not sure about the ants, will have to ask.

The exterior walls don't have drywall, but some of the inner bedroom and other rooms do. Also, there is a track along all the floors where all the electrical, cat5, and other wiring can be routed. He has wires prerun from the basement up through the casement around the windows and then drilled through the logs for the surrounds.

The basement is unfinished so I could start over down there and build another PorterPlex.

Thanks for the help so far. I believe Bridgman also has a nice home up in Gods country.

I built mine in 99. Yes, there are a lot of myths and most are false. One thing for certain though, the knowledge of the builder and designer play into log home construction much, much more importantly than a typical stick built home. Labor is on average double that of stick or brick. I’d inquire to how the builder affixed the interior walls, ran plumbing and electrical. The roof and exterior walls move while the interior remain rigid. That can pose some interesting challenges. Leaks are predominately around the windows and doors. Because the walls do move, you have to be very creative in sealing the around them. Thermal mass is a relative term, and opinions on how to calculate that vary. I had my home evaluated for tightness and thermal efficiency after I finished it. In Alaska, there used to be a program where you could get a reduction if financing interest depending on how well the home scored. This also takes into account roof, floor, wall insulation, window type, boiler efficiency, number of south verses north facing widows….etc. My home has 16” Red Cedar logs and it was given an R rating of 15. There’s also numerous different techniques for building the shell. – scribe fit, chinked, square jointed, wall in wall and a few others. Mine is scribe fit in a traditional Swedish Cope method. The shell was built by, as the type implies, a Swedish builder in BC. They trucked it up to me after they built the walls and roof beam network, and I put it together on the foundation and pony walls I built earlier that year. I then finished it out from there. When the testing was completed and the tester tallied all the data points and my home earned a five star rating, just missing five star plus (the highest). I was contacted later by the state and interviewed. It was the first five star rated scribe fit log home built in the state. I’m heating 4700 square feet and this past season my highest fuel use was 140 gallons. I know many people who have much smaller, five star rated stick built homes that used more than I, so that puts to rest the argument that log homes can not be built for efficient heating. One thing you should look real close at, is the bottom few courses of logs. Depending on the amount of overhang and how close to the ground the first course is, you may have rot.

Insurance is more expensive. It costs more to repair them, so the insurance companies tack on a “log home premium”. Also, if the value is high enough, many insurance companies refuse to give you a policy. I think I’m paying around $2500 a year.

Upkeep is a never ending battle. No way to deny that. It’s wood…. Exterior coating is very important and periodic re-coating is necessary. The southern exposure should be re-done every three years or less, while you can get away with longer periods on the northern exposure. The west and east are somewhere in-between.

All my interior walls and gable ends have sheet rock and there’s a lot of windows. I did not want a “dark” home and I can tell you that I don’t have one.

If you have any specific questions or concerns, feel free to ask. I absolutely love living in my home. I’ll never build another one, but I will enjoy this house till I build my next home (which will be a timber frame home).

Thanks Drewman,

Wow, lots of questions, not sure I can answer them all now. I know this particular builder does only log homes in our area. I believe the logs are like 6-8" in diam. They use some sort of spring/rod system in some of the walls that you tighten over time to simulate the natural compression of the logs over years. It has been 7years now and my buddy said they could be removed now if we wanted, but they are not hurting anyting.

The below pictures are all on top of this hill. The same builder built all three of them. The first two now have front porches on them, these pictures are a little old.

The house we are looking at is the first picture. It has a huge great room off the back you can't see in the picture that is all open the entire height of the house with a rock fireplace the entire height. He has a two layer deck on the back, with a hot tube on the lower level you access by a circular stairway. All over looking the western sky, huge valley, etc.

Uh oh. Home upgradeitis....

Those look pretty nice. Can we see a picture of your current home, for comparison?

Just added our current house, see above.

My first question is in regards to snow and rain. How much do you get? He doesn’t have much of an overhang on those homes that I can tell. Typically, you want three to six feet of overhang to keep snow from building up at the bottom and get the rain to splash well away from the walls. You will also see about two to four feet of rock up the walls for rain splash. I’d look REAL close at those first few courses.

The rods you mention are probably all thread that SHOULD go from the top course all the way to the seal plate. The springs are something new as of about six years ago. They just came out when I built my home and I opted to not use them. They, in theory keep constant pressure on the all thread so that, again, in theory, you do not have to have access to the top or bottom adjustment nut. You want to maintain tensile pressure on the rods and as the logs shrink in diameter as they dry, the rods require tightening. They are there to keep the walls solid and they are also there for seismic considerations. I have them every four feet, at every corner and on the sides of large window openings because I live in an earthquake zone. As the house moves from the quake, the logs will move back and forth (I’ve actually seen this occur and it’s freaky!). At least through bolts (rods) are the preferred method. Some builders just use spikes and that’s a no-no. The spikes keep the logs apart as they shrink.

Pine is a good species for log home walls. Preferable lodge pole pine as they are straight, they don’t twist much and they are not as dense as fir. The denser the species, the less thermal benefit you will realize. Logs are like insulation, there needs to be air pockets for it to be effective. Red cedar provides the most benefit for insulating properties, but pine is a close second. Just make sure he didn’t use pine for the beams. Beams need to be fir. Fir is much stronger. I can’t see from the pictures how the gable ends were built. You do not want to run the logs horizontally on the gables. Logs do not shrink nearly as much vertically as they do through the girth. So when you build walls, you want everything to shrink the same amount with the exception of the gables (you do not want the gables to shrink at all really. The preferred way to build the gables is to frame them up with dimensional lumber. That way there is no chance for the gables to have gaps at the rafters as they shrink and the rafters remain fixes. You should look real close at that if they used logs.

Building a log home is very tricky. There’s just so much to cover, I could write a damn book, so I’ll just stop here and if you have specific questions, fire away.

Oh, and also look and see how they attached the interior walls to the log walls. Again, the interior walls need to be free from solid attachment or you will have problems. One method is to cut a long kerf in the stud and use lag bolts with washers to attach the interior wall to the log wall. This way as the log wall shrinks, the lag will go down with the log in the kirf. You then saw cut another kirf in the log wall where you tuck sheet rock into it and it makes a clean transition. I’d be curious what this builder did.

I would have to check on the overhang, but I'm sure it is following Iowa building codes and has to be at least 3 ft or more. There are gutters on the house just like my house so the water would not splash any more than the natural rain. I know the logs are all preassure treated originally, and have a special stain/sealer to prevent moisture problems.

As for the foundation, the front is the only part close to the ground. The sides and back have no issues as it is built on the side of a hill and has a walkout. Iowa gets snow and is a very cold climate, we are not that far from Canada. I'll ask him about the snow issue in the front of the house and inspect the logs.

I'll ask about the beams, but I would think a builder that only builds log homes would know that, not sure, maybe they are shady.

The gable ends are another question I'll ask about, thanks. I will also try to find out how the interior walls are done.

thanks again, Randy