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.
