Log homes look beautiful. But from an engineering standpoint, they represent a terrible way to use wood, given wood's material properties.
Wood expands and shrinks with changes in moisture. This is an anisotropic effect; the changes in size are much more pronounced across the grain (about 4 percent from green wood to kiln dried) than with the grain (about 0.1 percent). That's why wood studs and platform framing were invented -- to allow efficient use of green wood in carpentry.
When you stack one log atop the other, an 8 foot wall can be expected to grow and shrink an inch or more with seasonal changes in moisture. This means that all of your doors and windows will need special detailing to allow for this movement, or they won't open in summer, and will leak air in winter. It also means that the "chinking" between logs will be a constant challenge to maintain, as the logs grow and shrink, back and forth, with the seasons.
Log cabins made sense for early pioneers, armed with nothing more than an axe and surrounded by a forest full of big trees. You could get something up quickly without a lot of supporting infrastructure. But once an area got built up enough to support a sawmill, lumber and boards were used to build houses and barns instead of logs. Not only did that use less wood, the buildings just plain worked better.
I personally could not bring myself to "fight against nature" by building a log home. It's just the wrong way to use wood.
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Today's Featured Article - Show Coverage: Central Illinois Strawberry Festival - by Cindy Ladage and Janna Seiz. Every year the coming of summer is highlighted by different events for different people. For some, it is heralded with the end of school, tilling the garden, or completion of the planting season. To us, connoisseurs of find food, antique tractors, farm toys, crafts, and downright fun, the annual Strawberry Festival means summer is here. Every year, in Carlinville, Illinois, the Macoupin County Historical Society and the Macoupin Agricultural Antique Association team up to fill th
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