Our first post with questions

[rckclmbr428]

I have been summoned, haha! I'm Ronnie and I do build these style of homes for people around the US. We built one near Murphy NC not to far from where you are talking about a few years back.
I have a friend who builds kit homes, but he likes to put a focal point "real log" in the home, normally arching across the living room. He calls it a focal point, I call it a shrine to how awesome the house could have been if they had used real logs.
As far as talking the class, I'd recommend it, even if you are going to hire out the shell construction. One, you'll want to have an idea of what the contractor is doing, but more importantly, you'll gain access to the members side of the forum, which has a lot of ideas, lots of build threads from those who have gone before you in the process. Even if you are familiar with framing and mechanical, there are things you'll find that will save you time and money, and give you ideas about how to do things differently than you might have thought of.

[project]

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After learning about this building technique, I was watching an episode of Home Time, and they were in the middle of construction of a kit log home. Although I already knew the differences, I was still surprised as they described adjustments here and another compensation there. The list just kept going on and .

:-)

And welcome to the site!


Peter

They later had to go back and do a show on the repair of that kit home due to rot problems.

[loghousenut]

Stopped at a yard sale once and got to talking to the proud couple who had a kinda pretty kit home. They forced me to take a tour. They had never adjusted the screw jacks under any of their columns and it was tearing the place up before their eyes. They said their contractor had given up trying to even the place out and make things square and they kinda felt like that was log mansion life in a nutshell.

I mentioned the screw jacks and they had no idea there was such a thing hidden under their home. I saw the place years later and they said the screw jacks had mostly made the cabinets fit again and got rid of the biggest daylight holes between the boards (they called them logs), but that there was a significant rot problem that they were getting bids on. Only two corners and the bottom 5' of one wall.... they think.

They seemed disillusioned about log mansion living and just wanted to patch it up so they could sell it to another Californian. They advised me to steer clear of any thoughts of building my own log home and said I should leave it to the experts.

[rreidnauer]

Good thing you've become the experts then, yes?

[NWscott]

They advised me to steer clear of any thoughts of building my own log home and said I should leave it to the experts.

You obviously chose not to listen to their bad advice. Good call

[loghousenut]

If they'da built that kit mansion at the same rate that I am building my place, they woulda been fixing the bottom part of that rotten wall just about the time they were putting up their cap logs.

[allen84]

You mean cap wood.

[loghousenut]

Yes, of course... Darned Tapatalk is so log oriented.

[dvb]

I always tell people that kit homes are assembled, disassembled, moved to a site, reassembled and then are finished. My house was built on the site and I bet no one could move it, or take one log off before the roof was even on. The biggest reason Kit homes are less durable is that they have to fit loosely enough to be disassembled, moved and reassembled. Then their construction techniques have to allow for the cost of all that, so they go cheap anywhere they can. If you look at an expensive custom built home you will always see 2 foot eaves, where if you look at a less expensive cookie cutter house they usually have between none and 1 foot eaves. Eaves keep water and sun off of the house, makes everything last longer.

[donjuedo]

Who knows? Maybe they are members of this site right now. :-D