Are butt and pass corners safe?

**DaveAnder** · 07-10-2016, 12:26 AM

I thought the butt and pass corners looked kind of strange when I first saw them, but they're starting to grow on me. I still prefer the look of notched corners though, and they seem safer. When I see butt and pass corners they look like a ladder and I worry about my kids trying to climb the corners, falling off and killing themselves.

Is it possible to do tight pinned construction with notched corners using whole logs? If not could you just take a milled log home kit with notched corners and pound rebar through the logs to prevent them from settling?

Does the class address the safety issue, and is there anything you can do to butt and pass corners to prevent them from being climbed?

**rckclmbr428** · 07-10-2016, 02:23 AM

The over dangle length is purely cosmetic. They can be cut flush as to leave no "ladder". Though my 7 year old enjoys ours,and has yet to fall

**rreidnauer** · 07-10-2016, 05:25 AM

Sure, there is something that you can do to prevent them from being climbed.

But first, a little story about me and my siblings. You see, in my early years, we lived in a house in town. This particular house was located quite close to a road. On that road, vehicles of all shapes and sizes would travel. These forementioned vehicles would travel at speeds that would easily splatter a small child. There was a sidewalk that bordered said road. And that curb may as well have been an eight foot tall, barbed wire fence, because as kids, we did not cross it. We were TAUGHT not to go in the street, and you can be sure and certain we didn't, under very real threat of a good ass-warming. If a ball or frisbee ended up going into the street, too bad. It was in no man's land. We KNEW not to step foot on that macadam. It was really quite simple of a rule. Not really hard to learn, even at such a young age. And sure enough, even with such a risk so very close, we continued to live without injury or death, simply by doing as we were TAUGHT.

I imagine by now, you can guess how you can prevent your children from climbing those overdangles, so probably not necessary to continue further, as I fear I will get condescending if I do.

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**rreidnauer** · 07-10-2016, 05:38 AM

As for the other question of pinning scribed or kit log homes, yes, you could pin to prevent settling, but due to their construction methods, you open another can of worms. Scribed is designed to settle together to tighten the joints between logs and stiffen the entire structure. Pinning would cause the opposite to occur. Flat D-log kithome would suffer similar problems, and due to their thin profile and non-continuous logs, may even become unstable and "springy" as logs shrank away from each other.

In short, if it would work, the kithome companies would have been doing it already.

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**loghousenut** · 07-10-2016, 08:42 AM

How are the kids going to shinney up the rafters to work on the ridgepole if they can't climb the overdangles?

Really, Dave, I think it is a non-issue. I have never heard of a problem with anklebiters and crumbcrunchers climbing overdangles on a LHBA corner. My Boy Jake grew up with a two story treehouse and the most amazing playground in the world and I think the most dangerous part of the whole thing was those fingerpinching Tonka trucks in his sandbox. He loved his little Tonka crane truck but his Ma and I always thought he'd lose a digit in it. He never did.

Sooner or later he and his Bride will start squirting out Grandsons, and I think the overdangles on the log home at Gramaw's place will seem pretty tame compared to the old treehouse, the dunebuggy, the creek, the pond, the chainsaws, the scorpions, the sawmill, the snakes, the telehandler, the Ford 8N, and the Grampaw.

If you appreciate the many benefits of building this way, and can get past thinking there are prettier corner styles, I think you should proceed at a cautious pace until your life eventually is consumed with the most enjoyable building project you can imagine. Your Grandchildren will love you for it and they will find a way to keep their Grandchildren from harming themselves on the overdangles.

About combining the different logbuilding styles, it seems to usually work backwards. Take two systems that have their own merits, and hybridize them together, and you end up with the worst of both systems fighting each other. Pinning the walls in a LHBA house works because the rest of the system works with it. Pinning a saddle notched house turns it into a Frankenstein monster of a place that the local townspeople will try to chase into the next county with pitchforks and torches...

Well, maybe not that wild, but it makes a saddle notched house that won't settle (fine attribute for a LHBA home) and makes big ugly, gappy notches, and then you have to chink all those gaps in a home that was planned to be chinkless.

**loghousenut** · 07-10-2016, 08:45 AM

Oh by the way, Dave, welcome to the forum and take the class.

**edkemper** · 07-11-2016, 08:25 AM

Welcome to the forum my young friend.

When I was young, we rode in the bed of pick-up trucks. We had no seatbelts and metal dashboards. We bought exploding canons for our kids at Christmas. We were allowed all kinds of explosives for 4th of July. We had no OSHA to protect us. Cigarettes were safe. We even gave free cigarettes to all our soldiers. We ate red meat and potatoes with real butter on them. We worried about nuclear bombs raining down on us and hoped our school desks would protect us in the coming nuclear explosion.

I doubt anyone worried much about over-dangles back then.

**DaveAnder** · 07-11-2016, 07:34 PM

Thank you for the kind replies. As a dad I worry about my kids, but I'm trying to raise them to be responsible and respect the rules I have set for them. I'm actually more worried about other kids getting hurt then my own. My first log home build will probably be a vacation home, and I'd like to be able to rent it out on the weeks I'm not there. Those corners just scream lawsuit to me, and now that I think about it, not just from kids getting hurt, I can see a bunch of drunk guys trying to prove their manhood by scaling the corners of my cabin. If the over dangles are purely cosmetic I may want to leave them off for that reason alone.

I am hoping to take the September class this year. Are there any forum posts, articles, or books you'd recommend I read to better prepare myself for the class?

**loghousenut** · 07-11-2016, 10:06 PM

Originally Posted by DaveAnder

Thank you for the kind replies. As a dad I worry about my kids, but I'm trying to raise them to be responsible and respect the rules I have set for them. I'm actually more worried about other kids getting hurt then my own. My first log home build will probably be a vacation home, and I'd like to be able to rent it out on the weeks I'm not there. Those corners just scream lawsuit to me, and now that I think about it, not just from kids getting hurt, I can see a bunch of drunk guys trying to prove their manhood by scaling the corners of my cabin. If the over dangles are purely cosmetic I may want to leave them off for that reason alone.

I am hoping to take the September class this year. Are there any forum posts, articles, or books you'd recommend I read to better prepare myself for the class?

Read anything by Dave Ramsey. Don't read anything about log homes/cabins... You'll want a nice emty, relaxed mind. It'll work.

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