So I went the Eastern Sports & Outdoors Show . . . . .

[rreidnauer]

. . . . . . here in Harrisburg, PA. There were four or five kit log home manufactures there. I guess they are all aware of LHBA because, apparently they recognized my patch on the jacket, and didn't have much luck striking up much of a conversation with any of the reps. They all had some sort of display set up. One even had a whole small cabin set up. People were snatching up brochures like crazy, while all I could do is look at all the things Steve and Ellsworth had pointed out. One company (I didn't even see which company) that really cracked me up was one that pointed out all the features of their settling adjustment features. The crowning acheivement their displays bragged the most about was this long threaded rod that was drilled the full height of the walls, had a big Tee nut on the bottom, a big spring, washer, and nut on top so you just torque down the spring, and when the logs shrink, the sping will supposedly help to maintain pressure. I began to wonder why you would even need such a thing, with gravity pulling the wall down anyhow. Then I got to thinking, "Well, without them, I guess it wouldn't take too much to collapse a wall, if you were to accidentally back a truck into it or something." They also had displays that demonstrated jack screws for posts. All I could think is, that while they are bragging about their resourcefulness, I saw it as way to fix their shortcomings of their design. All I could do was chuckle and move on.

I wish I would have had some LHBA business cards with me. I feel it's my duty to protect the naive now. :wink:

[RockEngineer]

There are a couple problems with the threaded rod concept that the springs overcome.

The rods usually can't be installed in one length so you need to have rod couplers which are larger than the rod. You have to drill the holes large enough to allow the rod couplers to fit easily in the hole so the rods never really bear on the logs. The logs can bind on the rod couplers and not properly settle. The springs keep everything settling evenly and avoid gaps in between the chinkless style logs.

One of the purposes for the rods is to resist horizontal loads from wind and seismic so if the holes are really oversized you get a lot of movement before they react. If there is no spring the engineer can't count on the log friction between the logs to resist the horizontal loads so he must have the builder put in more and larger rods to resist the horizontal loads. With the springs the engineer now has a minimum known downward pressure between the logs and can count on that to resist the horizontal wind and seismic loads. The builder can then use less and smaller rods because the rods are not the only things resisting the wind and seismic loads.

Of course, if you use the LHBA method you don't have the settling problem and the holes are tight around the rebar. 1/2" rebar every 24" is more than enough to resist almost any wind and seismic loads.
:lol: :lol:

[rreidnauer]

You're right Richard. The holes were very large. I thought they did that just for any misalignment. I didn't even think about rod length.