Building Log Homes in Houston, Texas

[MrShine77]

Is there anyone out there who is building or has built a log home in or near Houston Texas? I had a college professor tell me that the climate here is much too humid and the are very prone to rotting quickly.

[Shark]

It depends on the type of wood you use, if you protect the logs with some type of stain, and there are treatments that prevent things like rot as well.

[Klapton]

When you tell most people you are considering a log home, they think of milled logs commonly used for kits. (The logs are machined to be completely uniform). Milling the logs exposes the grain of the wood allowing moisture to penetrate much more easily than using whole, hand-peeled logs. Those milled logs are usually stacked in a chinkless sytle with wood against wood. This causes capillary action that draws moisture into the seams, promoting rot.

This website is dedicated to the chinked butt and pass method. With this method, the logs are hand-peeled to avoid exposing the grain. They are stacked with space between them which is filled with a breathable mortar chinking, so moisture does not build up between the logs. The "overdangles" at the corners are long enough to ensure that water will not seep into the corner from the endgrain. And finally, the house is built with large roof overhangs to protect the log walls from all but the most severe rainstorms.

This method has been used extensively in the pacific northwest -- arguably one of the soggiest places on the planet, and those homes will be in good shape long after we are all dead, hehe. Take a look at the Student Log Homes gallery!

[Timber]

Is there anyone out there who is building or has built a log home in or near Houston Texas? I had a college professor tell me that the climate here is much too humid and the are very prone to rotting quickly.
A wise man knows how little he knows!

Well I think the only good thing from Texas is the Dallas Cowboys-Humid its down right hot there!

[wwlivin]

Timber,
I am in the process of building here in Mississippi and its at least as humid as anywhere in Texas (at least until drought of last summer). I'm more worried about the hungry bugs we have here than I am about the humidity. I spray the logs with my own brew equivilent to Bora Care fairly soon after debarking to help with both the humidity problems and bugs until I can get them under cover. I plan on having all logs covered so that rain will not normally get to them.

wayne
http://s196.photobucket.com/albums/aa19/wwlivin/?mediafilter=all