My first log cabin was made of match sticks. I suddenly thought about it and decided to make a replica Here it is, just look at it shine. Post me a picture of your match stick cabin and I’ll post it here.

I came across this wonderful site that is all about green home building. Green building – if traditional building methods are followed – can be very cheap way to build houses, so this site is of special interest for us back-to-the-nature log home builders, who might be discouraged by the high prices of modern log homes and log cabins.

Kelly Hart has a long history in the field of construction and publishes information on green home building in cooperation with many experts of this field. Mr. Hart was happy to answer few questions, so here they are:

Q: Post and beam log building is mentioned here and there on your site, but always as a mere structural framework. Why Greenhomebuilding doesn’t include log homes as an independent segment?

A: This was a conscious decision on my part to not promote the use of logs for homes for several reasons. Primarily, I am concerned with the continued depletion of our forests, as expressed on my page about saving our forests. There are circumstances where logs for homes can be harvested sustainably, and I encourage this, but in general this is not the case. Another reason I don’t promote the use of logs is that they really don’t provide very good insulation as a shell for a home, and this is a very important factor in any climate with temperature extremes.

Q: You introduce several methods for greener building. Apart from earthbag building, which are your personal favorites?

A: Interestingly, one of my favorites is also wood, in the form of cordwood construction. I like this method of building because it uses very small pieces of wood (more or less firewood size) that can be arranged in such a way as to provide a very well-insulated wall. This means that a considerable portion of the tree can be used, and that very small diameter trees that result from thinning a forest can be used. When the cordwood is stacked with masonry or earthen mortar and an interior void for insulation, you end up with a wall that has wonderful thermal properties because the interior masonry acts as thermal mass. An added benefit is that once you build the wall there is no more finish work necessary, either inside or outside, and it is a very durable, low-maintenance system. Building cordwood walls is a technique that is easily learned, requiring little skill.

Q: It is often so that pioneers create future trends by working very hard on their dreams. Do you think that at some point these green home building methods that you introduce on your website, will become popular among commercial constructors and home buyers?

A: This is already happening, especially with strawbale construction, and to a lesser extent with rammed earth and adobe building. This movement gained momentum in the Southwestern United States and is now finding popularity in other regions of the world.

Q: Many readers of Log Homes Cabin are planning to buy a log home kit as their starting point for owner/builder home. How would you increase the greenness of such a home?

A: First of all, make sure that the logs for that kit have been harvested sustainably; check with the Forest Stewardship Council about this. Then select a kit that is as compact as it reasonably can be to house your needs…extra space costs more, both economically and ecologically. Choose a design that will heat itself with passive solar, especially if you live where you have cold winters. And get one with the best insulation package possible, especially for the ceiling and roof where most of the heat loss is.

Mr. Hart, thank you for your time. I wish all the best and continue to follow your website for updates.

This time I expect that we have much wider spread of goals than what we had with blogging habits. Therefore I am not going to make statistical analysis of submitted posts. However, I am going to write a comment on every single submission and give my feedback to you all (here and here). Oh, by the way, did you notice how Darren goes from numbers to letters?

INTRODUCTION
Darren is having another blogging community event. This time it is about Blogging Goals. I already wrote about my motivation for working with log homes, but maybe it is time to tell you why this site is here and what are site’s goals.

NO GOALS FOR BLOGGING
I have no goal for my blogging. Instead I chose blogging as a medium to realize my dream of being an independent log home exporter agent. Finnish log home and log cabin companies weren’t (and still aren’t) too active in electronic field. I thought (and still do) that this lack of clear web presence could give me a natural entry into the field. Blogs just happened to be the most accessible publishing technology for such a non-tech guy as I am.

BABY STEPS
Now, my ultimate goal is to be an export agent. How to get there? These steps that take me to the goal actually become much more important than the ultimate goal itself. Sure, I could go around and ask time and time again, who would like me to sell their log homes? At the same time I could keep asking who would like to buy one. Doesn’t it just sound way too troublesome?

WRITE AND WAIT
I decided that I am not trying to find anybody interested in log homes. I am just going to start writing about them and people could come and ask about them. By answering their questions I wouldn’t have to make so many questions myself.

You might have noticed that my first book review has Amazon associate link included. That’s right, I am going to be a millionaire with the little help from everybody. Seriously, I’ll use any money that might come from this arrangement into buying more books for reviewing. However I’m going to introduce other ways to make money on this site. At some point of time I will probably have log home kits as a drop shipment delivery. Anyway, those days are still in distant future.

I start to realize what a tedious task it will be to upgrade. I won’t do it today instead I will wait until next weekend. I should have plenty of time then to make all the needed arrangements.

I hope everything will be fine after the installation, but I’m anyhow giving you a heads up. I have no idea how long the upgrade will take and whether there are going to be problems or not.

BOOK REVIEW – THE CRAFT OF POST AND BEAM
This book has the most amazing start! Mr. Mitchell tells about his life experiences and how they made him the man he is today. He combines the passion to build and create into philosophy and financial freedom. Such a great motivational writer he is that I read the book in one day, it is that exciting (If you are in a hurry, you can now jump to the end of review to check the summary).

I will briefly go through every chapter of this book, but at first, here are the contents:

Introduction/Author’s Preface
1. Evolution of Post and Beam
2. Design
3. Wood
4. Tools
5. Hewing and Milling Methods
6. Joinery
7. Modern Timber Post and Beam: Wall System
8. Traditional Timber Post and Beam: Wall System
9. Log Post and Beam: Wall System
10. Log Blockwork: Wall System
11. Openings
12. Roof Structures
13. Floor Systems
14. Foundations
15. Utilities and Finishing
16. Wood Finishes
Appendices
Bibliography
Glossary
Index

EVOLUTION OF POST AND BEAM
In this chapter, Mr. Mitchell tells us the brief history of log building and how it evolved on Northern hemisphere. This chapter also gives a light overall introduction on different log home building methods. How log homes were developed? You have to read this chapter to know.

DESIGN
Basic design philosophy of modular construction follows in this chapter. Also practical design issues like space and aesthetics can be found here. This chapter helps reader to grasp the idea of building functional log homes in modular manner.

WOOD
Wood is very flexible raw material. This chapter focuses on what are the qualities of wood, how to collect it, use it and preserve it.

TOOLS
Tools that you need to build a log home, starting from felling the trees all the way to finishing the log home or log cabin. This chapter also has descriptions on how to use tools and what sort of working methods are related with them.

HEWING AND MILLING METHODS
After rather general start, this is where the reader is bombarded with detailed and clear pictures of various building methods, focusing especially on preparing the logs.

JOINERY
Joinery has its own chapter and after reading it, you are well prepared to go forward and understand structures in various wall systems.

WALL SYSTEMS
At this point, basic building methods are dealt with and aspiring owner builder can wonder to the countryside and start felling trees for coming log home. Well, not quite, but this is the phase where we get to dig into the actual structure of timber post and beam wall systems and also into log post and beam and log blockwork wall systems.

This section is divided between different styles of post and beam building. Someone might feel that book could go deeper if it focused on only one tradition. However, for me this was only positive, because I have been building in blockwork style and gaining wider understanding on other styles was easier because I could compare between them and the one that I personally master. To my opinion, this makes the book more appealing for wider audience.

OPENINGS
Walls standing and all, it is time to make those window and door openings or alternatively introduce it as a vacation location for in-laws (can’t get in or can’t get out). This comes before the chapter about roof systems, which makes sense because openings are easier to do while still building the walls.

ROOF STRUCTURES
Roof systems have a chapter worthy of their complexity. Settling is a major problem while designing roofs for log homes and log cabins. Luckily by using post and beam method one can work out settling problems quite nicely.

FLOOR SYSTEMS
Floors are on the menu after we have sheltered the log home from rain. Main issue in this chapter is to understand needed support for floors. But then we have something that strikes me as somewhat peculiar.

FOUNDATIONS
Foundations are discussed at the end of the book. How can this be, log homes and log cabins are built on foundations, if not they rot (hey, it rhymed).

UTILITIES AND FINISHING
On other note, I do understand that utilities are finally discussed here. This is the usual phase of construction for them. However, in this chapter you will notice that utilities must be taken into consideration while designing the log home or log cabin. It is very awkward to start ripping logs apart to mount some electricity sockets.

WOOD FINISHES
Wood finishes are done last as the building is finally standing. Good finishing gives extra years for your log home.

MISCELLANOUS
Other resources in the book include several helpful appendices. Now that we have Internet, bibliography isn’t that useful, but does give good sources and gives credit to other experts on this area. Index is always helpful in search of information, but for me as a non-native English speaker, glossary was the best resource. Understanding terms and sticking them on things I already know greatly lowered my learning curve.

SUMMARY
Mr. Mitchell, thank you for writing such an excellent book I am really happy I bought it. This book helped me to organize my existing knowledge and gain more information on many areas. This is a great general resource book on building log homes and log cabins by using post and beam techniques. Absolutely worth its price and much more but how much more that depends on your motivation and passion. Get it now and finally make your log home dream a reality. Order it.

Seems like the American dream about grandeur and riches could be changing a bit with the younger generation. Just go and check this article. Statistically speaking, Americans still want largest possible home, but as empty-nesters of baby-boom generation increase, there is lot of unused space and younger generation starts to see the related increases in maintaining costs like utilities and renovations.

The National Association of Home Builders has applauded U.S. Senate for passing the comprehensive immigration reform. Reform enables illegal immigrants to obtain legal status in the States. U.S. will have almost one million job openings in construction industry and NAHB expects legalized immigrant workers to largely fill this void.

All good so far, but applying process is very costly. Illegal immigrants who have lived in the country for two to five years, must be able to prove that they have paid all federal and state taxes also much paperwork is included. If illegal immigrant has to pay taxes, they must demand higher pay to achieve earlier income level. This is a path to increased costs. In my opinion, Fortune magazine had much more realistic take on this matter.

Fortune magazine says that up to 40% of home building is done by undocumented aliens (referring those terrestrial ones). While big builders don’t employ illegal immigrants their subcontractors do. There have been court rulings, which have ruled against original big contractor for using subcontractors that employed illegal immigrants. If this hard line continues construction costs will go up.

Looks like there is another cloud hanging over real estate market. What do you think?