Choosing a Log Home

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“People are using logs because they have made a conscious decision to build with a healthy wood product that is renewable, and they understand there is probably a premium to pay for that building style,” Savignac says. “Most people view the handcrafted home as an individual, more custom-oriented product as opposed to one that is cookie cut from a standard plan.”

Traditionally, the handcrafted log home took longer to produce than a milled package, but that has begun to change in recent years with the development of new, more efficient handcrafting techniques. Nevertheless, the demand for good builders of handcrafted log homes exceeds the supply, and some companies have waiting lists measured in years rather than in months. But an increasing number of people who want a truly unique, customized log home think the wait is worth it.

Energy Efficiency

A log home is not necessarily more energy efficient than other types of houses, but under the right circumstances it can be highly competitive. Many factors affect a home’s energy efficiency, but eliminating air infiltration is one of the most important issues — a drafty wall is a problem, regardless of the type of house. Consequently, one of the most important characteristics of a well-built log wall is that it be airtight. Modern log walls incorporate a variety of different sealing strategies between logs to ensure an airtight fit, including a wide range of tongue-and-groove or spline designs normally used in conjunction with closed-cell foam gasket tape, acrylic chinking, butyl tape or other sealant products.

Another key component of a home’s energy efficiency is the R-value for the walls and roof, a measurement of resistance to heat flow.

Unfortunately, the R-value of an 8-inch log wall is lower than a typical 2-by-4 insulated frame wall. That same log wall, however, performs between 5 percent and 15 percent better than the frame wall for controlling heating and cooling loads over the whole year, according to Bion Howard, president of Building Environmental Science and Technology (www.energy builder.com), a green building consulting firm based in Hilton Head Island, S.C.

This benefit, which has been documented in numerous tests, is due to wood’s thermal mass value — its ability to absorb and later re-radiate heat. “Avoid walls of less than 6-inch thickness in most climates, and 8 inches in colder climates, for sufficient thermal protection levels,” Howard says. “Thinner walls do not take advantage of the thermal mass of solid wood.”

Jeff Christian, director of the Buildings Technology Center at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, has been involved in numerous tests of thermal mass wall systems and agrees the solid wood components of a log home can help moderate swings in temperature and humidity in the home’s living space. But he adds that there are diminishing returns as the solid wood wall thickness increases because “the heat buildup from inside the house just doesn’t go very deep into the log before it radiates back out at night.”

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