Where the wind blows the log cabin needs to be really snug…

Our first log home was anything but snug. I think the best thing I gained from that first cabin of ours was the stories I can tell today! Way back when, we started out in the remodeling world. Beginning with small projects and eventually even tackling entire home rebuilds we did it all. Then we decided to purchase a 130 arce farm and build our dream log cabin. That was our first time to attempt to embody our log home ideals into a real home. And what ride it was!

The first thing we did was put too much money into the land and not leave enough money in our building fund if we were planning to build a log home. So right up front we were biting off an awful lot for our budget. This is NEVER wise to do.

As a result we shopped around and found the least expensive milled log package that we could find. It was literally just the four exterior log walls, assembly hardware, and construction drawings. We didn’t even have log siding for the exterior of the gables.

We made the third mistake when we let the logs be delivered before we were ready for them. We put tarps on the logs and let them sit in the middle of the summer for two months before we were ready to start building. When we pulled the tarps back all of the logs had molded! The logs had a much higher moisture content than they should have and they molded from the sap, not from external water getting on them as we first assumed.

So we had a huge task of cleaning up the logs after they were stacked. We spent days spraying a bleach solution on the logs, hand sanding the worst places, and trying to get rid of the worst of it. We didn’t know about log cleaner solutions at that point in our lives.

Next we discovered that green logs not only can mold, but they also SHRINK! And shrink they did! After a few months the tongues were starting to show between the rows of logs. It still  looked ok to most people visiting, but what a heart break. Then we started to notice we could see daylight between the logs in the corners. Oh no! Now what do we do.

We’ll we went to Lowes and purchased cases of the Great Stuff spray foam and caulking. This is where we discovered that the caulking manufactured by Sashco called “Log Builder’s Caulk” is in our opinion the best on the market for having the property elasticity for log homes. It lasted much better than regular caulking.

The name of the game to help with these problems would have been to purchase premium grade logs (as we offer now), low moisture content such as innate to dead standing or kiln dried logs, and use foam gaskets between the rows of logs. In our milled log cabins today we always double the foam tape to help give more protection between the rows of logs.

I could go on and on about our first log cabin. We loved it. It was ours. But it sure has a ton of memories with stressing problems that could have been avoided. With our personal experience and also what we have gleaned from working with all sorts of log home customers over the years we try our best to put the practical into practice to help you have a great experience with your log home from day 1.

Cowboy Log Homes