Maximizing Log Home Shipping

Sue | April 2nd, 2012 - 5:50 am

The Bridger is one of our most popular plans. One draw back is the shipping.  If you purchase a log shell two trucks are required for transportation.  To help maximize your log home shipping dollars, we often recommend that our customers purchase the log shell. If there is any more room available on the truck it is a good idea to purchase other lumber. One good addition is if you plan to use any Western Red Cedar products on your home. Red Cedar is easily available to us here, but may be very hard or impossible to obtain where you are building.

handcrafted log cabin with sunroom

Bridger Log Home Plan

The Bridger is built in the handcrafted log style. The logs are a 13 inch mean diameter and range between about 12 to 16 inches in diameter for the wall logs and the logs are up to 50 feet in length. The ridge beam would be the longest in this cabin. All of the logs are fully precut and prenumbered. We use the Scandinavian Full Scribe method with full saddle notch corners.

There are many levels of log home packages. The simplest is a log only shell, the next would be a partial dryin package, and the third is a full dryin package. Some customers are very comfortable just purchasing the log shell. Others desire our help to select the other dryin materials and products.  One thing that we have seen is we usually include about a 10% waste factor when calculating what is needed for a log home. But if you have a contractor that goes through a lot of lumber,  they may need more on the job site. One time we even had a contractor use a bunch of framing lumber to build scaffolding with on site instead of bringing his own to the job site. Needless to say there was not enough framing lumber for the home when so much was used for other purposes. Sometimes builders feel that the lumber is ‘free’ to them so they just use what ever is the most convenient for them. Circumstances such as this are beyond our control. With our dryin material packages we do our best to estimate what you will need and your builder will use and then we put an extra percentage in for waste.

The full dryin package includes all the materials to keep the weather out of the home, specifically: all log material, exterior doors, windows, roofing (less shingles or metal), log staircase inside, log railing inside, upper subfloor, interior framing lumber, 1×6 pine tongue and groove for soffits, exterior of gable ends and ceilings, upper balcony material, and all exterior trim.

As far as construction, we are builders but we primarily stay here in Montana, but we do have  other  log home builders that we could refer you to if you are outside of our building radius.

For construction the contractor can do any level of completion that you would like. The most basic is where the contractor only stacks the logs.

The second level of completion is where the contractor does a ‘dry in’. For this he installs the foundation and then erects everything that comes with the package (except the 1×6 pine  tongue and groove– this is a finish cost because it cannot be installed until after the electric rough in is complete).

The third level of completion is a full turnkey where everything is completed for you. All you have to do is move into the cabin.

There are many details that go into making a home a completed project. Log home shipping costs are a necessary component to giving you access to outstanding logs such as ours. It also allows you to choose from wood species, such as Western Red Cedar and Douglas Fir, that are only available from the Pacific North West. Overall, shipping it a small percentage of your total log home cost, and a small price to pay to get the log home of your dreams.

Cowboy Log Homes

Any projected costs, cost estimates, material costs, and estimated construction/ building costs, are only the opinion of Cowboy Log Homes and are drawn from our experience. Every home is custom tailored to meet our individual client's wants and desires. The construction of a log or timber home is based on two primary costs: material provided by the log home company and construction costs contracted with Cowboy Log Homes as the builder or another builder of the customer's choice. Final costs are obtained and contracted with each respectively. Cowboy Log Homes is simply the "glue" that helps bring these two together to provide a final culmination of a customer's project. * Please note photos and elevations may differ some from accompanying floor plans.
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