Log Houses and Log-Drying Methods

Posted: Jan 26, 2011 |Comments: 0 |

Log houses are among the rarest types of house most Americans prefer. Aside from its naturally artistic features, its construction is a lot easier than a typical wooden house. Hard as it may seem, but the construction is mainly focused on selecting logs and placing them one over the other to form walling, unlike modern wooden houses which involves a lot of cutting and milling. Other components can be formed by basic carpentry works.

Nevertheless, modern construction of log houses involves milling and some profiling. The two types of log homes – handcrafted and milled – differ in the process of preparing the log for installation. Handcrafted are those logs that are peeled but not totally changed from how they were cut as trees, while milled or machine-profiled logs are applied with slight milling to form them into more identical membranes.

Constructing a log house is easy but preparing the materials, especially the logs, require great patience. Fresh logs are not immediately brought to the site and assembled to form the house. Instead, they undergo several drying processes. Green logs refer to logs that are freshly cut from the forest and milled without undergoing drying. The moisture content of the log is not yet changed at this state.

Once the green logs are already profiled or milled to the desired forms, they will now undergo either of the two methods of drying, which are air-drying and kiln-drying. Any of these methods can be done in DIY home building project using logs, especially when there is available kiln in the area. A kiln is a closed structure where logs can be dried using a traditional oven.

In air-drying method, the profiled logs are normally stacked with spacers in the open air and allowed to sit for a long period of time to dry. Dryness is sometimes measured in year per inch of thickness. This type of drying can produce good result. However, it is not preferred for DIY home building projects because of its lengthy process.

On the other hand, kiln-drying is a faster method of reducing the moisture content of the lumber. The logs are placed in an oven where heat is applied for force drying. Kiln-drying is usually part of most DIY home building kits using logs. Experts suggest additional procedures such as re-milling to remove the burnt regions of the logs.

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