Log Cabins: the full skinny on a fat log

In progress... Peter's little cabin in the woods

Just over a month ago, I had the great pleasure of meeting a true log cabin builder. Just down from our cottage up in Northern Ontario, I happened upon a gentleman by the name of Peter Thompson. Peter, once an IT Business Owner, had left his day job behind in Alberta, Canada to build the log cabin of his dreams. As luck would have it, he happened to be building said cabin on my lake. His story is simply too unique and interesting not to share and the lessons he has learned are good for the lot of us!

First Off: How does one even start to build a log cabin?

In Peter’s case, he took a course. A 10 week intensive course in Perth, Ontario where along with 10 other guys he lived, slept and ate Log Cabin Building five days a week. Under the tutulage of the Pat Wolfe Log Building School, Peter learned log carving, knotching, joining to name but a few. During the courses 10 weeks, participants usually build a cottage and in this case, Peter worked with the school to have the cabin that was built by the students be his own. The school agreed and so the cabin was first build in Perth and then disassembled to be rebuilt on our little lake. Apparently this assembly/dissassembly process is exceedingly common with log cabins as the skilled workers don’t have to travel constantly to different building sites but can stay in one location knocking out cabin after cabin.

Lessons Learned?

Next Up! Awaiting their turn, these logs will soon be turned into walls.

The longest logs in Peter’s cabin are 54 feet long from end to end and weigh up to 3 tons! In the first week of his course, Peter learned about the tools used in building a log cabin, how to safely use a chainsaw (my Dad could use a few tips from these guys), how to carve a notch with a chainsaw, how to build floor joists, and roof systems… all with logs!

When all your wood cabin knowledge comes from Little House on the Prairie…

ScrewJacks such as these are slowly tighted over 1-2 years as the logs shrink in size

While I could wax on and on about the different techniques of log building, I have to admit, I’m about as novice as they come. For those of you that have also garnered your complete knowledge of wood cabin building from Little House on the Prairie episodes, here are a couple of key factoids:

Don’t just lay down logs with a couple of knotches! The first thing one does when building is find the centerline of the log (midpoint along the length of the log). The centerline is then sort of knotched flat so that you can lay another log on top of the first, always lining up these centerlines
Windows are good: not as complicated as you might think, they actually cut down on the work b/c you have fewer walls to build. Word to the wise – when building your next log cabin: throw in a boat-load of windows (boatload being the technical log cabin builder term)!
Logs are hand peeled – think potatoes and multiple by a million! No machines here… the purest maintain that the logs must be handpeeled.
Logs are knotched and lined up along their centerline to build walls

Srinkage – it aint’ just my husband after a dip in the lake! Seriously, srinkage in the wood is a key factor to be accounted for in log cabin building – ScrewJacks (huge big screws that connect the walls to the roofline) are used to help seal a cabin. An average log cabin will experience 1 to 2 years of shrinkage before it stops moving.
What’s the Rush? When building a log cabin, you have a finite amount of time to work with before you have to get the roof on the building in order to protect the logs. According to Peter he had his 10 building weeks in the course plus an additional 6 weeks before the roof simply had to go on the house.
A log cabin weighs 2-3 times the weight of the same size building! Holy-you-better-have-a-kicking-foundation!