Basics
Many people can agree with the statement that log homes are attractive and beautiful. In some regions of the World log homes were built for thousands years. Many centuries people mastered their skills to construct log homes as a result there are many log building techniques exist (to learn more about log homes manufacturing techniques follow this link).
Before to list log home properties, let's understand what people mean saying "log". The wooden log is a roundish-profile product made of tree trunk. Although according to handcrafting log home builders, log is debarked and peeled trunk of tree, otherwise if a tree trunk is processed or milled (by machines) it becomes a dowel (if it's rounded) or a timber (if it's squered).
There are few other types of homes exist on the market which may look like log homes but the are not log homes. These are timber homes and "post and beam" homes. The main difference of timber home and log home is a type of profile of a "log" used in walls. And the "post and beam" homes do not have walls made of logs. Post-and-beam construction uses logs or timber to build a sceleton of the home. Walls are "mounted" inside of the log sceleton.
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Basically, log home is a construction made of log walls. All log walls in log home consist log shell.
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Generally, log home consists of foundation, log shell, and roofing system.
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Log walls and sometimes roof system consist log home shell.
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Log home shell maybe produced by some manufacturer, handcraft masters or even future owner of the home.
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Usually they use coniferous woods for log shell.
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Logs in the shell could be in natural shape (peeled) rounded or squared off in cross-section by machines (milled) or manually (handcrafted).
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Generally there are two types of methods to connect logs to each other in walls: with chinking and chinkless (using groove if milled and full scribe if handcrafted).
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When chinkless method is used purposely-made notches should be made to connect logs in walls tightly each to other.
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When chinking method is used there is a gap between logs, which filled by special insulation materials.
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Notches (log joints in corner of walls) also can be made handcrafted or by machines.
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There are few different types of notches exist. Most popular notches are compression (Canadian) notch, Norway’s notch, Round notch, Dovetail.
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Usually people hire contractors to build a log home (or part of the home), but there are many resources, which educate people how to "di it yourself".
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More generic information about log homes you can find here