The Log house Project begins........

[scoutcub]

Motor -

How's the project coming?

 

[EddieWalker]

Good question !!!!

How's it coming along? Are you able to get anything done in the cold? Snow?

Eddie

 

[MotorSeven]

Man, this winter is wild. Ground is now frozen like crete....two weeks ago it was so soggy your boot made the ground squish. I can't do anything such as pour the walls or slab until spring.

I need to be skidding logs, but my daughter just bought her first house...vintage 1949. I have been there for 2 weeks, ripping out rotten walls and floors while inhaling(deeply) the 1" thick white mold growing on all the wet wood. Just layed 1,000 square feet of laminate in 2 days....my knees are screaming. I am down to baseboards & quarter round, hook up the propane lines to here heaters & done.....well until spring when we rip off her roof and replace everything.

I will update as soon as I have a stack of house logs to show off. 11 day before yesterday, 13 tomorrow morning. Hauling water for the horses & cows is getting old........

{sigh}

RD

 

[rox]

Very interesting project, I am enjoying it.

 

[theboman]

Don't forget to treat for critters!! Termites!! They'll eat you out of house and home. Being in the forest and all is a great place for the those monsters under the rotton stumps...logs etc.,

Did ya dent the deer population? We had us some Iron Hill tenderloin this evening.

 

[MotorSeven]

Bo, no I didn't, but we have a poaching problem. Usually between 8 & 11pm(different nights), they drive slow on the paved road that parallels my fields and my neighbors. They spotlight & shoot mostly bucks, then drive off & let 'em lay & rot. They got a 2 year old doe last week & my neighbor heard the "cannon" go off & saw them drive away. We retreived the deer, hung it in my shed & gutted it.
I then went inside and caled the TN "poaching hotline"...after a recording saying they were going to have a game warden respond, it transfered me to a voicemail which hung up on me....:>? So I called my local warden, left a msg on his office voice mail reporting the "incident" & to call me monday morn.....never heard from him.

The doe is in the freezer, ground some up, the rest steaked or for stewing.........

RD

And, yes, we(neighbors & friends) are working on our own plan to put a stop to this nonsense.

 

[jayste]

Bo, no I didn't, but we have a poaching problem. Usually between 8 & 11pm(different nights), they drive slow on the paved road that parallels my fields and my neighbors. They spotlight & shoot mostly bucks, then drive off & let 'em lay & rot. They got a 2 year old doe last week & my neighbor heard the "cannon" go off & saw them drive away. We retreived the deer, hung it in my shed & gutted it.
I then went inside and caled the TN "poaching hotline"...after a recording saying they were going to have a game warden respond, it transfered me to a voicemail which hung up on me....:>? So I called my local warden, left a msg on his office voice mail reporting the "incident" & to call me monday morn.....never heard from him.

The doe is in the freezer, ground some up, the rest steaked or for stewing.........

RD

And, yes, we(neighbors & friends) are working on our own plan to put a stop to this nonsense.

Good to hear the deer didn't go to waste. I just hope that when the chips are down that the game warden believes you when the deer is hanging on your property. Around here I think they confiscate it. That is if they are interested! Usually they are. Let us know how the "plan" goes.

 

[scoutcub]

motor -

Weather's starting to improve....any work planned?

 

[MotorSeven]

Sorry folks. I got into a fight with first Wildblue then HughesNet. It's a long story, but these satellite internet companys tried to pull the fraud wool over my eyes. Anyway, I am temporarily on {gulp} dial-up. Needless to say my "style is crimped"

So, while the sap is down, I have been in the woods getting as many of my big cedars on the ground. I have 25-30 trees down & most will give me a couple of good house logs each. It looks like i will have another 30 or so trees of my own to cut, then I will have to start cutting off property of buying logs. Once I get everything on the ground, I will start skidding them to the mill. I need 250ish 10' long logs for the walls. I have not found any trees that have significant "hollowing", all have been solid.

This will be a slow process especially since I have other projects that keep popping up(like making some $). I really don't think I will have them all skidded & milled by the end of the summer unless the two propertys we have for sale actually sell. If they do, it will free me up a lot. We have been buying fixing up and flipping real estate here for 3 years. One of them is a doublewide that needed quite a bit of work which is 80% done. This flipping is getting scary as the prices keep coming down, so after thes are sold, I may have to sit back and study hard before re-investing.

I do have some pic's, but I will have to go into my wifes office to get them loaded on broadband.....dial-up would take about a day to two....


RD

 

[DuckHunterJon]

Great project, beautiful view. From someone who has built several log cabins (5 - 16'x20' cabins and a 40' x 80' pavillion) from scratch, I commend you! I'm curious what profile you are going to mill the logs to? After building the above mentioned cabins stacking logs and chinking between, when it came time to build our house, I chickened out and went with milled logs. The logs on our house are D shaped (flat interior walls) with a tounge and groove between each course. On top of the tounge sits a foam weatherstripping. So far (4 winters later) they still seal very tightly. I'm thinking you could manage the same thing with milling your own by dadoing out a groove on the bottom, and nailing a batten on the top for a tounge. Just curious what your plans are for sealing.

Also, excellent choice on the wood. I have to spray 4x per year for bugs and bees with Eastern White Pine. The cedar should be much more resistant.

Good luck with the project, and remember to sit back and enjoy it every once in a while. I was under pressure from the bank, and really didn't enjoy it as much as I would have if I had less time pressure.

Jon Hunter

 

[MotorSeven]

Jon, they will be 6x6 square on all sides as I like the clean look. No dado or T/G, just a 1"x6" rolled fiberglass insulation between the logs, then screwed together with log screws. This compresses the 1" of insulation sealing the seam. I used this method on my first house using SYP which shrinks & cracks much more than ERC & didn't have any problems.

I am looking at getting a pulling harness for my Clyde so I can start skidding the logs down safely. My ridges are fairly steep & thick, so a Draft is most likely the best choice.

Still on dial-up...............grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

RD

 

[MotorSeven]

Ok, I had to grovel back to my Sat internet provider. After looking at several other possibilities, they are just the only game in town(or in the "sticks"). Anyway, I have been getting the easy logs down to the mill. I have a new pack of band saw blades & will start milling when I get a big load ready. The Cedar that I cut a couple of months ago is alreay fairly dry...almost too dry which makes milling a little more time consuming.

 

[MotorSeven]

 

[MotorSeven]

 

[MotorSeven]

Homemade chanisaw scabbard:

 

[wedgeheaded]

My wife and I built our LH 20+ yrs ago. We did most of the work ourselves with exception to things like the block and the shingles. Some jobs are just too big for one guy, to be done in a timely way. It took 26 mos from ground breaking to moving in. It's a big job but worth the effort. One bit of advice I'd offer is this, after you have sealed/stained the logs the first time, do a N, E, S, or W wall a year. It's never too big a job this way and everything gets done every 4 yrs. I let mine go too long once and had to sand the whole outside of the house down to get into healthy wood. It wasn't deep but it was a huge, dirty job. Just my 2 cents. Good luck and best to ya.

 

[yooperdave]

Danno, the pic is accurate. That is why that footer is 3' deep with holes dug at each corner and in the center to 5'. I wanted to make sure that we were down to undisturbed solid ground. The "creekside" footer took about 5 yards of crete.

RD

I am surprised you did not have to drive sheet pile or provide caissons and grade beams. Once the earth gets to moving, there is no stopping. Slope stability should never be under estimated.

Good Luck,

Yooper Dave

 

[MotorSeven]

I am surprised you did not have to drive sheet pile or provide caissons and grade beams. Once the earth gets to moving, there is no stopping. Slope stability should never be under estimated.

Good Luck,

Yooper Dave

When the 550 dozer was digging out the cut bank, he got down to very hard shale. So hard he just couldn't dig any deeper. When the Backhoe dug out the footers he also had a diffucult time. 3/4's of the footers are on that shale which is why I went so deep the creekside footer because it was above the shale by a few feet. I hope we did enough, but I guess time will tell............

RD

 

[MotorSeven]

I'm still at it. The easy ones are down at the mill, & now I have to have someone help me with the rest. I did buy a harness for the Clydes, but need a 23"+ collar to use it. I have about 3dozen trees down that can only be accessed by horse.
I dang near tore the Kodiak 400 up pulling a small trailer with two logs on it at a time, so it was been back to dragging the logs out with my tractor. I am also negotiating with a local guy that has quite a stockpile of cedar logs since I don't have near enough on my place.
I'll post some pic's when I get the Clyde harnessed up.

RD

 

[Iplayfarmer]

I'll post some pic's when I get the Clyde harnessed up.

RD

I'm looking forward to that.