We looked at building a log home and decided it was not the way to go. We looked at a couple of models, one built of white pine and the other from PT 6x6s. The white pine was heavily checked and had lots of knots in the model home. Those knots are supposed to leak water...
The house built out of 6x6's was interesting and it was a kit. The contractor building the house ended up building our house which is stick built. He built the 6x6 PT kit house for a client and built quite a few log homes for his family and others. The 6x6 PT house was a pain to get everything aligned up. The 6x6's had a rubber spline that was inserted into each timber for water and air leakage. That spline was a pain. He said he would never do a kit log home again. He would just buy the logs and cut them as needed since it was so much faster than finding The Log that was needed for the section they were building.
Water hitting the wall of a house can lead to problems. I think this is more of a problem in a log home than stick build. Our house, which is brick, 2x6 walls, and 1 inch of rigid foam, has a 28 inch roof over hang which is partly a passive solar design element but also helps keep the rain off the walls. The way the exterior walls on our house were designed and built, make it very unlikely we would have problem with water, but the 28 inch roof over hang prevents water from hitting the wall in the first place.
I know someone who built a log home that was really pretty but he had all sorts of problems with bugs, especially carpenter bees. He was spraying for bugs all of the time and having to treat the wood from time to time. The house was nice but too much work for me.
Later,
Dan