Bring back the bat!
What a quiet summer this was. No buzzing. No flies. When the tools were still we heard only the peace of a snug house and the footsteps of a couple of righteous-feeling builders who thought they’d solved the fly problem.
In 2010 the log house was filled with flies who’d moved in the previous year, when the house wasn’t as well sealed up as it is now, and they were fruitful. We hung up fly strips everywhere, swatted flies, shooed flies out. The campaign cut the population but we still had them last winter and into the spring.
One day early in the summer I observed that all the fly strips were well-studded with fly legs. Legs, with no bodies, and no sign of anything messing with the sticky strips. How odd. In a couple of places there had been evidence of mice, but a mouse couldn’t climb up the log walls and onto a fly strip without getting permanently adhered.
Summer went along buzz-less, and so did early fall. Miller moths accumulated amongst the legs. Yuck. I didn’t take pictures.
One morning John took a closer look at a dark knot on a kitchen log, one that seemed larger than he remembered. “There’s a bat in here!” he hollered, waking the critter from its rest. A ruckus ensued, of flapping plywood scraps and brown wings, and in short order the squatter took up new digs in the great outdoors. Slam! Good riddance!
But guess what now … buzz!
Rejuvenation's Drake bat light. Customer service representative Andrea says it's "no bother", presumably meaning that it doesn't poop. But does it catch flies?
For what it’s worth, we’ve had the best luck with Catchmaster fly strips (ribbons).
Log Set Part 2 plus a log building bibliography
Let’s continue with the log set. Back to Part 1
In reality it took several days of work to get all the logs up. Don’t let this post lead to you to believe it was all done in a day!
This particular style of log construction is called “round log chink style” or “saddle notch”. Chinking between the logs, which I’ll post about another time, fills the spaces between logs and allows for the taper and bumpiness of hand-peeled logs. There are attractive qualities about Swedish cope or “chinkless” construction that we considered. So, too, with square-hewn logs with dovetailed corners as well as the massive logs typical of Alaskan log buildings. Hewn logs are as typical of the early West as are round logs, and historically there were many hybrids and uncommon or regional methods of construction. These days you can have anything, including adobe/log combinations. At one point we even considered a log/straw-bale combination but that turned out to be too complicated. It was the log ranger station in Stanley, Idaho (which I talk about in my first post here) that finally settled the question of what style our log house would be.
You can learn more about styles of log construction at Pedersen Logsmiths and at the websites of other log builders. Various notches are pictured and described at Jeff’s website.
Okay, on with the show!
Think of how Lincoln Logs go together. Of the first course of logs, some have to be half logs, split in half lengthwise. Otherwise, you'd end up with a gap between logs and floor. Well, to be technical, this is the subfloor, painted for weather protection. The finish floor is a future operation, but if you look close you can see a 3/4 inch plywood rim that holds the logs above the subfloor by the thickness of the finish floor boards.
Where logs end without being notched together with other logs, such as at door and window openings, the log ends are held in place with vertical rebar and small plywood spacers. Here one of our helpers cuts plywood into 3-inch squares for the spacers.
Another helper cuts slabs of fiberglass insulation to place in the saddle notches (where logs cross).
Saddle notches are half-round-shaped cuts that allow logs to overlap. Here we have two courses of logs plus a half log. Eventually the half log will be trimmed out at the doorway. Notice how much redder the subfloor has become. The porch decking is so filthy it looks like the logs are sitting in dirt.
Here's where the big living room window will go. You can see the notches where the ceiling beams will fit in.
Jack Ferguson's boys spent all day balancing on the highest logs, guiding their dad as he lowered logs into place with the crane. Here it's a ceiling beam.
An early snow left the ground muddy. I've gone over the house several times trying to remove the red clay mud that got tracked all over but I bet I will never find it all.
Jeff Pedersen, our log guy, is as fearless as the Ferguson boys. And as muddy.
Jeff Pedersen had his hands full coordinating the crew of firefighters, neighbors, crane, and teenage boys. He is the best, no doubt about it. We found him by doing an Internet search for log builders. There was something about what he says on his website (www.pedersenlogsmiths.com) that we really related to, and a special visit to his log yard in Challis, Idaho, confirmed our choice. Jeff does perhaps a half-dozen houses and restorations per year. One of his early projects is featured in a book called Hands On Log Homes: Cabins Built on Dreams by Cindy and Art Thiede.
The big ceiling beams, which came from Canada, are supported by several log posts and one metal post.
One of the Ferguson boys keeps himself occupied.
Jeff sharpens his chainsaw.
In the main part of the house, the first floor logs and ceiling beams are in place. There will be two courses of wall logs above this, to form a kneewall in the second floor. The house is actually a story and a half, not two full stories.
I must have fizzled out about the time the gable assemblies were hoisted into place because I have no pictures of that. At any rate, they got there and now they are pinned together by purlins (roof beams). Someone has begun laying the tongue-and-groove boards that form both the ceiling for the first floor and the floor for the upstairs rooms. These, too, are now red with mud.
My watching and snoozing post, a storage container converted temporarily into a bedroom.
Firefighters can do anything, including laying floor boards.
Joseph, Truck of Many Colors, is a major contributor to the house.
Porch posts. The porch is tied to the house by an extra-long wall log.
With the porch posts in place all our crew (with the exception of Jeff, who had window and door bucks to install, and Jack, who would be needed in a day or two when the roof panels were installed) departed and the thrill of the log set was over. It was a grand time, made even more so by all the people who gave up a day (or two or three) of their time to help us and to share the work and excitement. Thanks to them, this will always be a house built with love.
Sometime I’ll tell you about the time when a bunch of folks came to help John install the floor joists under the subfloor. They kept us on schedule to get the logs raised and the house more-or-less dried in before the winter of 2008-2009.
A LOG BUILDING BIBLIOGRAPHY
These are the books that helped form our taste in log homes. For books that are out of print, check eBay and ABE Books.
Building with Logs: Western Log Construction in Context. Jennifer Eastman Attebery. University of Idaho Press 1998. 0-89301-208-4
Hands-On Log Homes: Cabins Built on Dreams. Cindy and Art Thiede. Gibbs-Smith 1998. 0-87905-80 5-6
Rocky Mountain Home: Spirited Western Hideaways. Elizabeth Clair Flood. Gibbs-Smith 1996. 0-87905-704-1
The Mountain West: Interpreting the Folk Landscape. Terry G. Jordan, Jon T. Kilpinen, Charles F. Gritzner. The Johns Hopkins University Press 1997. 0-8018-5431-8
Uncle Sam’s Cabins: A Visitor’s Guide to Historic U.S. Forest Service Ranger Stations of the West. Les Joslin. Wilderness Associates 1995. 0-9647167-1-2
Log Set Part 1
Raising the logs is the one aspect of log house building that everyone wants to see and participate in. (After that they disappear.) So, here are some pictures of our log raising in October 2008. At that time I was too sick to do much more than watch, take a few pictures, and sleep. Much of what went on I missed or don’t remember.
The ten-inch wall logs came from standing dead timber in Idaho and the larger beams came from standing dead timber in Canada. At the arid Challis, Idaho log yard of Pedersen Logsmiths the logs dried further while other jobs were completed. Jeff Pedersen predicted that there would be little or no settling of the logs after the house was built. A year later, we’ve detected barely any settling. (This is not always the case.)
Our logs lie in Jeff Pederson's Challis, Idaho log yard.
When our turn came, Jeff and his crew hand-peeled the logs, notched them, and constructed the shell according to blueprints from Trent Roman of Northwest Planning and Design. Each log was numbered according to which wall it belonged to and its orientation.
I know from first-hand experience how much work is involving in peeling logs.
Challis, Idaho: Seven rounds of logs are built and you can tell where the windows and doors will be. This picture by Jeff Pedersen was our first view of our future home.
Then the whole thing was disassembled and loaded onto two flatbed trailers. The trucks headed out to Colorado, about a two-day trip. Jeff loaded his pickup with tools, following the trucks.
Meanwhile, John had rounded up friends and firefighter buddies to help at the logset. For me, he set up a cozy bed in a storage building near the action so I could retreat when I got tired but still be able to hear and watch what was going on. A local crane operator was hired and he brought his family of teenage boys. A house was rented for Jeff, who would spend nearly a week supervising and doing detailed fitting work. We were all ready and excited when the trucks pulled in with the logs.
It's a house! The first truckload of logs pulls onto our street.
Volunteer helpers took turns directing Jack Ferguson (operating the crane) and slinging logs in groups to be unloaded into piles.
Bill and Tom guide the crane and put slings under the logs.
Jack Ferguson at the crane controls. We were extremely fortunate to have a local crane available rather than hiring one from Pueblo, thirty miles away.
The gables arrived partially assembled.
Each wall of the house is tagged with a different color slip, numbered according to its place in the wall.
Logs everywhere. You could hardly move around.
Here comes the first log, the beginning of the wall between the main part of the house and the master bedroom "cabin addition". There is no doorway opening in this log. Until Jeff cuts it out later, when the wall is stabilized, everyone steps over it. That's paint, salvaged from a local paint store's mis-mixed stash, on the subfloor. It's intended to help protect the plywood from weather.
Jeff Pedersen brought this apparatus for lifting logs with the crane.
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