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3 Benefits of Timber Buildings

If you are thinking of buying a log cabin building for your garden you will be joining thousands of others who are catching on to the growing trend of owning a building that brings you that bit closer to nature.

Scandinavian style comes at no extra cost

Log cabins and log houses have been selling like hot cakes because they allow owners to extend their living spaces and provide an alternative space to relax outside the home.

But besides their natural qualities there are plenty of otherlog home benefits to consider, including the following…

 

1. Log cabins are quick and easy to build

A log cabin can be erected in a number of weeks, rather than months. They’re also produced in high-precision factories where most of the work is done, which reduces site time and costs. Unlike other buildings you won’t need to by lots of additional building materials and dig deep foundations.

 

2. Wood is excellent at keeping heat in

What timber should a log cabin be built with? Wood is a naturally breathable material which is great at keeping heat in and allowing air to circulate. While some houses can have damp problems timber buildings allow moisture to escape which prevents damp problems.

 

3. Scandinavian style comes at no extra cost

Timber buildings come in a variety of shapes and sizes and can be used for all kinds of activities. From garden rooms, to garden offices, bespoke log cabins and contemporary log cabins, timber buildings are extremely versatile and with heating you can use them all year round.

 

What wood is used for log cabins?

 

Log cabins Timber interiors are soothing

Your log cabin should be built with high grade, slow growing timber. At Timberliving, we use Arctic-grown Norway Spruce. These trees are over a century old, and are very slow-growing. Their slow growth means that the wood grain is particularly tight. This means that there will be no warping, bending or twisting of timbers in your cabin walls, floors or roof.

Irish-grown Norway Spruce is not suitable for log cabin construction, because in the Irish climate, these trees grow extremely fast (up to four times the speed of Arctic circle trees, which only get about four months of growth in a calendar year.). With Irish trees, their fast growth means the grain is a lot looser, which will lead to deformation over time if used in construction. Because our cabin production is so precise, we need to use the much harder Arctic timber. Softer woods will have rougher ends and profiles, which might lead to problems with the building in the future.

 

Are log cabin homes a good investment?

 

Money is money! And when it comes down to the nuts and bolts of it, there is no doubt that a log cabin is the best value for money you will find if you are planning on building, pound for pound. We have had so many people come to us in our showrooms in Tullow, Boyle and Cork asking “where’s the catch?” when they compare our prices with local builder’s prices for building an equivalent block-built structure.

So, why are log cabins cheaper, you may ask. Well, there the labour cost of having a block layer outside in all waethers, building up block by block, and someone running the mixer, while our walls just fall in to place, since they are precision-cut in the factory. A building that takes us five days to build will take a couple of months, minimum, if it is being built with blocks and mortar. There’s also extra labour costs when the electrician has to go into a block-built building and start chasing out those freshly laid blocks in order to fit his wiring and switches. Crazy!

Material costs are lso a lot lower for log cabins. There is a high energy and production cost in producing cement blocks, never mind the cost of transportation!

So, to answer the question, “YES! log cabins are a GREAT investment!”

The Environmental Benefits of Log Cabins

Its very frustrating for us in the log cabin industry that the environmental and sustaiable benefits of log cabin building and living are not more recognised and appreicated by the powers that be in Ireland. Planners can be quite picky in certain areas when it comes to log cabin building, when, in reality, the government should be widely encouraging the building of timber buildings. The carbon footprint of a timber building is miniscule compared to that of a building built with concrete and steel. A UK report a number of years ago, Toawrds a Low Carbon Economy, stated that the one most effective measure that the UK Government could take to improve their carbin footprint would be to ban block built houses, and build everything with timber.

 

Log Cabin Timber is an insulator

One of the often-missed benefits of log cabin building is that the walls are made up of an insulating material – wood! (If only the same could be said of concrete, then there would be a lot of VERY warm houses in the country…) Instead of concrete walls that draw heat OUT of a room, timber walls keep heat in the room, reducing the overall heatloss, and also reducing the heat demand. And timber is a carbon sink – as a carbon-based product, the wood in your log cabin contains and holds a lot of carbon, thus keeping it out of the atmosphere.

 

Log Cabin Walls are Easy to Work

Its yet another great benefit of log cabins that its very strightforward putting up shelves, pictures and anything else you might want to put on the walls. And because of the inherent strength of the tightly-grained wood, there is not muh you can hang on your wlls that is too heavy for the walls to hold.

In the showhouse in Boyle, we have a 60L water tank suspended from the wall in the hallway.

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