My son and I installed carpet in a kit home today along the Platte River near Fremont, NE. This was a typical mid-grade "log home' from a kit that just plain turned my stomach! Our customer bought this kit from a well known kit builder in TN for $75,000.00 5 years ago. He paid them another $45,000.00 to erect the kit. This was to put up the structure and dry it in. I can honestly say that it is falling down around our customer. It is "D" profile timbers with a double locking tongue and groove with foam insulation in the grooves. The roof overhand is 16" all around the house. The ships' prow front of the house is seperating, with a gap of 11" at the widest point and it isn't even logs or beams! They built it out of dimensional lumber and then put a "log" siding on that part of the structure. it is build with lincoln log corners with an 11" overdangle. The roof is sagging near where the prow nose is seperating. All of the doors stick in their jambs, and one of the French doors onto the back patio shattered 2 days ago because he had to pull so hard on it to open it. Every window is out of kilter, the "log" walls are as close as 9" to the dirt with nothing to deflect rainwater and snowfall. Not one shrub or anything at all. The ridgepole is a so-called 6X12 that butted together over an rpsl without any lapping of timber framing. The actual dimensions are 5"X10 1/4" by whateve length. The ridge pole and rpsl's are toenailed into the floor and each other by, I $h!t you not, 16 penny nails!!! We put the shoe of the power stretcher against one of the rpsl's to stretch off of and with one pump of the stretcher we moved the rpsl almost 1/2"!!!I had to get a large hammer and a board placed against the bottom of the rpsl and beat it back into place! There are "logs" on the exterior wall that are shifting out of place with a lateral displacement of 3" on the bulge out! The floor is way out of level. I have an 8' level that we use to check for low spots for tile and wood floors and at one point the floor has sagged 2"!!! The finish they used on it is peeling badly, the chinking is squeezing out of place and the ends of at least a dozen of the overdangles are dry rotting in plain sight! This place is ugly, it is sagging and sinking onto itself and this guy seems to be totally oblivious to how badly his home has deteriorated in 5 years. Did I mention that it was only 5 years old?
I will happily build my own B&P home the way Ellsworth and Steve taught me rather than have to deal with a nightmare looking home like this. Thank you again, Steve and Ellsworth and Skip for sharing your knowledge with us!
Another reason why you shouldn't buy a kit log home.
Comments
wow that is too bad.
Sounds like a bad design with the 'milled logs' as well as poor assembly. It's too bad you couldn't point out some things, but of course, he's your customer, & you have to tread lightly around things like that.
Really, it sounds like a safety hazard!
The kit log home we rented for our wedding had doors that stuck, and there was a spot that you could stick your thumb through, where 2 logs butted into each other in the middle of a wall.
sounds like foundation which is just the worst. Here in CA. general contractors are sued all the time for incompetence-it should be guarantee for min. 10 years.
Then there is that deal called the blame game--it was the kit companies fault--no it was the general contractor
I think i would tell them--some people have no clue--tell them after check clears
I fear my uncle's kit log home will suffer a similar fate, as it was already experiencing problems with windows and doors sticking, and gaps forming, less than a year after being built. He too, seems oblivious to the fact, and I simply don't have the heart to tell him that he screwed up.
My sister's kit house was built on a slab. She has lots of rot on her ridge pole. When i told her she should cut off the rot and treat the ends, she told me she already did that. Well now....
Overdangles of the d-logs just looks silly to me and especially when they're rotting away.
Frances
Hey Mark?? I am curious..what do the owners have to say?
It sounds pretty bad..almost bad enough to be life threatening to live there.
========================
The contractors should be ashamed of themselves. I would be knocking on their doors and tearing them a new ...you knowwhat.
i wonder how that works..do you hold the kit company responsible and/or the builder/contractor? I am sure each one will blame the other.
It might help uneducated homeowners to have a contract drawn up before buying and building these pieces of crap...and include clauses that back up faulty shoddy work. I get ticked off when I see and hear stories like this. It all goes back to my gripes about the fall and decline of the newage people who lack being responsible.
its too bad those folks didn't read this site huh?
Kola
When I first found LHBA and starting learning the techniques I was fond of telling people about it. EVERYONE I told had a horror story about "log homes" and warned me against them. When I explained some of the benifits of Skip's methods, and the difference between what I was going to do a a kit home, they would frown at me, give me pity for my ignorance.
I've since stopped telling people unless they are open minded and know enough about construction to understand how these wonderful benifits could be possible.
I pointed out several of the wrongs that I listed here and he looked at me like he was wanting to slap the crap outta me for pointing out the obvious problems. He shook his heads and turned away. Luckily I had already been paid. I can sort of understand how he feels, I don't like being told I'm fat, even though I am. Oh well, we all have to learn lifes' lessons one way or another. I just hope his family doesn't have to suffer for it.
I think we need to remember how sometimes, when we are in the deepest field of crap, it takes a while for the true nature of the beast to sink in. I'm betting the farm he's becoming well aware of how much poop he's sitting in. His family has already been damaged. I hope he didn't buy it from one of those companies that have a clause in their contract for mandatory mediation using a mediation firm they control, in a far off state.
Imagine how you'd feel once on really understood how far off your new home was, after the money has already changed hands.
edkemper
61.34.045
Arbitration not required.
(1) Any provision in a contract that attempts or purports to require arbitration of any dispute arising under this chapter is void at the option of the distressed homeowner.
(2) This section applies to any contract entered into on or after June 12, 2008.
[2008 c 278 § 9.]
LHBA member since 2006
Another reason not to buy a kit. This picture should be in the article on kits.
http://www.loghomeu.com/photo/photo/show?id=2011711%3APhoto%3A30814
Another reason not to buy a kit. This picture should be in the article on kits.http://www.loghomeu.com/photo/photo/show?id=2011711%3APhoto%3A30814
Only reason it might not be good to put it in the article is that they call it "butt and pass" and technically it is.
But they milled down their logs, which exposes them to the weather. And more importantly their overhangs are almost non-existant.
That's the biggest problem I see in most log homes I've looked at up close, they skimp on the roof. The roof barely overhangs at all and as a result the log walls are soaking wet every time it even drizzles.
That point cannot be emphasized enough. You MUST keep you log walls dry. If you fail to do so, it doesnt matter what you treat your logs with, what construction style you use, or what you do to your logs, they are going to rot.
Obviously leaving the logs whole will help protect them more than the "logs" in that picture, but in the log term either style is going to rot with a roof like that.
7' overhangs on the gables and 3.5' on the eves. You bet your butt. That is one place you DONT want to cut costs.
Pretty sad looking at that picture of the guy cutting the corner out of his house. And without fixing the real problem, his roof, those new corners are going to rot just as fast, if not faster, than the first corners he added.
Also if you look down in the lower left corner of that picture it appears his entire lower log is completely rotted out toward that left-hand corner.
That house is pretty much screwed.
Joined: 2005-01-30