I know both are very durable. My father is still using a barn which my great-grandfather built out of un-seasoned white oak. It's never had any kind of wood treatment, no paint and what little rot there is came from where some cudzu grew onto one wall and kept it wet. But even then we didn't lose more than a few boards. This barn is over 100 years old. My dad also has several flat-hewn, dovetail joint cabins (one of which he lives in) which were built around 1860 or so when the land was first homesteaded. They are also oak, never been treated, mortar chinking and still solid.
As far as building a log home with oak or hickory, I think it would be a great idea with the following considerations:
1. Both are very heavy especially when green. That doesn't mean you can't use them though.
2. Might be hard to find enough trees that are long enough and straight enough for your needs. However, if they are, I say do it!
If you can't build the walls with it, I would definately saw them up for lumber. Some don't care for the irregular grain of hickory but I love it. Just be careful what you use it for. Probably best to use it for something that doesn't require a lot of nailing. A few years ago my brother sawed a bunch of hickory for board and batten. It looked great but it was almost impossible to drive a nail through and he ended up drilling pilot holes.
Oak is pretty hard as well but not as hard as hickory.
BTW, I think you were right to turn down his offer. Good oak and hickory are worth much more than that.
JD
Has anyone built a log home out of Oak and Hickory? I have land that will soon be flooded to build a municipal reservoir I had a Timber buyer offer me 4 dollars a ton for my 50+ year old hardwoods I said no thanks. Here is my dilemma the timber is 1600 miles away for my building site at $2 per mile it would cost me approximately $3200 for a truckload of prime hardwood plus the cost to harvest which I could more than offset with the sell of the pine that will need to harvested. The thought of Oak and hickory logs sounds very appealing but is the cost to high?
I realize that harwood weighs more than softwood but I do not plan to lift logs with tools from the trunk of my car. I plan to buy a used boom truck or other lifting equipment and sell it when I'm done using it.
http://www.rbauction.com/index.jsp
My other thought would be to take the timber to a local sawmill near the point of harvest and truck the finished beams out for use as rafters and exposed beams. I would probably trailer this out with my pickup.
I could harvest and stack the wood to use later but termites in Georgia do a fine job of recycling timber.
Any ideas out there?
The Coors pure rocky mountain stream "North Clear Creek"