Save money by building your log home with fewer logs

You can save a lot of money building a log home with the Butt and Pass style of log home construction, because it uses fewer logs than any other log home style.  Since the Butt and Pass method uses whole logs (without notches), you end up gaining more height with each course than you do in a notched or milled log home (which has wood removed from each log). 

Below is a picture of a whole log Butt and Pass corner:

Below is a diagram comparing the wall of a Butt and Pass log home (left) to a Scandinavian Chinkless wall Right).

Assume that each log has a diameter of 12".  The diagram clearly shows that to reach 3' of height it takes  four logs with the Scandinavian Chinkless style log home, versus only three with the Butt and Pass style log home.

That might not seem too bad of a difference, but it gets worse as you go higher.  Let's say you want to build a modest 2 story log home for about $20,000, something like the log home that Sherri and Debbie built.  For a home like that your log walls might be about 18' tall.  Since there are four walls it would take 96 wall logs to build a Scandinavian Chinkless log home, versus only 72 for a Butt and Pass.

So the 2 story Butt and Pass log home would use 24 fewer logs than the Scandinavian Chinkless log home.  That's nearly 25% fewer logs for the Butt and Pass log home.

This is important because it directly affects the cost of your log home in several different ways:

• Since you need fewer logs with a Butt and Pass log home, you spend less money on logs..
• Since you need fewer logs with a Butt and Pass log home, you pay less for transporting them.
• Since you need fewer logs with a Butt and Pass log home, you need less space to stage them (store, rack and peel).  That means you can build on a smaller lot.
• Since you are using fewer logs with a Butt and Pass log home, you save money on time and labor.  Fewer logs means it takes you less time to peel them, and less time to stack them... and time is money.
• While it's not cost related, it's worth mentioning that using fewer logs to build your log home means your home will be more environmentally friendly.

The savings on material, transportation costs and time could easily equal thousands of dollars.