The Quaint Cabin in the Woods Is a Thing of the Past … The Log-Home Industry Has Gone State-of-the-Art with Home Technology.

It's not surprising to think that Craig Andrews, a retired Silicon Valley executive, would surround himself with a home equipped with advanced technology.

Five plasma television screens. Wireless touchscreens that control lighting and audio from anywhere in the home. Electronic touchpad controls. These and other contemporary conveniences are to be expected from a technology leader. What is unexpected is that all of these items are in a northern Michigan log home.

For many builders, whole-house home technology conjures up images of a custom-built contemporary or colonial. However, the log-home industry has quietly adopted advanced design and manufacturing techniques and implemented new building technologies to make their homes more affordable and more comfortable. In doing so, log-home builders have developed processes and product applications that can inform the design processes, manufacturing techniques and product specification of traditional homebuilders.

The Andrews home is a 10,000-square-foot, two-story structure that was expanded from an existing 2,400-square-foot log home. The home includes many of the tightly controlled HVAC practices found in log homes, and amenities that are migrating to high-end traditional homes, according to Patrick Daily, the heating manager for Indian River, Mich.-based Great Lakes Plumbing & Heating (GLPH). GLPH provided HVAC for Andrews' log-home manufacturer, Petoskey, Mich.-based Town & Country Cedar Homes.

"In log homes we found we had to have enough humidity control to keep the wood from shrinking," Daily says. The lessons learned from this humidifying and dehumidifying balancing act are being applied to traditional homes, according to Daily.

"More and more we bring traditional homebuyers to our log-home projects to show them the quality of heating and cooling they can achieve," Daily says. "What we really have stressed is in-floor heating, which takes away problems of cold spots and the breezy feeling of forced air in large open great rooms."

While in-floor heating has been a luxury item in bathrooms of traditional homes, Daily says these systems are commonly used throughout log homes. For the Andrews home, GLPH installed two 225-foot loops of Wirsbo Systems in-floor tubing that circulate a propylene glycol mix to 12 heaters that control zone temperatures.

Another item in the Andrews home that Daily now uses in traditional homes is the Unico, Inc. mini-duct HVAC system. Consisting of an evaporator coil, a hot water coil and a blower coil that combined are smaller than a typical air-conditioning unit and 21¼2 inches or 31¼2 inches in diameter flexible tubing, the system is designed to bring treated air to hard-to-reach spaces, such as lofts and great rooms with cathedral-ceiling, which are common in log homes.

"The colored small-nozzle diffuser looks like a knothole in the logs," says Daily, who adds that these units distribute air at four times the static pressure of typical HVAC systems and mix room air to reduce hot or cold spots in large rooms. He also notes that the mini-ducts are useful in renovation projects and additions where it is hard to include full-sized duct systems.

A Lenox thermostat system at the Andrews log home senses indoor humidity and temperature and outdoor temperature to create the proper balance needed to keep the appropriate indoor levels.

For the Andrews home entertainment and lighting systems, five wireless ST 1700 touchscreens from Crestron Electronics, Inc. and wall-mounted touchpads helped reduce wall clutter on the interior split logs, according to Tim Stuhr, a manager for Troy, Mich.-based Avio Inc.

"The wireless touchscreens are used mainly as a local source control for entertainment and lighting systems in each of the five main rooms," says Stuhr, who designed the system's configuration. "The Crestron systems could have accommodated more controls, such as security and HVAC, but there was a desire to keep things simple."

In the great room, the Crestron touchscreen controls a McIntosh Laboratories, Inc. home theater with Krell Industries, Inc. speakers. Audio entertainment throughout the home and outdoors is provided through a Denon CD player and Crestron stereo components, all connected to Elan Home Systems interior speakers. Ten "rock" speakers from Rockoustics are arranged in the yard. Wall-mounted Elan touchpads also allow control of the audio systems.

While the Crestron touchscreens are configured to control lighting, wall-mounted, 5-button touchpads from Lutron Electronics Company, Inc. are also located in rooms for convenience.

More Lessons

At the 4,000-square-foot Jones log home in Cleveland, Tenn., Apex Technologies president Matt Winn learned lessons that he has since applied in his traditional home building projects.

"In traditional frame construction we have the opportunity to mount brackets for touchpads quite easily," Winn says. "But in the Jones log cabin, we found it would be helpful to locate a low-profile low-voltage back box that was easier to install in a log wall." Manufactured by Carlon, the black box has since been used by Winn in traditional homes. "If there is a shallow wall, a tile wall or other special surface instead of a typical stud wall, we have found it easy to use."

Another item that Winn first installed at the Jones log home and has since used in traditional homes is the Smart Tube, a flexible wiring conduit. "It was easy to fish under logs, run in a joist or under the floor to the electrical room, the mechanical room or wherever the home run was," Winn says. "I have since used Smart Tube in traditional homes to run cable. For example, it is helpful when there is mahogany or oak paneling in a room, no drop ceilings, and I have to drill horizontally through a long stud wall to run wires." Winn noted that the flexible conduit is easy to handle, does not require holes to be aligned exactly, and can even turn at 90-degree angles.

Logging Design Software Advantages

The log-home industry is also a proving ground for advanced software use and innovative manufacturing processes. The difficulty of custom log-home construction mandates precise planning methods to avoid costly mistakes, according to Rich Horn, president of Kenduskeag, Maine based-Northeastern Log Homes (NLH) and this year's president of the National Association of Home Builders' Log Home Council. Because of this need, log home manufacturers have adopted the use of intelligent 3D modeling software that allows log-by-log and part-by-part creation of design and construction drawings.

Gary Jordan, NLH's production manager, says, "Having that 3D design capability allows you to create better space and pinpoint areas in the home that may be a problem you might not have seen. Then you can make an adjustment so it is not a problem in the field."

The 3D modeling allows a log-by-log virtual construction of the home, giving builders the opportunity to quickly understand every part that is required in the construction of the project. The intelligent aspect of the software allows Jordan to use the computer drawing to organize the project.

"We can generate complete cutting lists, take-offs, and material pricing and generate an estimate using the software," Jordan says. Northeastern uses Bentley's Microstation Triforma, but Jordan notes that Autodesk, Graphisoft, CADWorks and other software vendors have programs adaptable to the log-home industry.

Southland Log Homes of Irmo (SLHI) in Irmo, S.C. extended the capabilities of its Graphisoft Log Home Solution design program by creating a customized errors and omissions check process. Mike Loy, design manager for SLHI, says that the intelligent modeling program allows designers to quickly select the wall types, roofing, windows and all components necessary to design and estimate a custom log home within 24 hours of a potential client's presentation of their requirements.

However, if all of the components of the home are not properly linked by the designer, there may be a shortage of caulking, trim pieces and other items. In order to eliminate missed components, which can require premium shipping costs to deliver to the company's worldwide customers, a check system was desired.

SLHI hired South Pasadena, Calif.-based Webscape to create a complex logic application that queries the 3D model to make sure all questions regarding each component and its links to other components are properly answered. If there is an improper link or a missing link, the component is highlighted in red on the 3D model.

"The application is like a grammar checker, except we check the grammar of putting together building components," says Kimon Onuma, an architect who is president of Webscape. "If the home is going to be in Montana, the system knows that a special window drip guard is needed to deal with the heavy snow load of that area," Onuma said, providing one simple example of items the application addresses. The program gets as detailed as checking that the angle cuts for specific log connections are correct.

"Before we implemented the program, we would overestimate caulk and other materials. Now we prepare a more precise bill of materials and have driven down a good amount of our material costs," Loy says. The application takes no longer than 15 seconds to run, according to Loy.

Computer-Aided Manufacturing Meets Log Homes

Hearthstone Homes (HH) of Dandridge, Tenn., doesn't stop at advanced computer modeling. The company has acquired two computer-numeric-controlled (CNC) mills with sawing and drilling capabilities. Manufactured by Hundegger, the mills have multi-axis, servo-mechanism-controlled cutting heads that allow a full array of joint cuts, routed details and wire chases to be mechanically created in the logs.

"What has really helped us is the computer-aided design and manufacturing capabilities that can cut logs and drill holes with tolerances of a 64th of an inch," says Chris Wood, HH's vice president of sales.

This accuracy allows log HH to do almost all precutting at the mill and reduce the need for skilled labor at the home site, according to Wood. Also, they can accurately align holes for passing wires vertically through stacks of logs, drill horizontal chases and route areas for switch boxes and outlets.

Hundegger anticipated that traditional builders could benefit from the precision its machines provided log homebuilders, and released a stripped-down model for traditional homebuilders last October. More than 30 of the $130,000 to $170,000 units were sold before the end of the year, according to Steve Schrader, vice president with Hundegger USA, the Charleston, Utah-based distributor of the German manufacturing equipment.

While Hundegger's release of a new milling machine is a clear example of how the log-home builders have influenced traditional builders, there are many modern lessons to be learned from this age-old industry.