A wall has a footprint, and it takes away valuable space from your total house footprint. Some people never think about the amount of space being taken by walls, assuming that walls are paper-thin, or that the amount of space they take is negligible. But walls actually take quite a lot of space. Take a look at the floor plan below.
This is a log house. The floor plan is 8×12 meters (outside dimensions) and we have drawn some random walls inside the house. Continue reading
If you are planning to build a wooden house, most likely you would like to know possible options for exterior finishing. Different types of wood, boards profile and the right choice may have a big difference on a final house look and durability. We use spruce or larch wood for the exterior finishing. What are the main difference and which is better?
Traditionally this depended on the area and the local conditions. In the Ardennes in Belgium, there is so much wood that a wooden house is cheaper than a brick house. In The Netherlands, with hardly any trees and a lot of mud, brick houses were cheaper. But this has changed. 
The cost of transport has gone down so much, that nowadays you can produce a wooden house in Lithuania, then put it in a truck and drive three days and still arrive at reasonable costs. The cost of building a wooden house depends not so much on the area where you build, but it depends a lot on the actual technical specifications of the house. Continue reading
Building energy efficient houses is all about R-values: higher R-values mean lower energy-loss, and lower energy bills. Simple. Or maybe not. Maybe it is a little more complicated than that. Maybe there is more in play than just R-values.
A wooden house will shrink. No matter how dry the wood was initially, over time, during a period of approximately two years, all residual humidity will slowly evaporate from the wood and the wood will become more dry. Wood shrinks in one direction only: lateral, but not longitudinal, or in other words, logs will become thinner, but not shorter.
Wooden houses are durable and last long. Admitted: a brick will not rot. But a brick house needs maintenance. Without maintenance a brick house will crack and crumble, and crumble rapidly after a wet period and a little frost. Without maintenance a brick house will last no longer than a wooden house. 