Log homes fit well into their natural and neighborhood surroundings, offering timeless style and eye-catching design. Today’s rustic home plans include the latest amenities and options to fit your lifestyle, including open floor plans, multimedia rooms, master suites, garages and more. Here’s a look at some other benefits of building a rustic floor plan.
Rustic Home Plan Green Building
When built out of logs, rustic homes are both environmentally and energy-friendly. They are constructed from natural and renewable materials. In fact, using full logs is one of the greenest ways to build. Waste is kept at a minimum during the milling process since manufacturers use all portions of the log. The wood that isn’t used for the home is made into mulch or wood scraps that become the raw material used in carvings and other home products. From a livability perspective, modern log homes are highly energy efficient when constructed and sealed properly. Full log walls have something no stick-framed home can claim — thermal mass. Like a stone that’s been left in the sun for a few hours and then brought indoors, logs soak up the heat energy during the day and release heat slowly and evenly, using less energy over the life of the home. The Sunset Lodge house plan is an example of a log home design that offers an open floor plan layout that beautifully frames the views to the rear of the property.
Saves Time and Money
As a building material, logs are more expensive than 2x4s at the local lumber yard. But this can be offset by a far faster construction time and less labor costs when compared to conventional construction. Log homes are systems-built houses, with their main components constructed in an enclosed, climate-controlled environment and then delivered to the building site, where they are assembled and completed to become a home.
The walls of a log and timber home are completed both inside and out with the stacking of the logs. Compare this to conventional construction, which requires far more trades to complete the walls, including framers, insulation crews, exterior siding and sheathing applicators, drywall hangers and painting inside and out. This can take weeks, compared to the typical two to three days it takes to stack pre-cut logs. Log and timber homes are equally desirable as more traditional luxury floor plan although some may initially feel it's not a cost effective option. Logs are a competitively priced building material that often saves on labor costs in the field.
Planning and building a log home is a unique opportunity to create your dream home, but it’s always important to do your research first. The Log and Timber Homes Council (LTHC) of the National Association of Home Builders is a great place to start. All LTHC members follow specific standards and a uniform code of ethics. Each member stays abreast of new technology with the end goal of ensuring customer satisfaction and a quality product. The LTHC offers consumers a wealth of resources through its consumer website, loghomes.org. When you’re ready to build your dream log home, contact our home plan specialists at 770-831-6363.
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