The Fontana log home is part of the Heritage Series Log Homes from Hochstetler Log Homes who offer 50 different plans, all featuring quality, style, and traditional designs. The Fontana has 1,115 square feet of space with 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms.
The is the perfect little cottage for that secluded spot in the woods or on the lake with the wrap-around deck on the side and back and the gabled porch on the front, where viewing nature up close and personal is a daily occurrence. Inside, you’ll find this cozy 2-bedroom log home features the always popular open-concept great room with fireplace and exposed timber ceiling, and French doors leading out of the dining area to the deck. Upstairs, there is a full-length shed dormer that provides an 8-foot high rear wall in the bath and loft, plus a second bedroom. You’ll love the quaint look of this log home inside and out. And, at a price that can’t be beaten.
There are plenty of benefits to log house living. For starters, log houses are energy efficient. Unlike your great grandfather’s log cabin of long ago, log houses today are highly energy efficient. Years ago logs were installed green with the facing side hewn and the top and bottom natural round logs. Chinking made with clay, mud, and straw, often as wide as the logs themselves, was mortared in-between the logs. Constant temperature changes with freezing and thawing and the logs drying caused them to shrink and twist making them inflexible, mortar-like chinking crack and pull away from the logs, creating large gaps and therefore, drafts. This made for a cold log cabin in the winter months. This is why people even today wrongly assume log homes are cold and drafty.
However, today with logs that are not only air-dried but also kiln-dried before they are milled for log cabin building, there is very little shrinkage or movement after they are put into place. Unlike in the old days, the logs are today screwed together with long 1⁄4 inch screws every 30 inches or more, and what’s more the logs are tongue and grooved with a continuous double gasket system. The tongue and groove keep the logs aligned while the long screws hold them snug on top of each other and the expandable gasket assures that they stay tightly sealed so that no air can come through.
More and more, building departments require that the clients and log cabin builders have blower door tests done to help determine if their log homes are energy-efficient. Several times the different mechanical engineers doing the test on the Hochstetler log homes were baffled, thinking their instruments were malfunctioning. Only after redoing the test several times were they convinced that log houses were indeed much tighter than what they were anticipating. So tight that they recommended air exchangers to be installed in the log home. Logs homes are also more healthy to live in than standard-built homes. One reason is that log homes are made of natural wood. The logs themselves don’t outgas, have little to no chemicals unless pressure treated, no formaldehyde, and no fumes in the air. The finish used on the inside of the logs, which is normally water-based, with zero VOC’s is probably the only if any concern that one would have.
More about this story can be found at: Hochstetler Log Homes
