In this blog series we will be providing you with top tips for looking after your Summerhouse. At Cabins Unlimited we make sure we supply all our amazing customers with all the information needed to look after their timber buildings.
Even though your new summerhouse may be enjoying its new fancy location, work never ends here. To avoid difficulties, log cabins need routine care; if you keep up with the maintainance, your building will endure much longer than you anticipate! While a maintenance-free structure would be ideal, all the qualities of wood that we know and love would be lost.
Timber and Log cabins explained:
All of our log cabins will be made of spruce. All of the components of our log cabins, aside from some metalwork and any other items you've purchased, will be fashioned of this timber.
Our log cabins are constructed from prefabricated, interlocking timbers that fit together to form a robust, waterproof tongue and groove structure. Because the timber interlocks, each one is unique and expands at its own rate, therefore we must anticipate frequent expansion and contraction of the timbers in order to apply this smart idea of building with timber. Each individual log will swell by up to 2mm over the course of the year; the same is relevant for our tongue and groove floor and roofboards.
We get asked a very common question of Why does timber expand? Here is the answer!
Timber is often compared to a sponge. You can see little grains running along the wood of your new structure that were previously a huge Estonian tree if you look carefully. As the timber is now fully unprotected, these wood grains operate as they did when they were originally utilised to collect and drain water. The seasons that are damp and chilly will cause the timber to absorb moisture, while the seasons that are hot and humid will cause it to release moisture.
In order to allow for expansion, a log cabin's individual timbers are not truly fastened to one another, as we consider this goes against nature. Our teams will only straighten an individual log when it is a warped or bowed log, unless the customer specifically requests anything different before the purchase. Our windows and doors are actually installed using a floating frame system, which means they are not physically attached to the building itself. Instead, they are simply held in place by the surrounding timber facias, which formed a U-profile around the logs, in order to allow the timber to move around freely.
The factory that makes all of our log cabins dries the wood as much as possible, usually to a moisture content of around 12%, to ensure that the logs fit together as well as possible while yet remaining "alive" and in motion. This does imply that the logs will continue to swell and shrink for as long as your structure stands!