Sierra Log Homes, a pine log producer for over 15 years. I am so excited to start using  cedar logs as our newest species to produce log homes in. This wood has been incredible to work with and breathtaking to see! Probably one of the most beautiful log walls we have ever produced.

Without knowing it, we had been sitting on a goldmine of material. This cedar log is local to us in the Sierra foothills of northern California and also in the Cleveland National forest area of southern California.

We have been a pine log producer from the beginning. Our pine wood is imported in from Canada, Colorado and Oregon. This material is known as standing dead lodgepole pine. The tree died of natural causes and then we purchase it a few years later...it is very dry and stable with allot of color. We will still produce many projects with this log, but now we can give our clients an affordable cedar option that we were not able to in the past.

What started all of this cedar craziness was the Martin project. Last year,  Tish (our client)  asked if we could change her pine log for a cedar log. She had purchased a Sierra Jumbo 13" swedish cope log in pine from me. So i said ok and went for it and changed her to a cedar log. The picture shown was from the first production run of the sierra Jumbo 13" swedish cope log with a hand peeled finish. It was fun to see this log come to life...what a beauty!

We purchase the majority of these logs from a local tree farm that is managed under the American Tree Farm Association. So it is logged under strict environmental guidelines...same type of guidelines  required from the LEED program. We receive these logs in lengths up to 33' long. We then saw them into a square blank recovering as much board stock as we can. The board stock is converted into trim, siding and other building products. The bark slabs are given away to local farmers and other people who turn them into all kinds of things. I had a builder use them to build a tee-pee for his son....that was cool. Any other remaining wood chip or cut-offs we have are sent off to a local co-generation plant that produces electricity.

After we make a blank out of them, we let them air dry for a couple of months. We found that cedar sheds its moisture very quickly. We then run the cedar blank through our big log shaper to form the final product. The log then gets graded, trimmed, notched and labeled. For the final touch, we hand peel the log to give it a natural and beautiful appearance.

The other thing we found about this log, is that it does not shrink very much. So we measured some samples and we were amazed on how stable the size was. So our anticipated settling is the same as our pine logs which is about 3/4" per 9' of wall.

Last year we took the above show sample and displayed it at 4 log home shows. CNW Log Homes did all the marketing, they said it was a show stopper.

We had also made up a cedar 9" swedish cope sample (shown to the left). This toured 5 trade shows so far this year with CNW Log Homes...it also was a show stopper. CNW Log Homes is doing another 6-10 shows this year showcasing these cedar corner samples. Should be a big cedar end of year and a major 2011 kick-off!

The amazing thing about this log is its beauty and stability. It's fun to touch, it feels so soft.  As you can see, it is a spectacular log. We also combine the milled log with natural cedar log posts which makes for a real natural feeling. Cann't wait to finally see some completed cedar log homes.

We are currently doing a project down in Big Bear, California in our sierra Jumbo 13" swedish cope log. It is consuming over 7000 lin ft of cedar log. We have log spans up to 33' long with virtually no butt joints. This house is so complex, it has over 800 pre-cut notches in this fully pre-cut log home. It also has over 2500 lineal ft of Douglas Fir logs for the trusses, floor joists and headers. We are producing material for the trusses that are 40' long...amazing! I will be doing a blog post on this project in a few weeks when more pictures come in. This project can be followed through Mikes building website http://westlaketechnical.com/2821/images/.

We have (2) more sierra Jumbo 13" swedish cope logs coming up, one in Julien, California and the other in Portola, California. We have just been awarded a cedar 9" swedish cope in Palo Cedro, California (near Redding).  Will be doing a blog post on the design of this project next week, we are currently finishing the engineering on it. All of these logs are hand peeled to give it a more natural appearance.

Working with cedar so far has been an absolute pleasure. Looks like we are becoming the cedar kings of the log home industry. We come to understand that our sierra Jumbo 13" log is the largest and longest milled cedar log ever produced. How about that for a pat on the back! The other side note we found out is that we are the only log home producer that we know of  in both the United States and Canada that can produce all the round logs (8", 9", 10" 12" 13") in both pine and cedar and do it in a NO BUTT JOINT format...wow, that gets me all pumped up!

I will keep you up to date with more cedar news as we do new and fun products with this amazing wood.

Until next time.

Larry

sierra log homes

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