Wood is one of the most beautiful natural products that one can build a home with.
Whether it is a small outbuilding for guests, a log cabin or a bigger, more ambitious project, the natural texture and pattern of wood makes it a wonderful material for construction. It is strong, robust and naturally occurring too, and a home constructed of wood has a certain allure and attraction that a brick and mortar home simply does not.
Maybe you like the rustic appeal or the sustainable properties of wood. Maybe, you just like the aesthetic. It may be that you are embarking on a tiny house project, like the ones in our article Our Tiny House RV Concept, Progress, and Future. If you are, there will be elements such as treatment and care you need to factor in post-build. Whatever the reason, choosing wood for your home does bring with it responsibilities and considerations that building from traditional materials may not.
If your wooden building is for residing in over any period, then keeping heat in it will be a concern for you. If you have built a ‘proper’ house from wood, then conventional heating and insulating methods may apply, but if your home is one that is intended to be off-the-grid or a smaller cabin by a lake or in a forest, then you will need to make special allowances for heating and staying warm.
Choosing the right wood species at the start of the build will impact the thermal efficiency of your wooden home. For instance, the US Government’s energy website suggests cedar, spruce and pine are all good for building as they suffer the lowest air leakage and shrinkage, thus making them thermally more efficient and reliable over time. Another pre-build consideration is moisture protection – if you treat the lumber correctly prior to the build you can reduce the threat of mold and water ingress internally.
One area you will also need to consider is how a wooden home can bring down energy costs. Energy compliance is very much about achieving carbon targets, but at a personal level, it is about reducing bills and keeping your costs down. Insulation is often a good way of doing this, and in a conventional home, you can use cavity wall insulation as well as products in the roof space. In HomeServe’s guide to saving energy around the home they note how lofts can help keep costs down, and that also applies to wooden homes. However, the nature of a wooden home’s design may mean that insulation must be placed directly onto the underside of the roof, rather than in a loft space. The concept is still very much the same; heat is lost through the roof, so whatever design you have used, insulating the roof is a great way to conserve energy. Depending on your design, you can even insulate outside the wooden roof, but under any covering you use, such as shingle, felt or slate
Remember, whatever heating method you use inside your wooden building, the product itself acts as a thermal battery. Eco Home explains how thermal batteries are a great way to heat your home, perhaps using solar power or ground heat, but at a very basic level simply using logs and any heat source mimics the effect. Under the right circumstances, logs can store heat generated during the day and gradually release it at night. Again, that is very much dependent on the type of heat source you use, and the type of wood you use too.
These are the main considerations for you to bear in mind when constructing your log-walled home, although the subject is far more extensive than simply picking the right species of wood. However, by making the right choices early in the build, you can ensure the heating source you choose later is effective and keeps you warm and cozy on those colder evenings.
Written by guest author Jeffrey N. Austin.