Do-It-Yourself House Building Kits for a Wooden Cabin

Types

• Wood cabin kits from manufacturers come in various levels of completeness. Basic packages offer the buyer the exterior shell of the cabin without the roof framing or interior partition walls. Other, more costly, packages might come with the roof framing and interior trim, but not include any roof shingles, which you would need to purchase. Always determine exactly what components the manufacturer includes in the kit, and include any materials you need to buy yourself in your overall budget.

Logs

• The logs from kits come either peeled or milled. Peeled logs, logs with the bark and outer sapwood stripped off, have a rustic appearance. Milled logs, which go through a machine called a planer, have a more streamlined, modern look. Both peeled logs and milled logs can be either round or square shaped. Manufacturers also produce milled logs that look like wooden siding rather than logs.

Materials

• Always go over the manufacturers materials list thoroughly before making any final decision. Check the list carefully, making sure you understand the purpose of each of the items included. Sometimes certain components come in different form from different companies. For example, one package may include pre-hung doors, while another might come with the wood for a door jamb that you must build on-site. Consulting a book on carpentry will help you familiarize yourself with any terms you don't recognize. Ask the manufacturer exactly what materials you will need to buy yourself.

Pre-Assembled

• Some distributors offer pre-assembled wooden cabin kits that require considerably less time to put together once the materials arrive at the building site. These kits usually come with the floors, walls and roof trusses already framed. The kit might also include all the required fasteners and hardware. You will still have to perform some assembly, such as shingling the roof. Pre-assembled kits can allow one or two people to put up a structure in a couple of days.

Joinery

• There are a variety of methods by which logs are joined together in log cabin construction. Types of corner joinery include saddle notches, which have a U-shaped cutout; Swedish cope notches, where each log has a concave groove on the bottom; and dovetails, joints similar to those used in making furniture. In addition to the joints at the corners, milled logs typically have a means of interlocking throughout the span of the log. For example, some milled logs connect with the tongue-and-groove system.

Tips

• Your logs may or may not have undergone pressure treatment to prevent them from decaying. If not, apply a strong preservative on-site after erecting the exterior logs. Making sure the building site drains well before starting construction helps prevent water damage later on. You'll need to have the site graded so that water drains well away from the structure. Distributors do not typically supply materials such as electrical components or plumbing, so you will need to buy these locally.