As in all things, if you start with a proper “center,” the rest should fall into place. It’s a little different with a modern log home.
In pioneer times, you built with stacked logs, often green timbers, and chinked the holes. As time passed and they dried and shrunk, you’d get a solid, albeit uneven, structure. Homes were smaller then. Our little house would have been considered palatial on the frontier, when they shared the ground floor with livestock in the winter, and huddled around a fireplace or wood stove, because the uninsulated roof didn’t hold in the heat. There might, or might not be a sleeping loft for the kids. Often the whole family slept in one room, even one bed–glad for the extra warmth.
Modern log homes, especially the larger ones, have built in jack assemblies that have to be adjusted as the logs “cure.” (They say “cure” and not “dry,” because they’re supposed to be kiln dried when you get them. Yeah, right.)
The log part of our home went up in 2014–with the roof and upper floor put on in 2015. (That added a lot of weight and accelerated the “settling” process.) The wood stove was installed in 2016–and heating in the winter accelerated the drying process. We didn’t actually move in until the end of 2017. We’ve adjusted the jacks several times already. We’re now ready for what should be our final adjustment.
What’s being adjusted is the height of the center supporting wall. As the perimeter log walls “cure” (dry, compress and shrink), they lower, as compared to the constructed, beam-supported, center wall. This gives us bowed floors upstairs, and uneven floors/ceilings along the center wall. Now is the time to do it, as we’re about to finalize the upstairs bath–which will have a tiled shower stall. Better that it find its final position before we tile and grout things–to avoid unnecessary cracking.
In the past, our crew assisted with the leveling adjustments. They’re long gone now, and we’re on our own. Rick is the leader, now. I help where I can, mostly handing things up when he needs them on the ladder or adding extra ballast (my weight) where he needs it. But he insists it’s mostly a one-man job. It’s a noisy operation, and a little disconcerting–because the things you think of as “fixed” in place, aren’t really. The same is true, though to a lesser extent, in new conventional construction.
It reminds me of when I first moved to California, and experienced earth quakes. So much for “terra firma.” Suddenly the things you thought of as solid, weren’t. Over time, I became nonchalant about earthquakes–after 1989 put me in my place. Just be prepared, and then ride it out. Is there anything else we can ever do? I actually came to like them–earthquakes have that same sense of wonder that I’d had as a kid regarding tornadoes. There is a Chinese curse/saying, “May you live in interesting times.” We’re certainly there.
Right now there’s a hurricane assaulting Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas. Climate change is supercharging natural storm systems. They’re wilder, stronger and more destructive than in the past. That, too, is taking mental adjustments about what is a given an anyone’s world. Plans for the future include abandoning entire risk prone regions, in a quiet acknowledgment of our failures to address the causes. There is no simple adjustment that can make us safe. My old haunts, Oakland and Sonoma County in California, have been burning all week. Are we to become a nation of internal refugees? My father, when asked for advice, always said the same thing, “Build on high land.” We’d laugh, but in today’s world, the concept of finding a place with fewer risks may be a survival skill.
I’m feeling lucky that a day or so of banging and torquing will put our little home back to rights. At least for now–we can adjust the center. We’re situated, protected, in the lee of a glacial hill system. I’m in a state that has plenty of fresh water, and, so far, a comfortable climate. It’s not that we’re without risk in these super-charged times. But you have to be prepared, and then ride it out.
Last week we had to buy honey. Next week, we will run out of potatoes. Last summer’s onion harvest was non-existent. And, in the late fall, I didn’t realize that our new raised beds would freeze earlier than if things had been traditionally planted, in the ground. Fully half of the carrots and beets were solidly frozen in place. We are too new at this to know whether they can be salvaged when the bed thaws. Were we really homesteading, any one of these errors could have spelled a hungry winter.
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