Today I will explain why building a timber frame around an interlocking body is hopelessly foolish and is solely a money-making scam by unscrupulous builders and bodge artists who sell log cabins.
A single-skin 44mm or 70mm log cabin, interlocked, is not intended to have an external, internal skin applied. Why?
It is simple because it travels and shrinks, and once its movement is complete, it will move indefinitely, depending on the weather.
Unfortunately, there are many uneducated people out there who only see pound signs when you approach them about an insulated cabin, and their response, in order to get more money from you, is that battening the external or interior walls is the best course of action for that perfect insulated house. Rubbish.
Also, we see so many foolish, unskilled weekend builders; screw the logs together? What the —K? Who said fastening the log together with long screws was an excellent idea?
Too many cabin builders have too many ideas on how to build a log cabin, and the more films I see on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, the worse the cabins become.
So, why do they put screws in? I believe it is because they don’t know what day it is, and what they’re smoking could be one of the reasons. You never screw an interlocking cabin together. I can hear you all asking why. Simply put, once you have completed the cabin, it will begin to shrink. This is a natural process that must not be hampered; otherwise, you will have major problems with your cabin very quickly. You are effectively preventing it from moving in any direction, including downward. In the summer, the logs will begin to shrink, leaving gaps in the walls, and if you are extremely unlucky, the entire cabin will be a perilous construction. You cannot screw each log together.
Next, putting an external or internal frame around the cabin will be a nightmare after half a year; if it’s external, the inside dries out; the external is dealing with mother nature, so you have the pull on the fixings all year round and if your dumb fitting team has screwed all the logs together, your problems will be exponentially worse, potentially resulting in gaps opening in the walls. Windows and doors become loose, and, in the worst-case scenario, the roof becomes unstable. This is no joke. It is a fact.
This is why I designed the twin skin system many years ago. I have designed and manufactured this system in many different ways, and the best is as it is now. The problem with using a dovetail joint for the internal wall to fix itself to the external wall within the cavity is that as the logs shrink, both internal and external shrink at different rates, and the internal log tends not to slide down the dovetail cut, causing problems. Unless you go with Glulam, which is twice, if not three times the price, the consequence is the same: difficulties.
Before anyone asks me, yes, we screw on the roof boards and flooring, etc, but we do not fix the logs together; our interlocking joint is super strong and super water-proof.
So, my twin skin design for an interlocking cabin of any size is the best way to manufacture the best insulated cabin; it is not screwed together, it moves freely, but it is strong and super safe; it is a great investment; we know how to manufacture and assemble it, and the result is a fantastic building at a fantastic price. I believe that what I built many years ago was the greatest approach to manufacturing a log cabin that is insulated in a variety of ways.
We have the greatest windows and doors in the industry, and our pricing is fair. Consider a 90-square-meter building with 2 beds, a bathroom, a living room, a kitchen area, etc, with 340mm walls (70mm x 70mm) and a 200mm void for less than €45,000 ex works, complete with double-glazed windows and doors and toughened glass. It sounds amazing, and it is. Please send us an email.
