Unfortunately the attempts of the North American suppliers to palletise the logs in the construction sequence is somewhat erratic. So logs that are for much later on need to be found a temporary home to one side to avoid constantly moving them around and risking damaging them. This get’s bigger and bigger until you reach the end!

Oh dear, all the Canadian children in the village get to hear there is a log house going up and want to help George!

At each corner a plastic “keylock” gets hammered in. Here our wonderful technical support Doug helps Lily knock one in to a log just to show her brother she can do stuff too.

Where a log run is long a “butt spline” is used to link logs together. This is a plastic “wedge” that is wrapped in foam gasket and is driven apart with two monster nails.

All the logs need tilting when putting in place to get the dovetail ends to engage properly and the crane is ideal for this, giving millimetre control. For more details on mini crane hire try http://www.unic-cranes.co.uk/cranes.php?lang=en . They are self operated and you go on a half day training course before you hire them, for which you must have a yellow high viz jacket, steel toe cap boots and a safety hat.

All the log joints need to be sealed with 4 lines of sealing foam and 2 lines of butyl rubber. The sealing foam is childs play according to George.

We use a self hire crane to position all the logs. It has a remote control so that whoever is controlling it can be at the business end where the log is to be positioned. Seems much safer that a conventional crane with only semaphore signals to the driver. Our technical assistant Doug is a pleasure to work with despite the great additional cost and his experience helps us keep out of trouble as the logs are stacked.

At each corner, two beads of silicone are run over the log to act as a link for the grey butyl rubber seal from one log to the next. The black corner post is knocked in with a hammer with some silicone on it’s nose and the corner pad placed on top of the two beads of silicone.

With the conventional concrete footing and blockwork foundations done, a cedar sill plate and drip flashing are placed on top and then the log stacking can commence. Each log has 4 runs of foam seal and 2 of butyl rubber. Any stud holes or electrical conduit holes get some silicone sealant too.