The Oak Leaf - March 2017 By Lynn Gastineau President of Gastineau Log Homes, Inc. Welcome to the March 2017 issue of The Oak Leaf! For new readers

 
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The Oak Leaf - March 2017

By Lynn Gastineau
President of Gastineau Log Homes, Inc.

Welcome to the March 2017 issue of The Oak Leaf! For new readers, this is a monthly newsletter that is sent by e-mail to those that have expressed an interest in Gastineau Log Homes. We use this as a way of communicating technical, design and industry information. For more information, check out our web site at www.oakloghome.com.

Please "Like" Gastineau Log Homes on Facebook! There are LOTS of photographs of our homes in the Photo section!

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This home being built in central Missouri has many unique features. This aerial view provides a unique view of this stage of construction.

This Month: Why a Log Home is a HEALTHY Home: We spend a large portion of our life inside our home. Shouldn't it be a healthy choice? In this months Oak Leaf, we will show you how living in a log home is good for your health. And good for Mother Earth.

Trivia Question: In California you can't legally buy a mousetrap without having a what? (See the answer at the end of the newsletter.)

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Want a healthy Tiny House? A Log Cabin 2 Go is the answer!

1) Natural material without chemicals: Solid wood walls are free of all the chemicals used to produce insulation and drywall. At Gastineau, it is our guarantee that your logs arrive without any chemicals on the logs.

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Yes, a log home can be added on later! This 25 year old Oak log home had an extensive remodel in 2015. This photo and the photo below show the finished product. This view is from the original portion of the home looking into the addition.

2) Stronger so Safer: Log homes have been shown withstand F4 tornadoes, hurricanes, fires and earthquakes. The walls of a log home are stronger because of the layering and attachment of each log row plus the interconnection and overlapping of the corners. Our log walls will even meet code requirements for a fire wall between a garage and your living space. Think about how a traditional frame wall is built and compare to a log home. Log walls provide the ultimate in a healthy home because they will protect you from Mother Nature.

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This photo is from the middle of the addition looking toward the original portion of the home. The addition included a living room, a two car garage, and a new master bedroom above the garage. The original great room was remodeled into a new kitchen and a much larger dining area. A large opening was cut into the original log wall, opening up the two spaces and blending the old and the new.

3) Improved Air Quality: Because of the lack of chemicals and reduction in off gassing from those chemicals, you have better air quality in a log home.

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The kitchen portion of this great room open concept has a beam ceiling above. Note the touch of "country" on the end of the island cabinets....

4) Wood is the ONLY Renewable Resource for home construction: Our health is linked to the health of our environment. Wood is the only building material that will naturally regrow and make "more" of itself. All other materials are either man made or are of finite quantities, like stone. We have more trees in the US today than we did in 1900. We can harvest our timber and it will grow back. Our forests were intended to be used.

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Beautiful Oak truss ceiling in the massive great room of this one story design.

5) Sequesters Carbon FOREVER! Did you know that as a tree grows, it sequesters (encapsulates) carbon into the cells of the tree and that this carbon never leaves! Young, growing trees absorb the most carbon. If you cut down a tree, the carbon stays in that tree and more importantly, a new tree grows in its place that will absorb more carbon. Since older trees do not absorb as much carbon as young, growing trees, it is important to keep our forests young and healthy. A healthy environment is a healthy life!

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A large, open living space with Oak exposed beam trusses. Lots of windows to capture the long range mountain views.

6) Natural Solar Collector: If you have ever studied storage of solar mass, you know that dense material is the best at storing and holding heat that can then be radiated back out when needed. Logs, beams and other massive wood building materials serve just this purpose. This is one of the reasons why a log home is naturally easier to heat and cool. And anything done naturally is healthier than man made!

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Beautiful kitchen island.

7) Reuseable Material It is the year 2217 and the log home your great, great, great grandparents built in 2017 has to be removed from your property for a high speed train connecting LA and NY. As sad as this story sounds, your 200 year old logs could be "reused" as building materials elsewhere. The logs could be moved to a new location and built as a new home. They could be cut into timbers to build a timber frame. They could be cut into lumber to use as flooring or for cabinets. What would the condition be of a 200 year old conventionally framed home and what would you be able to do with those materials? I think you get my point.

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Summer will be here soon! This Lake house has lots of room for overnight guests!

8) Calming and Beautiful Atmosphere: We have all learned to cope with stress from our jobs, our family situation, or just life in general. A log home creates an ambiance too offset this stress and make you feel more calm and serene. I am simply repeating what many of my customers have told me over the years. As one oncology nurse told me "After you live in a log home, you never want to live in anything else. There is nothing like the feeling you get when you come home to your log sanctuary." The natural beauty of the wood and the serenity of the atmosphere is certainly beneficial to your health.

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This home is a Stonecrest model, one of the GLH standard plans.

9) Savings in Efficiency due to manufacturing process: Using petroleum products to move building materials thousands of miles and using petroleum and electricity to produce man made building materials is not good for our environment. Production of most log homes is very simple: The logger brings the raw log to the mill. The mill cuts the log into the desired shape. The log is taken to the building site for construction. Compare that to the process it takes to make and deliver insulation and drywall and sheathing to a building site. Less petroleum and electricity used = healthier environment.

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Our Oak Log Siding was used on the inside of a "Shouse" to make it look as much like a log home as possible.

10) Your Energy Efficiency in 100 years will be the same as it is when you build. Much is made in the housing industry about R values. However, all the R values that are provided are determined in a laboratory environment. The true R value performance can vary greatly depending on installation, climate and over time. An R19 of fiberglass insulation today will not perform the same in 20 years. Or even 10 years. A log wall, however, will maintain its R value forever. This long term energy efficiency is good for your health, your pocket book, and for the world.

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One last snow picture for this winter! Good riddance!

11) Bullets won't go through the walls! I had to add this last "healthy" benefit of log walls with tongue in cheek. Hopefully you won't ever need this "benefit" but it is true! We have used our Oak logs a backdrop for targets for siteing in rifles. Of course, we could not say the same thing for the windows in the house!

Construction Seminar Schedule for 2017:

April 8, 2017
October 7, 2017

Click here for information on our one day construction seminars.

Log Raisings:

We are planning a Log Raising in Lawrence, KS and in the St. Louis MO Area in April/May. Watch for an email announcing the date(s) and location(s).

Home Show:

We will be at the St Louis HBA Home Show March 9 - 12th at the America's Center. Come see us!

Open Houses:

Remember that the GLH Model Home Center on I 70 in central MO is open 7 days a week until Thanksgiving! We have three houses there that you can tour! We will be closed on Sundays from Thanksgiving until March 1st.

Answer to Trivia Question: A hunting license! (Are you kidding me??)

Quote of the Month: "Dreams Don't Work Unless You Do." — Unknown

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