The log home industry offers many types of notches and styles. After more than thirty years we have found that the compression fit saddle notch fits best when it has dried. That is what counts. We use this whether it is in small cabins or a 6,000 sqft home . We use the full over scribe system with lateral grooves for a chinkless fit whether we are using large hand peeled logs or 12 to 16 inch milled logs.

There is no machine to make this notch and it is too labour intensive to use on a small log. Because we use 12 to 16 inch diameter logs we can incorporate this notch into our corners and maintain a cost advantage over smaller logs. This allows us to stay away from the round notch that is almost universally used in milled round logs. Although the round notch can be made tight to begin with it has a tendency to open up with time.

Even kiln dried logs will shrink in diameter and since they don’t shrink in length the notches will open up.

Unlike most log home companies we have a large log quota in the slow growth forests on the eastern slopes of the Canadian Rockies. From our timber block we choose up to 10 loads of premium white pine building logs for our handcrafted log homes The remaining 40 loads are then shipped to one of the large mills. From there we take back our choice of wood on trade.

This works very well for us since this mill is not set up to saw anything larger than 18 inches. This gives us a distinct advantage in pricing and we see proof of it when we see what other log home builders pay for building logs. We also have access to some remarkable Western Red Cedar with lengths to 70 feet, with tops sizes to 16 inches and butt diameters to 26 inches .