Alpine Home Builders Inc.

Ray Herrera started Alpine Home Builders Inc. in 2000. He has taken the road of creating unique log homes. He says that his workers are woodworkers and craftsmen. Just recently they finished a 5000 square foot log home in Incline.

I bet that industrial log home companies would not manage to pull through such a demanding job. There are too many variables in this project and therefore all the builders have to be woodworking professionals. As we know, manufactured log homes are process products and workers, while professional, are more industrial workers than craftsmen.

Housing starts

Building in United States continues to show very fast pace. It looks like this year is going to be a record year in housing starts. However the growth has slowed down and seems to have peaked. Furthermore the amount of building permits has dropped, which indicates that in the future the construction sector is not breaking any more records. I wonder what is the share of log homes and log cabins of all those starts? Aftermath of Katrina can show as a spike, but it is difficult to factor it into estimate numbers. More at Bloomberg.

Affordable log homes make comeback in Wales

A Welsh log cabin company, called Log Cabin Living, is trying to promote their products by introducing them as a solution to rural housing problem. Affordable, durable and simple makes log homes excellent dwellings. Company imports cabins from Latvia, Estonia and Finland, all countries that still value the tradition of log home living. Unfortunately for Log Cabin Living it is easier to obtain permission for mobile home than it is for log home. Read the whole article at.

Portable sawmill

Portable sawmill could be a solution for distant lots that have fine trees standing on it, but transporting them back to sawmill would become quite costly. With portable sawmill, you could turn those trees into lumber on the spot and then turn that lumber into your log home. Cool idea, but slightly troublesome, because building log homes on a spot is not everybody’s cup of tea. Read more about Mr. Manuel’s portable sawmill in this article.

Log home coverage in the net

This article got me thinking. I follow the net quite extensively while trying to stay on the nerve of what is being written about log homes and log cabins. During the past year I have noticed that there are basically three kinds of stories involving these wooden houses.

1. Elevating stories on how people have fought hard to get their dream log home.
2. Elevating stories on how people are fighting to save a piece of past by restoring an old log home.
3. Serious articles on log home business.

Serious articles are absolute minority and everything that is related to casual log home entertainment is in abundant supply. No wonder there are big markets for log home constructors, because all the information raises our interest but doesn’t equip us with much at all. There is clearly an empty space for log home related education site in the net. Who could pull it off?

Katrina driving up prices

At the homepage of National Association of Home Builders I noticed a story that discusses the effect of Katrina on housing needs. Nearly 275 000 homes were destroyed in the disaster. This is also a problem for builders themselves, many of them have also lost their homes and it makes logistics of rebuilding very difficult. Another severe bottleneck in rebuilding is the lack of building materials, because industries in the States are not able to respond to such a demand spike. This will further drive up construction material prices. Log homes are no exception, and you can expect prices of log home packages to go up.

Kuhns Bros helps Katrina victims

Kuhns Brothers is helping Hurricane Katrina victims and will donate 2 percent of log home and Country Log Cabins materials package price to the Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund. This generous offer will be part of every new package delivery until the end of 2005. Now it is as good time as ever to put your order in and get that package you always wanted.

Lincoln Logs Ltd. stock split

New article about Lincoln Logs Ltd. tells that company has completed that 1-for-500 stock split that they planned earlier.


COMMENTARY
Now the company has 130 stockowners compare to 3000 before the split. Company is now able to de-list itself from public stock markets, however people can still trade with the stocks.

Because they now have less than 300 owners, the company doesn’t need to make any public filings. As a result, Lincoln Logs Ltd. can make terrible or wonderful financial results and that (in theory) wouldn’t affect to the brand image. Let’s wait and see what future has in store for Lincoln Logs Ltd.

Zoning district requirements

Here is an educating story on what happens when one fails to meet the requirements that authorities have set for building. There is a big difference between modular and manufactured log home.

A visit to a log home

Take a tour in a log home by reading this cute article. Writer visited a family owning a log home and tells about her visit from the point of view of a – well, a visitor. First you see a yard, then family and the log home. Quite entertaining, really, I must say that I just love to read any log home related articles.

Suburban log homes

In a beginning of an article that Suzette Hackney wrote for Detroit Free Press she stated that log homes are slowly making their way to suburbs. However, article itself does not focus on the possible trend of log homes making their way to subdivisions or suburbs. Instead, the article is one of those generic stories on how people would like to live in a log home and how luxurious and yet quite affordable they are nowadays. It is a good read though and for all of you who think of rustic American log home when the words "log home" or "log cabin" are spoken – here is a 3D picture from Honka’s line of city log homes. Model is called Serenata. If that's not Scandinavian design, I don't know what is...

Wiens Log Homes

This one has been online for quite some time now but I almost missed it. Quite generic story about a small log home company that builds eight to ten log homes per year. Hand crafting and unique designs are the keywords for their operation. Nice read if you want to know bit more about the challenges of a small log home company.