People have lived in log houses without insulation for many years. Although the thermal resistance of solid wood is much lower than that of a brick or concrete building, wood regulates the indoor microclimate by naturally ventilating the rooms and keeping the humidity constant. Since the sensation of cold depends not only on temperature but also on relative humidity, it is possible to live in a wooden house without insulation and, as we have said, people have done so for many years. However, for those who choose a log home as a permanent residence today, we recommend solutions that provide additional thermal insulation and reduce fuel costs.

Modern log homes do not have to be rustic. Depending on which option you choose, you can tailor both the exterior and the interior to suit your needs. Of course, a log house has an atmosphere that is all its own, but how you use it is up to your imagination. Here are some of the decisions that will determine how your house will look:

• Hand-finished or machine-finished logs: Hand-finished logs preserve the unique beauty of nature, but machine-finished logs give the impression of a more “civilised” building and lend themselves more easily to modern exterior and interior design.
  Insulation from outside or inside: By insulating the house from the outside, you preserve the positive effect of the logs in the living areas and have more freedom to create a façade you like. In the interior of the house, the logs remain uncovered. By insulating from the inside, you can design the interior according to your imagination, but you lose the positive health benefits of solid timber.
• Windows and other interior details: the atmosphere in the interior will depend on the size of your windows, the way the light enters the room, the interior details used, the layout of the rooms, the treatment of the logs and many other things.

The interior is a matter of your imagination. It starts with the design of the house. What would you like? Light? Open, transitional spaces? High ceilings? Different floor heights? Wooden home interiors are perfect for your imagination. And the wood itself already creates a unique environment and the walls themselves are already a highlight of the interior. You don’t have to combine wooden walls only with animal carcasses and patchwork. Wooden walls go well with both bright and pastel colours, so you can also find your own solutions when it comes to furniture, carpets and curtains. Wood can be combined with glass, hammered or cast metal, different plaster textures, stones – it’s all up to your taste, preferences and desire.

The dimensions of the log house depend on your needs. As with any building, you will need to take into account the retaining walls and design accordingly, but we can build the size of house you need.

The best place to start is by asking yourself some questions:

• Who will live in the house?
• What are the needs of the residents?
• Will there be guests in the house?
• Will it be a permanent residence or a summer house, a hunting lodge?
• Where do you plan to build the house?
• How much money can you allocate for this?
• What kind of interior/facade would you like to create?
• What ancillary rooms or other elements would you like (verandas, terraces, extensions, sauna, etc.)?

Visit building exhibitions, look at magazines, visit people who already live in a log house and think about what you like and what you would like to change. Then start putting your ideas on paper – once you have a clearer picture of what you want, we recommend you contact your local architects. 

In fact, a lot depends on your preferences. If you want a solid log house that clearly reflects the uniqueness of logs created by nature, choose hand-crafted logs. They are made from the highest quality timber, each log is hand-finished and the walls are made to perfectly match each log in its place. This way, the house retains all the best qualities of a log home. On the other hand, machine-made logs are more versatile and create a more ‘civilised’ environment. If a hand-built log house is a one-off handmade creation, then a machine-built log house is a widely applicable and highly practical solution.

It all depends on how the log house is insulated. External insulation preserves all the ‘good’ properties of the solid timber and creates additional insulation. For a very warm and natural solution, we recommend the Double line, a double machine-finished raster wall with thermal insulation in the middle.

The time it takes to build a log house depends on many factors – complexity, size, etc. We usually complete the work within one building season.

We offer a 5-year warranty on all log and timber-framed houses under construction, wooden windows and doors, and other wood products.

As wood is a “living” material, log house owners know that it reacts to its environment, so that the height of the walls is higher in summer than in winter, the humidity of the walls changes – in other words, the log lives too. Some cracking is a natural process, but a properly dried log will never crack across its full width. Such cracks in the logs do not affect the thermal performance of the house and are a natural part of the life of a log house. One of the main ways we deal with these problems is to use only mature softwood for the construction of our houses, which is properly dried and treated. Properly treated, the wood “lives” but does not damage the walls of the house.

Wood is one of the alternatives when choosing building materials for your house. Like any material, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Recently, especially in Western Europe, there has been a great increase in interest in wooden houses. With the advent of new drying and woodworking technologies, the disadvantages of wooden houses are no longer a barrier to living, but the most important argument – the environmental friendliness of the living environment – is winning out. The most environmentally friendly house is a log house. Conservative and provincial Lithuanians are intimidated by the wooden house environment. That is why, more often than not, timber-framed houses are chosen for residential construction. The latter (if the walls are already made in the factory) are extremely quick to assemble and relatively cheap, with the same quality of use as a brick house.

The advantage of a log house is a healthy living environment. The atmosphere of constant comfortable humidity creates a very healthy living environment. The house is low in flying (static load) dust. Disadvantages – the main drawback is the wooden interior, which is unacceptable to the Lithuanian eye. The wooden ceiling is feared, but there are good civilised sound and shock insulation systems. Unjustified fear of fire (any house can be set on fire). And finally, no one will deny that wooden houses are the healthiest.

The maintenance of a log house and a timber-framed house is basically the same – repainting every five or six years on average. New paint production technologies allow the production of paints of high quality and practicality.

From a purely physical point of view, a frame house with 20 cm of wall insulation is the warmest, even compared to standard insulation solutions made of blocks or bricks. The physical thermal resistance of a log house with a 20 cm thick log wall is about 1 . This does not comply with Lithuanian norms, although it is allowed in some European countries with similar climates, precisely because of the other unique properties of logs. Another option is to build a log house with a double log (thinner) outer wall with 10 cm insulation.