Do Logs Insulate Well and Does a Log Cabin Hold Heat?
What can be more peaceful than a traditional log cabin? The best escape for you if you have taken off from your hectic schedule and plan to enjoy your leisure time relaxing and having fun with your family. It has its charisma and magnetism.
If have you ever thought about whether your log cabin will maintain the warmth inside it or not when the winter is at its extreme? This thought leads us to another question, do log cabins insulate well or not?
Read on and find out the answers to these questions. You will also get great tips on how to maintain the warmth inside your log cabin.
Can Log Cabins Keep You Warm?
Log cabins, undoubtedly keep you warm if they are constructed in an appropriate and right manner as the logs themselves act as insulators. Though the wooden logs are insulators, they have a lower R-value than properly framed insulation sheets.
It may be a drawback of this cabin, but, apart from this R-value, a log cabin serves in other ways as well to keep you warm on a wintry cold night.
Let us understand a few other factors due to which the log cabin makes you warm.
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Solid Wooden Logs – The Protector
Insulation helps to maintain a required temperature inside a building. The main purpose of insulating a building is to restrict the transfer of heat from the inside of the domicile to the outside or vice versa.
There are different materials used in modern construction to keep the walls of a home insulated. However, all these materials are difficult to use for protecting the walls of a log cabin as the cabins are made up of firm wooden blocks.
As discussed earlier, the logs themselves are good insulators, so spending a huge number of pennies on insulating your log cabin is not required. All you have to do is to choose the thickest and best quality logs for your wooden home. If your log cabin has thick and solid wood on its walls, you don’t have to worry about insulating it further.
Being a good insulator, the logs have lesser R-value than the well-framed fiberglass insulation sheets. R-value means the power of a material to resist the flow of heat. Generally, the R-value for a wooden block is 1.41 per inch, whereas the R-value for insulation sheets ranges from 4 to 5 per inch of thickness.
This clearly shows that logs are less reliable for insulation than other insulation materials, but that does not mean that a wooden cabin will leave you freezing in the winters. The R-value of the logs and some other factors is enough for keeping any log cabin warm and sound.
Also, an important point to be kept in mind is that using an insulation sheet or materials on your log cabin walls can create gaps inside them. Voids among the blocks used will cause the heat to pass in and out. No matter how good quality woods you have employed, the gaps between them can ruin the entire set up for insulation.
So, considering the quality and thickness of the logs used in constructing the cabin is a great idea.
Logs of The Cabin – Great Heat Absorber
This is an incredible factor that enables the log cabins to keep their inside warm and cozy during winters. The logs that your house is made of first absorb, then retain and finally release the heat as per the need to keep the home warm. By soaking the heat in the day and emitting them at night, logs act as a great heat source that will keep the inner part of the cabin warm.
The logs of the cabin are capable of absorbing all the heat that it comes across. During the daytime, when the sun is out, the logs get heated by the rays of the sunlight falling on it directly. The logs store this heat absorbed by it. Also, they store the heat generated by you inside the cabin.
When dusk falls and begins to freeze outside, and the logs begin discharging the heat that they accumulated all-day inside. This helps in maintaining the warmth inside the cabin at night. It also raises the R-value that enhances its ability to keep the home heated.
This phenomenon can be most suitable for the zones where the days are notably hotter than the nights, giving the logs prospect to absorb as much heat as required during the daytime.
How Can Log Cabins Hold More Heat?
Now that we know the log cabins will be able to retain heat and keep you warm, the next question arrives: how to enhance its heat holding capacity to keep the house adequately heated. There are few spots from where the heat manages to escape smoothly. To maximize the amount of heat your cabin can hold, it would be a great idea to pay extra caution to those areas.
Let us discuss the specific places from where the heat oozes out, leaving your log cabin cold.
The Ceiling
For holding the warmth inside your cabin, it is most crucial to insulate your roof. The ceiling is the zone through which you can lose all the heat. Warm air being lighter, easily roams around and reaches the top without difficulty. If the roof is not insulated, you will probably sacrifice all the hot air inside your cabin as the warmth can effortlessly ooze out of the ceiling.
There is no garret on the top layer like the city houses in a log cabin, which makes it a bit tricky to insulate the roof of the cabin. It has vaulted ceilings that are covered with wooden cladding. So, affixing any insulator like insulation sheets to this vaulted ceiling becomes a tough job.
Above the cladding, roofing materials are laid that are low in R-value. Also, the vaulted roof will form fissures between them, which will lead to the seeping of warm air at a quicker pace. Though insulating the roof is challenging, it is necessary to prevent the warmth from seeping out.
There are a few different ways of insulating your roof. The persons who love the beautiful details of their ceilings and want it to be visible from inside must go for the fiberglass installed between the roof and wooden cladding.
The next method is adding a panel above the ceiling and installing your insulation here. Afterward, you can add wooden cladding and roofing materials. These tasks may be tricky, so it is suggested to reach out to a professional roofing contractor who has adequate experience in insulating the buildings.
The Floor
Once you are done with insulating your log cabin’s roof, the next important spot that needs to be covered in the floor. It absorbs a large amount of heat very quickly but, still, it always remains cold. This is because the floor is spread in a wide surface area and requires excessive heat to turn warm.
Though the floor absorbs a huge amount of heat, all of it gets wasted. This is why you feel cold on your foot whenever you walk barefooted in your log cabin, even though the whole place is full of warmness.
Floor insulation is a must where the log cabins only have a single layer of wooden flooring. These types of cabins are most sensitive to heat loss.
Insulating your floor will create a big difference, and it will also save you from spending a lot on annual heating costs. In case your floor is made up of concrete, there will be fewer options for you to insulate your floor.
If there is no concrete slab, then you should surely go for floor insulation to keep your lovely log cabin warmed always. You can lodge some insulations between the floorboards and the floor beams.
Also, it is necessary to raise your log home above the ground. In case your log home is not lifted, place thin pieces of wood to raise it off the base slightly. This will save you from unnecessarily frittering the heat generated inside the log cabin.
At times the bottom of the log home turns to be damp. This also forces the floor to soak heat from the cabin. To prevent dampness, the best thing that can be used is a moisture resistance membrane. This will keep the underneath of the floor dry and moist free.
The voids and Gaps
The log cabins are built using solid logs and potent wooden blocks. Thus, reducing the chance of air and water sweeping in. However, keep in mind that your log home is a pack of wooden logs cohered together perfectly. So, if not put together correctly, it could lead to several cracks and openings between your logs.
It will allow the freezing wind to enter your cabin. Therefore, to keep your log home warm and comfy, it becomes necessary to identify and mend all the gaps in your walls or on the roof.
All the spots where the logs will be joined becomes the possible pathway for air leaks. It includes the corners, window frames, and door edges. To prevent this, you should keep a check on your log cabin every couple of months and should ensure that no voids have appeared. Even a small gap between the logs can cause a massive air leak, making your log cabin cold and uncomfortable.
Remember to keep an eye on chinking to confirm that they appropriately seal the gap between the woods. This needs to be taken care of at the time of building the log home as well as after that. Continuously checking your cabin will make you aware of a gap that has the potential to become a big hole, and it will save you from incurring a hefty amount on a repair.
Endnotes
Owning a log cabin is in itself a fantastic feeling as you have a stunning place to spend your free time with your family and friends. Moreover, spending a few cold nights during winters around the fireplace in your log home will wipe off all your worries and uneasiness.
On the other hand, this could become annoying if your log home is not sufficiently insulated and cannot keep you warm. Thus, it becomes essential to keep a check on the insulating requirements of your log cabin. Pay proper attention to the maintenance of your cabin.
We hope this article cleared all your doubts regarding the insulation of your log cabin. Applying the provided ways to insulate your cabin will help you keep the inside of your log home warm and comfortable.
Follow the tips and enjoy your quality time with family with a rustic touch!
