Need logs for log home construction

[SmileSurferStyl]

Brand new here and 1st post. I'm looking at buying a piece of property in East Tenn. area and want to build a log home. I have a lot of questions but my biggest question is price of logs delivered to the site. Just a ballpark figure to try and wrap my head around what it might cost to get the shell up. I would love to know what species are available in the area. Prices for all of them. Just flood me with as much info as possible would be awesome. 1000sq ft and 4 walls.

[bushhog920]

I give the local loger $12 Ton for pine. that is what he gets at the big mills here in central Alabama. Don't have a scale so we use a log weight calculator app and I pay him by that.

[mike_belben]

Where in eTN?

[Don P]

Eastern White Pine is running $225-$300/ MBF here.

[starmac]

12 bucks a ton, is that a typo, or is a 30 ton load really just worth 360.00 bucks?

[BargeMonkey]

Honestly putting up a log home without using logs that have been treated is futal unless your just making a shack. We have a couple here within 1 mile of me, came from a good manufacturer in the 80s-90s but the maintenance was never kept up, I'm taking the excavator to 1 of them come spring. 
Good pine logs bring 225-300, slammer pine can bring more. Yeah pine pulp brings nothing, I'm getting 375 bucks for 5 tiers going to a shavings mill near Albany. 

[gump]

Honestly putting up a log home without using logs that have been treated is futal unless your just making a shack.

I hope I am misunderstanding you on this Barge. My cabin has been built 26 years now and I have absolutely no rot anywhere on any log. The logs I used were cut right on site and cabin built with "green" logs. Now, that being said I have been staining the logs regularly. In the initial years I would stain every year. I use a Flood product called CWF. After the first four years I backed off to every other year or skipped a few. I know this structure will be standing another 30 years! If that is what you mean by treated I understand. Because they do have to be treated. Overall staining or treating logs is a bit of work but not overwhelming. There should be no reason not to build a log home if you are aware that there is some maintenance involved. In my mind no different than building a home with wood siding or board and batten.

[Riwaka]

There are a number of YouTube log house building videos. Worse than a giant jigsaw puzzle. Log house builder has to determine which log is best suited to which position in the construction.
You might see some of the quicker builders have two cranes on site some days to speed up the build.
The final product  can be about how well the crane operator works with the log house builder, in getting the right log in the right place.
example build - colorado - see how key the crane/ operator is in this.
Handcrafted Log Home Build Set up - YouTube 

Logs for log houses are usually carefully chosen in some areas. It is a story of the log home builder having a working relationship with loggers to put aside the logs good enough for log homes. (Obviously some places have a higher quantity and the logs are found with ease).

Tennessee Prices | Timber Update
The In-Depth Guide to Timber Products | Timber Update  

https://extension.tennessee.edu/publications/documents/pb1756.pdf

Think about heating at the start of the planning process. Offgrid supplied energy etc.
Radiant Heat For Your Log Home or Timber Frame Home - Radiantec

[scouter Joe]

Log homes can and do last for 100s of years . Like other homes they need to be designed  properly . log homes need to have generous roof over hangs at the eaves and the gable ends . Also keep the logs well above the ground level . Water is the problem . If you can keep the water away from the logs they will last indefinatly . Wrap around porches are the ideal . Then the only treatment needed is to keep the bugs away . 
The last logs I bought were 165 dollars per ton plus delivery . You have to realize that there is a lot of extra work to pick and separate good building logs . Also taking the best logs out is high grading and lowers the grade of his remaining logs making them more difficult to sell . I needed top grade logs as this was my business and I was not going to stay in business very long building with pulp grade logs . Even for myself I would only look for the best and my supplyer knows this .

[starmac]

The logger I originally hauled for, seperated and sold house logs. It is a pain. They were all spruce, and pretty straight spruce, but I doubt if one log for every 100 or more cut would be house log suitable for a custom house builder.

Then you have to haul them to a storage lot and store them off the ground, if not sold by spring, you have to have them peeled, and then you might sit on them till the next year.

After all the trouble and expense, he would get 8 bucks a lineal foot for them though. There was no board foot or tonnage involved.

Pulp here, when we had a market was 50 a ton. Anything that was a sawlog was 385 a thousand.

All I do is haul the logs, but 350 a load is the very cheapest load that has ever gone on my truck. 99% of loads have been 5 to 550, house logs we usually sold down towards Anchorage, which was 250 to 300 miles one way, and I get 2,000 grand for that, paid by the buyer.

I started on a new sale today. There is 3 different loggers working on this one sale, One of the other logging companies is the biggest and he started hauling yesterday, half of the trucks quit and didn't come back today, so he sent a hand down to see if they had 2 loads for me today, and since they didn't would I haul one for them. Pay was 475, so I just said no, and I better make a call because I am not hauling these for anything close to that either.

I talked to them at the mill because the guy that unloaded me said they were going to use a couple of the native corp logging trucks, so I went and talked to the boss, and told him to let me know what day they were going to try that, so I would not try and haul that day. lol

[BargeMonkey]

Honestly putting up a log home without using logs that have been treated is futal unless your just making a shack.

I hope I am misunderstanding you on this Barge. My cabin has been built 26 years now and I have absolutely no rot anywhere on any log. The logs I used were cut right on site and cabin built with "green" logs. Now, that being said I have been staining the logs regularly. In the initial years I would stain every year. I use a Flood product called CWF. After the first four years I backed off to every other year or skipped a few. I know this structure will be standing another 30 years! If that is what you mean by treated I understand. Because they do have to be treated. Overall staining or treating logs is a bit of work but not overwhelming. There should be no reason not to build a log home if you are aware that there is some maintenance involved. In my mind no different than building a home with wood siding or board and batten.

If maintained properly, I've been around 4-5 of them here local and to be honest even with the maintenance done I still want no part of a log home. One customer of mine has a nice cabin sourced with local wood, had a couple bad sticks, by the time they patched them in, shell blasted the cabin and treated it he was over 30k, it's not over 25yrs old. The one I've got to tear down isn't that old, 88-90? it was put up, probably only coated a couple times, it's not even suitable for firewood 😂 

[starmac]

Barge, what kind of wood is it. The reason I ask is there was a shell built up here and never roofed, nor treated. It was big logs, but I know for a fact it sat there like that for a good 10 years, It was there when I came to this part of the country, anyway it was still solid and they sold it to a guy that took it apart and moved it. It looked weathered, but I doubt it was ever treated, maybe it held up because it didn't have a roof and the sun could get inside too. I don't know, but humidity is very low here too.

I built a small building for my neighbor 3 years ago, sided with board and batten, he never put anything on it and it looks almost as if it came off the saw last week, I don't know why that is either, both are white spruce.

[Woodpecker52]

Building a home in the northwest, Canada, Montana is different than in the deep dank south, High Humidity, moisture, termites, beetles and mother nature will destroy a untreated log in 4 months on the ground.  If you do a log cabin you had better prepare for the worst and fast.  Get it up out of the humidity zone at least 3 feet, Keep plants away,  put at least a 4 foot overhang around the entirety, Treat the logs before and after up, stain the logs and seal the ends,  spray with insecticide every year, have a good plan on chinking, and what to do with log settling, gaps, cracks etc. and be prepared for higher utility bills.

[BargeMonkey]

Barge, what kind of wood is it. The reason I ask is there was a shell built up here and never roofed, nor treated. It was big logs, but I know for a fact it sat there like that for a good 10 years, It was there when I came to this part of the country, anyway it was still solid and they sold it to a guy that took it apart and moved it. It looked weathered, but I doubt it was ever treated, maybe it held up because it didn't have a roof and the sun could get inside too. I don't know, but humidity is very low here too.

I built a small building for my neighbor 3 years ago, sided with board and batten, he never put anything on it and it looks almost as if it came off the saw last week, I don't know why that is either, both are white spruce.

I want to say those homes where spruce, so far gone it's hard to tell. The one I saw repaired was redpine. 
 90% of what we own is done in 1x10 -1×3 Board and batten, very little issues with it. saw mill has been treated with 1/2 diesel, 1/2 used motor oil, gives it that rustic look 😂