Featured Log Builder: Honest Abe Lob Homes
Honest Abe Log Homes have been in business since 1979, starting as a simple log house manufacturer in Moss, Tennessee and have developed into a strong company built on trust with a focus on family. The company's rich family heritage has been the staple of Honest Abe for more than three decades.
Featured Log Builder: Honest Abe Lob Homes
Honest Abe Log Homes produce quality log houses with the best building materials, craftsmanship and value. To start, Honest Abe Log Homes selects the best wood species of Eastern White Pine for use in the wall logs, support posts, log sidings, blocking, porch posts, porch rafters, porch plates, and railings. The reason for this is that it's the least resinous of all pines, with few instances of bleeding logs, along with being stable and not shrinking or swelling significantly with changes in moisture.
Featured Log Builder: Honest Abe Lob Homes
Eastern White Pine has less settling to contend with in log walls; it is a major species for reforestation and is an affordable, renewable resource. Using Eastern White Pine allows for a lower cost for log house packages, time tested and proven, one of the most used wood species in the log home industry and one of highest R-values of all wood species. This wood also has superior energy efficiency, easy to work and mill, moderately light in weight and results in a precisely milled, and excellent fitting product.
Featured Log Builder: Honest Abe Lob Homes
Other benefits of Easter White Pine include easier to handle without the use of heavy equipment, strong, warps and checks less than other wood species, suited for strong log walls, fewer construction concerns and more aesthetically pleasing walls, durable, dependable over time, moderately resistant to rot and insects., and if properly maintained it will last a lifetime. Eastern White Pine readily accepts decorative stains and protective finishes. The first log houses that were manufactured by Honest Abe were made from Yellow Poplar logs, just as the log homes of early settlers to their company's native Tennessee had been.
Featured Log Builder: Honest Abe Lob Homes
Poplar, however, was a wood species that proved less than ideal for modern log house manufacturing. It was a difficult wood to mill, as it cracked excessively and was hard to obtain in longer lengths. Several other wood species were also tried by Honest Abe Log Homes to include Yellow Pine, which is still in use today by many log house companies, the wood twisted and warped, and was rejected by Honest Abe.
Featured Log Builder: Honest Abe Lob Homes
Hemlock was a wood species that was difficult to mill and splintered badly. Eastern White Pine was the wood species with the most favorable characteristics and as a result, has been used exclusively by Honest Abe since. Honest Abe Log Homes use Douglas Fir for the heavy timber rafters, wall tie trusses, collar ties, ceiling beams, girders and timber frame components of their log house designs.
Featured Log Builder: Honest Abe Lob Homes
Douglas Fir is the most plentiful of the North American softwood species, and because of its abundance, it is affordable. It is naturally dimensionally stable, can season well in the position, virtually eliminating twisting of the timbers. Douglas Fir has superior strength to weight ratio and is ideally suited for structural beams.