Log Cabins - Second Homes Or Not

Log cabins make great all year round homes even in the UK and as a matter of fact, they are fundamentally small houses but instead of bricks, you have logs! They are built to a very simple design and can occasionally be referred to as garden cabins as well as log cabins.

Log cabins make excellent all year round places to live even in the United Kingdom and as a matter of fact, they are really small houses but instead of bricks, you have logs! They are built to a very uncomplicated design and can sometimes be referred to as log houses as well as log cabins. Although log houses and log cabins are built from the similar materials they do have some differences; log cabins are usually constructed with circular rather than hewn or hand-worked wood where as log houses tend be a one story assembly, with an almost “less finished” appearance (unlike the log cabins) as these were initially constructed with the intention of being short-term.
 
Whilst folks think of log cabins, they tend to immediately think of rustic and rural North America with their traditional log houses and barns? Well, did you know that log cabins have there roots in Eastern Europe and possibly even originated in Scandinavia around the Bronze Age (probably around about 3500 BC)? They are constructed by stacking tree trunks one on top of another and then arranging them in such a way as to overlap at the corners and then notch the logs at the ends. Hundreds of years previously the time-honoured design was to incorporate moss and other soft materials into the joints to make them more weather tight and they would even throw over animal skins! But as you would suppose in most parts of the world now especially in the UK, other, more convenient materials other than moss and animal skins are frequently used!
 
People still love to retain a feel of tradition and surprisingly log cabins are still a common choice of housing in some parts of the United Kingdom, Europe and America. They make a good option to the regular type homes that you see today and are much cheaper to build, run and can even seem very noticeable especially in the colder regions of the north. They can however be constructed using logs of varying thickness to add to there appeal, in addition the thicker logs provide improved insulation. You can either buy ready-constructed cabins or even build your own with a pre-milled log cabin kit if you want, along with the additional benefit of being more money efficient.

If you are considering buying a log cabin in the UK that has been constructed for you there are a few things that you may need to think about firstly; it may seem evident however you ought to make sure that you have enough ground and measure everything! You will also want to think carefully about its positioning and which direction your log cabin is facing before you build it and you will want to make sure that there is somewhere near by where you can obtain services such as a sewer, water and electricity, as you can image these things are especially significant unless you really want to go rough and go back to nature. Once you have found the precise location you can very easily obtain log cabin kits on the internet, these are becoming more popular than purchasing a pre-built log cabin from another owner as you can get it built to your own tastes plus you get the added pleasure of creating a home all of your own.

Whatever you choose to do you will as a rule, have to get hold of a building permit, which for log cabins should be a straightforward process. However, building permits may differ from county to county.

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