Home production offers more options now than ever before. Largely thanks to the combination of an exploding population and modern material marvels. These days, you chose exactly what you want and in what size, not just what’s available.
Material choice factors in strongly to the cost and longevity of a structure. One of these modern marvellous materials is glulam. Glulam log cabins make an excellent choice for a home or business thanks to their price point, workability, an strength.
Glulam, short for glued laminated timber, uses already useful wood and enhances it. Laminated materials provide strength and flexibility. As a building material, it’s been around since the 1900s but it’s been effective in making excellent bows since 2100 BCE.
Read on to learn everything this material offers your building project.
Customizable
Natural wood has variable strength based on the grain and presence of abnormalities cush as knots. The glulam process retains quality throughout.
This comes from how the process combines already strong wood components and arranges them consistently. The same way that steel gains strength from orderly carbon bonds, glulam gains through alignment of similar grain.
This end result of the glulam process makes wood of different lengths that retain the features of longer pieces. This while costing less per board-foot.
Since the material works to your specifications, not the other way around, any shape and size you dream can become your new space. Check out a gallery of projects and see just how many looks it can achieve.
High Performance
Glulam structures aren’t just strong, they are stronger than equivalent weights of more common building materials. In this case, the comparison is between steel, concrete, and untreated wood.
Glulam easily beats out other processed woods.
- Plywood – Used to create breakaway furniture in movies for a reason
- Microlam beams – Resembles plywood in a worrying way
- Laminated Veneer Lumber (LVL)- Uses larger pieces with less emphasis on grain unity
- Oriented strandboard (OSB) – Both unattractive and comparatively weak
Glulam beam strength comes in at 1.5+ in strength/weight ratio when compared to steel. These tests were for beam constructions, so horizontal structures holding vertical loads.
Steel has its place as most glulam construction uses steel plates and bolts for joining.
Easy to Work With
Buildings don’t need to be stronger overall. Architecture and building engineering account for ratios when planning a structure. You don’t load in the same weight of glulam as you would steel, it’s about the result.
Because of glulam’s better ratio, you end up with lighter building materials. this translates into easier work for construction crews or the DIY crowd.
Builders often struggle to work with materials in tight corners. Doubly so when shoring up unconventional angles at a wall or ceiling. Lighter materials remove the need for some of the cranes and braces that would be used in these instances.
Fewer machines make for faster construction and less damage when retrofitting an area.
Safety Enhanced
Glulam materials provide better safety features than steel or concrete.
Manufacturers add antifungal and antibacterial solutions to treat glulam. This keeps it from infiltration and weathering.
Chemical weathering, caused by pollution, is common in industrial areas and urban settings. This corrosive effect discolours concrete and east away steel faster than glulam.
The most impressive safety feature is in the heat resistant qualities. Glulam laminated lumber survived temperatures of 900 degrees Celsius. Even at those temperatures, the material charred, reducing in volume rather than buckling.
At these same temperatures, concrete crumbles and steel buckles. After more than 30 minutes of high temp exposure, glulam only suffered 2 cm of damage.
Natural wood contains pitch and irregularities that create heat expansion and uneven temperatures. That’s the crackles and pops heard in a fireplace. Those irregularities get removed during the manufacturing process.
Cost-Effective
Since you pay for less material for the same strength, you reduce costs. Getting the right sizes of pieces without needing to cut and fit reduces waste.
Glulam components cost less in general as the manufacturers are able to use scrap material from other lumber manufacturing. This reduces the cost to you and enhances value to the environment. Fewer trees are needed to create a superior material.
Using glulam further reduces construction costs due to the lack of specialized equipment to work with it. No need for hot welding, special fasteners, or industrial-strength boring.
The Beauty of Glulam Log Cabins
The biggest advantage of using a wood-based material is beauty. hardwoods have a natural warmth and sheen. The colour of the material and pleasant weave of the wood grain are retained in manufacturing.
The end result brings all the lustre and aroma of a natural wood structure. All of this while retaining the qualities mentioned above.
In addition, you gain the other benefits of wood that affect the senses, though not always directly.
Ambience
Temperature control within a glulam log cabin is excellent. It retains heat in the winter and blocks it in the summer. The density of the material cuts down on power bills.
It isn’t just density, either. The process of manufacturing dries the wood considerably without cracking. This drier wood is able to absorb more moisture. For those living in warm, wet climates, this material outlasts other woods.
Thanks, to the antifungal treatment, you don’t have to worry about mildew or mould creeping in either. That reduces asthma issues and takes away the sometimes musty smell of older wood buildings.
Acoustics
Sounds travel better in a wooden structure. the tinny, sometimes echoey effect of a larger steel supported room, dissipate. The wood absorbs sound without bouncing it, making it better for soundproofing.
For a business structure, this provides an overall reduction in carry-through chatter and keyboard clacking.
For a home, this means less problem with televisions, radios, and playful children storming through the upstairs.
Come Home
Don’t just build a structure for now. Glulam log cabins deliver long-term stability with strength and beauty.
Contact us for more information on cost and availability in your area.
Have you read our article: Log House Log Cabins – Best Price Guarantee