Week Ending 06/28/10

We did! We had a Workshop on Saturday June 26 and to say it was different is truly understated and to say we had a crowd is an insane overstatement, but to say it might have been the most enjoyable six plus hours with only two people is much closer to the truth. Why was this so? It had everything to do with the two people and why they were investing there time for this experience. Their interest was far from casual ……….intense might not even be a good adjective to describe their interest. They were even intently interested in BC Fireside and what led to its creation. It was my great pleasure to really go back all the way to my childhood and trace the steps that gave birth to the company and the commitment. Had it been some one with less interest, they would have bolted the Workshop before it ever got off the ground. To reveal a little more about their interest, folks normally start arriving around  9:30 a.m. for a 10:00 a.m. beginning. They were both here at 8:30, well before I arrived. Thank God for people who appreciate log homes for whatever their reasons.

The make up of this “two’s a crowd” Workshop was a chemical engineer, freshly retired from a major international oil and chemical company and a young man who had served his country in the high tech, top secret end of the arm forces, but who, after his service, actually built some Fireside Log Homes with a dealer/builder that we had in West Virginia several years back. The common threads between these two, they both had roots in West Virginia and a love for log homes. It took no more than this to build a wonderful day, and, as most often happens, it was I who got the greater charge from the day. Their life experiences and interest, blended with the “on the JOB training” that I have enjoyed for 26 years, led to me having more revelations than they did. There were lively exchanges on many topics, all about life and how log homes enhance it. At any rate, it was pure fun for me and they seemed to enjoy it, or at least they were very patient and tolerant with me. This bit of bonding that occurred on Saturday, will likely lead to a long, long relationship with all concerned. Count me as grateful for the opportunity and hopeful and excited about the possibilities.

Have a great week leading up to our 4th celebration and, I pray that as a nation, we can recapture the spirit in our country that enabled our forefathers to see it through and may we truly be the moral leaders in the free world.

The best to you and yours,

Don

Week Ending 06/11/10

To Blog or not to Blog is not really the question, but getting it done and posting the thoughts is the challenge. To say the least, our overhead is at a low point because of reasons you can easily guess. Hopefully, it is improving, but prudence with a pinch of caution is the recipe for the moment. Making excuses for something I enjoy doing and have not done sounds like a total waste of time and print. Forgive me.

Reporting on phone calls and emails received is a great activity for me, …it gives me a chance to consider the exchange again and to keep them fresh and in most instances, it prompts some growth on our part to serve a particular need. In these times we consider every possibility no matter what size and the only real limiting factor is the distance from Ellijay to wherever the caller maybe located. If you do not want to read about a conversation we might have had or an interchange of some sort being reported in this column, then it might be best that you do not contact us. My promise to you however, is that what you will find here will always be positive and, I pray, is instructive, and never negative and distasteful.  There is far too much of the latter already available on any subject you choose to pick. This exercise is about encouraging you in the pursuit of your dream, whether it is in acquiring a log home or in determining a better way to care for your home. There might be a little bit of the author’s philosophy thrown in for good measure. Please try to be tolerant with me and I will gladly return the favor.

The most heart warming of the calls and emails is from a former customer from the ‘90’s. It seems that a mother and her older son are teaming up to put a Fireside Log Home to an extraordinary use. The son has been serving as a foster parent to seven children who are all brothers and sisters. My understanding is that these children are in a desperate situation and if a caring soul does not break this circumstance, their future is dim. Well, I wish I knew more of the story and at some point I will. This story is about LOVE and I believe Love will WIN out in these children’s lives. In fact, for them, it sounds like a fairy tale unfolding as they will go from whatever their living situation was to living in A Fireside Log Home on a beautiful lake in central Georgia. The Fireside contact was to help in the design of the home’s expansion and then carrying out the project. For all the right reasons, we will apply the Fireside touch to this project and this wonderful unfolding story.

Our older homes are creating a lot of interest and such is the case with the call last week from a couple who is not the original owners of this particular home, but are the second owners and they are exultant, The contact was only to report their pleasure and their gratitude and to relate their story. They offered to give their testimony about their experience and to send pictures. Here are their comments in their words: “Ten years ago we discovered a beautiful log home in the midst of a fairy tale woods right in Cumming, and we bought it on the spot. Now we had a gorgeous log home retreat, yet we were close enough to downtown Atlanta for our daily commute. The home was 5 years old when we bought it, and the next ten years we often consulted with Fireside Log Homes on suggested maintenance (which turned out to be surprisingly easy) and on the possibility of erecting similar structures. We can’t say enough about the level of professionalism and the genuine interest and care from the staff. They became like family to us. We are moving overseas, and already the home is generating great market interest. It is a testament to Fireside Log Homes superior quality and ease of care, that our 15 year old log home looks as enchanting as the day after it was built.”                           Steve and Sandra.

We thank Steve and Sandra for their kind words and for just coming out of the blue to express their thoughts. It is gratifying to know that what we seek to do with all of our might actually makes a difference and causes some folks to truly express themselves passionately about their experience. Thank you.

In the eighties, we were involved in helping create a log church in Hiram, GA. The church was built with western red cedar logs and followed a tradition in this churches’ heritage, which is rooted in the Russian Orthodox Church. As you might recall from pictures, the Russian Orthodox Church had very ornate churches that were adorned with cylindrical and domed steeples. What you probably never thought about was that these steeples were built out of wood. This means they had dedicated wood craftsmen in the extreme. Well, this church in Hiram does not have a domed steeple, but it is only because it was too much of a stretch to accomplish it. The minister sure wanted one. And this desire led to a lot of contact and considerations. But, about five or six years ago, Fireside did participate in helping design and construct a fellowship hall out of logs. We did a “log raising “on this structure on a freezing cold January Saturday and had wonderful participation by the church members and others. Part of the Blessing of the structure and the day was the pastor, with robe on, walking around the floor, sprinkling the structure and the participants. We have experienced lots of blessings, but nothing to equal this one. Now, we come to June of 2010, and Father Andrew calls about another possibility. Retirement is approaching distantly yet, but still approaching. He and his wife are thinking about a very modest cabin to call home until their quarters really expand. We have a perfect plan for this situation, when the goal is to minimize everything. I have great hopes that this does move forward, so Fireside can once again, and with great gratitude, help make life the best it can be here on earth, with a great place to call HOME for this dedicated minister and wife who have been a part of the Fireside story for almost 25 years.

We do not get a lot of calls from California, but we got one this past week. We have shipped homes to California, but it has been a rare happening. This prospect indicates that he has a friend that has been after him for years to call Fireside because of his expressed interest to build a log home in SE Colorado. Yes we have some homes there at 8000’ elevations and above. Does that remind you of John Denver for any reason? The real shocker is that this individual wants to participate in a “log raising”. From California to Ellijay, GA for a LOG RAISING? Wow!!! This gentleman really wants to understand what he is doing and how it all works and is prepared to invest himself into the process. Good for him and good for Fireside!!! This would be the furthest an individual has traveled to attend one of these events.

Thank you for these contacts and the interest. We have to convert your interest into not only a super fine home, but to one of the best experiences you have ever had. May it be so!

Have a Great Week!

Don

Week Ending 05/21/10

Every week I come face to face with a quote that sends me into a wonderful state of contemplative thought. This particular quote came from an often quoted Greek philosopher, Aristotle. He actually preceded Christ by 400 years, but the wisdom he imparted needs to find its way into our being and, if it does, we will all be the richer for it.

The quote, “Praise invariably implies a reference to a higher standard”, is a definite thought provoker for yours truly. It is easy to think about the praise we receive and we all cherish it, but a more productive line of thought stimulated by this quote is do we use praise often enough in our daily lives, is it truly sincere and how can we make it more meaningful. Admittedly, I do not use it often enough especially for the power it can have in improving our life and the lives of those around us and that goes for every one and, maybe most especially, family, but certainly everyone that is important to us should be singled out often to receive our praise. Since I have been stimulated, I will continue on with this thought and state that I know that this consciousness about praise should become very real to each of us, becoming as natural to our functioning as breathing. Achieving this, I believe we would each promote an ever improving environment around us, thereby getting and witnessing more of what we truly desire . Praise begets more of what gets praised. It is an effect and an activity that produces positive emotions for the person doing the praising and, certainly for the person receiving.

This quote has hit its mark with me. If you want to check out what it has done to change me personally and to change Fireside, just call us and be prepared to be praised for just the phone call alone, but with some conversation and exploration, we will find many things to compliment you about and praise you like you might have never been praised. And, should you choose Fireside as your log home supplier and possibly, your builder, the praises will have just begun. You are going to feel like Fireside is ready to crown you and put you on the throne. That is precisely the way we want you to feel, and in turn, we want to have done our job so well, that you will not be able to keep this joyful experience to yourself. It is truly about EXCELLENCE and going all out to achieve it. And, we mean it equally for the products and the relationship and service.

I PRAISE you for investing your time with me and with Fireside and I wish you an exceptional week that is full of PRAISES.

Don

Week Ending 05/14/10

Will the log home industry ever be the same and, for that matter, will the housing industry ever be the same?  The answer is “no”.  Can this resulting change be a good thing or is it all about destruction and dissolving?  How you think about this and the future is a test of your optimistic or pessimistic nature and most people are a blend of both so they tend to work out this assessment internally.  My response to my own question is, “thank God we live in a country where capitalism is and will be the basis for our economic system.”  Yes, I state this hopefully because of the signs that we could give in to a more government dominated society, often times referred to as socialism.  I strongly believe that we will sense what is happening and we will turn the tide back to a “government for the people and by the people.”  As long as we maintain our freedoms and the “profit” incentive exists (not taxed out of existence), this period of constriction will be a healthy thing and companies will improve products and systems, and reshape their companies to function well in a more sustainable way.  Sustainable will become a more meaningful word and expression, and it will refer to “operating in a world without artificial stimulus, but rather responding to real demand and the very real interest of the consumer.”

Where does Fireside stand in all of this?  I pray that we are right in the middle of it with both feet planted firmly on the good earth, with our auditory sensory perception functioning at a high level.  When you are expressing what you really desire, we want to hear it with our whole nervous system and we want to respond in a way that is most responsible.  If what you express does not line up with what we believe will be a long term good experience in your home, expect to get some “coaching” from Fireside.  Our intention is to know about and to educate, first ourselves, and then you, the array of features in log homes that make for the very best experience in every way for you.  The focus is on two things primarily and they are, 1) comfort and the cost of creating it, and, 2) maintenance and all of the ways it can be minimized.  Homes that are inspiring and just plain fun to live in plays a big part in all of what we do, but that is both the attraction to log homes and the natural benefit for choosing this housing alternative.  It is “Mother Nature’s” provision and we are committed to helping it be the very best it can be and comfort at a low cost and maintenance demand that is minimalized is and will be the Fireside way!  You can count on us to deliver!

Have a great weekend and log home future!

Don

There are questions.  Maybe you have some based on what you read from week to week in these few paragraphs.  One question might be, “how can you remain so positive and forward looking with so many people in a difficult position job wise, income wise, asset wise and other wise?”  The simple answer is that I choose this path for my own life even if my personal world might seem to be caving in on itself.  And, that certainly could be the case from those who know me and what I am dealing with at the moment.  However, turning the tide or changing the current reality cannot be engineered by giving in to circumstances and flowing down stream rapidly.  I choose to pursue a vision that involves service in the area of log homes and in log homes eventually being recognized as the ultimate green home. 

Another question, with seemingly so many good prospects, is “just how much business is Fireside doing right now?”  The short answer is, “not enough to hardly justify being here”, but if we were not here and serving those that want to be served and answering their questions and helping them develop their plans, we would not be able to serve them when their stars line up and for a goodly number, that is going to happen still yet in 2010.  Yet another question might be, “where can we get the lowest rate on a construction/permanent loan for construction to start immediately?”  I wish I knew.  If I did, I would gladly tell you and dozens of others!  My best advice is to start where you have a current, and hopefully long term, relationship.  Listen intently to what they say their policies are for construction and mortgage lending and see how well you can conform to these policies and guidelines.  It is a changed world and you have got to be extremely diligent to achieve your dream.

To veer away from log homes for a moment, but to continue the questioning routine, you might ask, “how are you going to honor your deceased Mother this Mother’s Day?”  I am glad you ask.  It is going to be a special Mother’s Day that certainly and consciously honors my one-of-a-kind Mother, who many thought to be a saint (I was among this number.)  The plan is already in place for my wife to be lavished with love and appreciation at a special restaurant, in a special location, surrounded by her special children and her six grandchildren, the lights of her life.  It will be a day to long be remembered and to cherish!  My wishes go out to all of you Mothers that your special day will bring you abundant love from every direction!

This goes along with my favorite call of the week.  Yes there were business calls and inspiring calls, but the one I will remember above the others, is a childhood friend calling about a planned get together to be probably the last time that this group can gather totally, as one is not doing well physically and will not be with us on this earth much longer.  The person calling was a quiet and shy young person who grew well into manhood and became the communication officer for the U.S. Army in the S.E. with a heart as big as a barn.  May he be honored for his honoring and life long caring and friendship.

As we enter this special annual weekend, and travel down memory lane, a closing question can be, “where would we be without our Mothers and their love?”

May it all be good!

Don

Week Ending 04/30/10

The month of April is pretty well spent.  And, just as I and the rest of the housing world has hoped, folks are beginning to dust off their old plans and create new ones.  It is a good time to be alive and have an opportunity to serve these folks who refused to be totally dismayed by the negative news makers, and who realize the brighter future is to a large extent in their hands.  We applaud your grit and we desire greatly to be part of your support team that helps you realize your dream, whether it be a modest little cabin that is your true retreat or a bodacious lodge where the whole family and the endless extended family can gather for special occasions.  We have both of these in the works presently and we get excited equally for the owners and their families.

It is a treat for me to consider the various phone calls and visitors of the week.  My favorite this week was from a gentleman who resides on the Caribbean Island of St. Croix.  Needless to say he is a survivor of many hurricanes, but the one he remembers most is Hugo, which managed to do him physical harm in the way of a broken jaw.  He knows that a log home rightly secured to its foundation will withstand these natural forces much better than other means of construction.  Other than winds of 150+ mph, his concern is about temperatures that can soar and be sustained in this tropical environment.  His other consideration has been walls of solid concrete, which would give him the strength and the protection he desires, but this dense mass of material has a way of capturing the heat of the day and holding on to it well into the night. This, as opposed to logs, which have the strength naturally, but not near the mass and conveniently, due to the cellular structure, would actually provide some insulation from the heat of the day.  Logs then offer this educated gentleman the best of both worlds, strength, some mass, and some reasonable insulation.  And, Fireside, thanks to Process 2000, offers him a log that should never be threatened by termites, another of his concerns.  I think we are on the way to providing him peace of mind and a secure future.  Yes we can!  And it is both the nature of wood and our treating process that accomplish this.

Another call is the kind that gives me the warm fuzzy feeling that to a large extent is the best part of the compensation for being in this business.  A gentleman called who is in the timber industry.  He is a logger, and it is always a thrill for me to talk with these guys who love what they do and they have such an appreciation for trees that they want to surround themselves with them, in their very own “tree house”, which they would not dare call it!  In fact, when they say “log home”, it is with a tone of great reverence.  I understand them!  The best part of this story however is that he knows one of our homeowners of many years past and one of our builders in the southern part of the state that built his own custom “Fireside” log home.  Both told him that if he was building with logs, he cannot do better than Fireside!  Being remembered in a positive manner is a wonderful thing!

Wrapping it up this week, I will give you a “heads up” about what I will refer to as “Tricia’s Story”!  Tricia came to Fireside this week through many far reaching referrals.  She wants a log home of her own, but recognizes it is going to be a stretch to get one, but she did happen through the doors of a company that is accustomed to stretching also to help folks achieve their dream of log home ownership…because we recognize that it is life giving and inspirational living!  Tricia is the grandmother of nine whose husband passed away several years ago and she is living off of disability income.  Can we help her?  We are going to do everything in our power to help her achieve her wish and make it a home that every one of her grandchildren will have fond memories of visiting.  Does it sound like a fairy tale?  Let’s just see what we can make of it – “Tricia’s Story”!

In your service, and wishing you a great weekend!

Don

Week Ending 04/23/10

The greenest home that we will have ever had a part in creating is now in the planning stage.  The owner-to-be of this creation actually worked for a major oil/energy producer and my thought is that her observations in the course of her career motivated her to think about the natural forces of nature and how she and her household could fit in without negatively impacting the environment and, if any way possible, contribute positively to improving it.  Is she an idealist?  Of course she is and I personally applaud her course and we will do all we can to make it the very best it can be.  My firm belief is that she will be almost shocked at how well it all works and the logs, the sun, the siting of the home and even the basement (the earths temperature) will all play a major role in creating comfort and a really healthy environment.  Stay tuned to this.  This is what the future of Fireside will be mostly about.

Really interesting people continue to show up on our doorstep and one of the most interesting this week was a couple from Florida who both arrived and departed like angels.  Why do I say this?  They were light hearted and so warm that they brightened the whole place and they were like this from the time they arrived until they left.  He is American by birth, of English descent, and she is Chinese and putting two and two together, without asking the questions.  They met in Vietnam when he was in the service for our country and they have obviously been enamored with each other for 39 years!  He is on a path to create her a log home that incorporates many of the features that the Chinese consider essential to the healthiest and best life.  Again, it is our great hope to participate with them in this venture and intriguing love story.  Here is a real twist and shocker:  he is still involved at a high level in the defense of our country!  It all makes me feel much better about the prospects of our world!

There is more than one love story that we have a current chance in which to be involved.  In fact, almost every log home involves a love story of some sort.  We are finishing one right now that involves a single gentleman that is basically in love with life and is fulfilling his dream of creating his own log home in the North Georgia mountains!  It has been our extreme pleasure to serve him in his quest.  The log home is now the result of many people who love what they do and put the full force of who they are into their work.  It all makes me grateful for just having the opportunity to be involved in the process with so many people that care to the nth degree about what they do.

The next “Log Raising” is an unknown.  In fact, I think the next time I mention it in this column, it will be to announce the time and place.  Amongst the folks that want to participate is a gentleman who is almost 900 miles from Ellijay.  He is so enthusiastic about attending one and having a hands-on experience that I would do one for him alone, but, my belief is that we will be overrun with people who want the experience.  Heights and distances are no problem for this individual anyway as his home site is at about 5,000’ elevation and probably not conducive to a “Log Raising” but check me out and see how well I hold to my commitment!

The clouds have rolled in and there is thunder in the background as Mother Nature cleanses our atmosphere once again of the abundant pollen!  May you be likewise refreshed!

Have a good weekend and week!

Don

Week Ending 04/16/10

How did you do?  You got a huge refund and you are convinced that you should move ahead with your log home now!  Do I hear an angelic choir singing “How Great Thou Art” in the background?  If this is your good fortune and your direction, you can count on Fireside to double your pleasure with our 2010 incentives.  We mean to help you in every way including flooring you with a beautiful prefinished real oak product.  If we contract with you to build your log home, whether a “Dry-In” or a “Turn-Key”, you get a home full of flooring at no charge.  We can’t believe we are offering this ourselves.

Today was a good day; an old relationship got renewed in a wonderful way.  This particular relationship had fallen apart for a variety of reasons, but none of them were worth losing a friend over, when there was great respect for the characters of the individuals involved.  But there was a parting, and as amicable as it could be.  And now we’ve jumped right through the healing hoops and down to talking about a mutual love, creating log homes and making customers delighted souls!  Thank you!  And that’s just what we are going to do together on a wonderfully designed custom log home!

Thank you for the ongoing interest in the elusive “Log Raising”!  We want to do it for all of you who continue to express interest in the event and we certainly want the homeowners to experience the exhilaration from the experience, so hang with us another week or so, and we should pin a date down before the spring expires!

This is going to be a short note this week.  Are you glad?  In parting, I want to leave you with another quote by Winston Churchill, certainly one of our greatest leaders of the 20th century and the man I credit with turning the tide against Hitler’s regime and he did it with his sheer will and determination.  This quote helps sum up the spirit of Winston Churchill, “one ought never to turn one’s back on a threatened danger and to run away from it.  If you do that, you will double the danger.  But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything.  Never!”  I pray that this will encourage you to be courageous in something you might be facing right now!  May God bless you going and coming!

Have a great weekend!

Don

Week Ending 04/09/10

The race is on for the April 15th deadline.  Yes I am in the race also and more motivated than ever before to “git r done”!  An interesting figure to know this year is what the total refund will be for both individuals and corporations.  It will be a substantial figure and, just maybe, that will be an economic stimulus.  If you are in the final hours of your preparation, breathe deeply and take my weather prediction to heart.  April 16th will bring a beautiful cloudless day across the country with moderate spring like temperatures and it will be a great day for you to plant something that you can see often and appreciate the wonder of nature.

Its not every day that someone walks through our doors at Fireside and immediately feels at home and like they belong right here, however it happened more than once this week.  But with one couple it was exceptional and within a day or two it was as if we had known each other forever and it even extended to friends of the couple that visited.  We had a chance to visit their property, which is in an area that is about as close to heaven on earth as you can get.  I mention this in case you do not have property yet.  It is the valley and surrounding mountains around the town of Young Harris, Georgia.  The area is so beautiful that the state of Georgia built a retreat conference center there called Brasstown, named after the highest peak in Georgia called Brasstown Bald, which in the early morning almost casts it shadow over the valley.  Anyway it is so beautiful that our prospective customers’ friends call their place their Georgia HOE Down.  Did you figure that one out?  HOE is Heaven On Earth!  Anyway we visited their property up the side of one of the mountains and discussed options on siting their home.  As is often the case, the customers idea about siting the home was pretty much right on based on a variety of considerations.  The grade is not challenging, in fact it is an almost perfect basement lot with only the elevation of the home to be correctly determined to make going and coming as easy and pleasant as possible and managing the water flow, which really all work together.  Of course at Fireside we believe that we can work so well with nature that the land and the environment will be extremely accepting and appreciative of what we do.  The basic principle is to treat it all in a kindly fashion.

Another growth event at Fireside was our landscape.  Our surrounding yard went from dormant to “call in the hay baler”!  Fortunately our lawn maintenance “guru” was keeping an eye on things and arrived just before we reached the hopeless stage.  It will now be every two weeks until well into November.  If you are fared with the same sort of maintenance attention, is it not time that you let nature bless you in the woods, with your own heavenly, Fireside creation!  We are ready to help!

May your weekend bless your spirit!

Don

Week Ending 04/02/10

Well it’s Good Friday!  Considering the meaning of this in the Christian faith, these few words will amplify all that is good in the world.  I just received an email yesterday that captured the love that abounds not just in mankind, but in all of nature.  In these series of pictures, a barn swallow had been hit by a vehicle but not killed instantly.  As it sat on the edge of the road, its mate came to it and brought food back to her hoping that would strengthen her to fly.  It was not to be and upon returning, he found his mate lifeless.  At this point he tried to move her, just maybe if he could get her back to the nest, she would revive.  This was more than he could manage and he was left to guard her and to cry out to God in his grief.  You could say that this series of pictures really captured the spirit of Christ and his followers in his last hours.  Why was the Godly person who had gone about the land healing the sick and preaching a hopeful message to all being persecuted like this?  No one could comprehend it, not his disciples, not his followers and not even the Roman authorities who did not want to persecute him, much less crucify him for what he had done, but God’s plan changed the world with these events. (Actually the sparrow photo's did not transfer to this web site, so if you want to see it, let me know and I'll email this blog to you with the photo's!)

This week I acted like the young buck that I was not long ago and drove 1,500 miles to Missouri and back, and visited with a customer in their log home that is still under construction.  You take a right on Crabtree Lane off of a straight country road and go a short distance to the end of it and there is no mistaking where the new log home is.  Wow!  It rises out of the ground like a pyramid and appears to be about as large as one, and it sits on a little knoll overlooking two small lakes between it and Crabtree Lane.  Our customer seems to be thrilled and delighted to have accomplished most of this through one of the hardest winters in recorded history.  It will remain a somewhat startling memory as I drove that long distance to witness this log home and celebrate the achievement with our customer!  Long live dreamers, and their dreams, who stick with them until they are fully realized!  Each of our log homes has a story like this or similar, about exercising great faith and overcoming one roadblock after another to realize “the higher calling” (can a log home be referred to as this? I say “yes”!)

If you are a potential “Log Raising Attendee”, you might go ahead and get registered because something could happen soon!  Sign up on-line or call the office, as this is a “heads up” on a small log cabin on a nearby mountaintop. It would be in Jasper, GA, just south of Ellijay.  It is not cast in stone but moving in that direction!

May you be blessed this weekend afresh by events that almost obscurely took place over 2,000 years ago!

Happy Easter!

Don

Week Ending 03/26/10

Life can absolutely be rushed sometimes, if we let it, and I am letting it in the moment!  I chose to pen this note when I have much before me this day that is greatly important in my mind and full of joy and pleasure.  But before really getting into that, I want to share a few thoughts with you that are current with me.

Even in the log home business, at rare times, we are confronted with evil.  What do we do?  Do we capitulate?  Not even a hair’s breadth!  I know in my heart that evil needs to be confronted and dealt with in a strong and direct manner.  And yes, I know, the good book says overcome evil with good and the reason behind this is to maintain your own self-respect and total well being.  If you do not do this, you will be of no value to yourself, your family or the rest of society.  For me, I want to do this to the nth degree, so I solicit your prayers in the coming weeks and pray that I might be endowed with every good quality and great wisdom that is required to rise above evil and bury evil with good, and may I serve God and others as never before!

What does this have to do with log homes?  Everything!

Enjoy your weekend and may you spring into Spring!

Don

Week Ending 03/19/10

Yes!  Celebrate by joyful thanksgiving, Saturday, at least calendar wise, brings the arrival of spring!  May we individually and collectively catch major portions of this explosion of energy and, yes, pure love, and use it ever so intently to improve the world around us.  There is no doubt in my mind that spring was created to inspire us and get our juices flowing so that our own growth would be both sure and sufficient.

As I said a few days ago, the best economic stimulus this year will be the arrival of spring.  It might just be a concept but if widely believed and ingrained into our thinking and acting, it will begin to put people back to work and that flow of human energy leads to the flow of capital and, guess what, even the government becomes healthier because they are, hopefully, collecting more than they are parceling out.  It starts with belief and our willingness and desire to be part of the solution.  Here’s an idea for you:  move ahead with your project.  And, you do not have to swallow the whole banana at once, take one bite, one baby step if that is where you are, but make an investment of energy and $$$ and, I promise you, you will be stimulated and the world around you will be also and as this gets multiplied across the land, spirits lift and more energy gets spent as well as $$$ and before long, we’re all feeling better, acting hopeful and, I hope, expressing gratitude for it all.

Please know that Fireside is here to serve you in any manner that is needed to help you advance your log home dream.  Only you know what this is, but we know well what it takes once you arrive at the point that you will not settle for anything less than a really well designed and well built Fireside Log Home.  And, maybe you are not totally sold on Fireside.  That’s ok, but you are invited to participate in our activities such as Workshops and Log Raisings, and draw your own conclusions…the experience will be beneficial to you.

In conclusion, Fireside is going to FRANCE!

Have a great weekend and worshipping spring is highly appropriate this year.

Don

Week Ending 03/12/10

A simple statement which I read from an inspirational book that helps begin my day, I pass on to you to help your day this very day!

            “Yesterday is only a dream and tomorrow but a vision, yet each day well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and each tomorrow a vision of hope.  Look well, therefore, to this one day, for it alone is life.”

You have heard that said in different ways, but it may have the greatest of importance in this very day because we can make it a joyous day through great will and intent, and I pray that it is all of that for you today.

There could be a “Log Raising” on Saturday, April 3rd.  Many factors will determine this so it cannot be pinned down in this moment, but stay tuned if your interest is high.  It is a small log home and will happen quickly on a mountaintop near Ellijay.

Thanks for tuning in and the best to you this very day!

Don

Week Ending 03/05/10

Did you check out Tommy Newberry last week?  If you did not, I will make it real easy for you.  Go to www.tommynewberry.com.  Admittedly I am still reading “The 4:8 Principle” which I love and knew I would from the moment I heard he had written a book on the subject.  Again though, his current passion is well stated in his new book “The War on Success”.  I truly believe we had all best develop a keen interest in this subject if our country is to recover and to return to a position of prominence financially in the world order.  All Americans, I believe, take pride in the fact that we have historically been the most giving nation in the world.  If we are to continue this level of benevolence, we have to renew our economic engine.  This will not come from major corporations, but rather from new creations or from entrepreneurs and enterprises that they start and grow.  I believe further that the economic slump we have experienced is going to supercharge this effort and in the next five to ten years we are going to see thousands upon thousands of new business formations with fresh, viable concepts for our mutual futures.

The internet is going to be the root from which spring these enterprises.  And, for the U.S., we are going to be able to draw on both our physical and mental resources and find an improving level of opportunities on the world stage.  Is this just wishful thinking?  I do not think so.  If you check out our dollar value relative to other world currencies, we are at a low point, which means our products and services should be very competitive in most countries that are considered consumer nations.  Fireside might just have one of these brewing opportunities in England.  Through the power of the internet, once again, I have met a counterpart there who is a builder and who believes as I do that log homes will prove to be the most viable and sustainable of the “green” home options of the future.  This gentleman believes that there exists a good opportunity for creating housing for entry level home owners.  Having no knowledge about the market in England, I just have to accept his thoughts on this, but it is certainly an encouraging concept.  Considering the fact that we have abundant natural resources in this country and we work with a specie that replenishes itself rapidly, this could be a significant development as the consciousness regarding “green” and sustainability rise.  If you have any thoughts about this or knowledge about foreign markets, I would love to hear from you.

There are a couple of possibilities for “log raisings” moving in this direction.  One is a definite and I hope to give you the date next week.  If you desire to do one on your home, there is no time like the present to let it be known.  We love to do them, but not all homes or sites or circumstances qualify for consideration, so ring our bell and let’s see just what your dreams and goals are.  We stretch to make these “happenings” happen, so do not be shy; let us know!

Please note these prophetic words for this week, “The greatest impetus to economic recovery in 2010 will be the arrival of Spring!”

Thanks for tuning in and have a great weekend!

Don

Week Ending 02/26/10

This week this column may be a little bit political or at least a commentary on where I see this country at the moment.  We are screwed up in this country right now because we have a government that believes it has to solve all the economic woes and social ills.  How far we have strayed from the vision of our founding fathers who knew that we needed just enough government to unify us as a nation and not much more, and a large bureaucracy would be the very thing that we fought to free ourselves from with the American Revolution and if not prevented, could be our undoing in the future!  No one wants this nation undone, not even the few enemies we have in this world.  So what are we going to do about it?

We do not need another stimulus package and another mortgage on the future of our world.  We need to let the American people solve our own problems, and we will, without government playing a role in it, except keeping its hands off to the greatest extent it can.  We experienced banking deregulation in this country and guess what?  Small banks popped up around the country like there was no tomorrow.  This is wonderful if they would now be supported and encouraged by the government rather than regulated and sat upon like they were unruly children.  Let our community banks do their job and follow what they were created to do and in time you will see this country, at a reasonable pace, come out of this place where we are and return to robust health.  The American people will rise!  We are both dreamers and doers, and it is clearly in our DNA from George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and on and on.  We have a foundation of greatness and we need big government to go away, but it is up to us to make this happen.  We need new visions to follow that are built on the birth of our nation!

Why am I on fire so-to-speak?  Because there is talk yet of another stimulus package.  Let me tell you of a stimulus package.  Please go to www.TommyNewberry.com and tune in to what this young man has to say.  I think what I have said above may at least in part describe to some degree the MAN.  He has written a book that to my great joy was a best seller called, “The 4:8 Principle”.  It’s wonderful!  Get a copy of it and spread it around.  He has written another one called, “The War on Success” and it describes what is currently happening in this country and how badly we need to reverse this “way of thinking” before it leads to our demise.  Please invest in getting a copy of this book and then get involved.  We are responsible for our own health in every way and we must take action to maintain our health.  In his book, Tommy has created the “Bill of Responsibility” which, as you can imagine, should become the companion piece to the “Bill of Rights”.

I urge you to act.  I have purchased my copy and I will devour this book and I will act because I have enjoyed my freedom to pursue my goals and live a wonderful, free life in our great country and I wish to be an active part in insuring this for our future generations.

Yes, I believe all of this is very pertinent to you acquiring your dream home and being able to enjoy it to the max!  God Bless You!  And have a great weekend!

Don

Week Ending 02/19/10

Feet planted on the soil in the North Georgia mountains is a pretty wonderful thing even if the ground is frozen and ice and snow abound.  I left France on Valentine’s Day with much the same conditions and I understand from our prospective customer as he returned home to Switzerland that they had record snowfalls in the mountains, which comprise most of their country.  The variety comes from how high the mountains are.  I have yet to make it to Switzerland, but it remains on the list.

It is difficult to not just begin pouring out a travelogue of my trip, but, I think there might be a great disinterest.  Just let me say that it was wonderful, even going and coming, and the people I connected with made it a real pleasure.  My host was gracious beyond words and upon my arrival, toured me through Paris, hitting every high, historical spot possible in early morning traffic as we headed to the southwest of France hundreds of miles away.  And, that journey took most of the day, but the time flew by as we discussed many topics and I observed the countryside of mostly farmland that in some areas were dotted with major wind turbines.  The French are doing it!  And, another “green” observation:  the average car in France is less than half the size of cars in our country and in Paris, both men and women are on bicycles and motor scooters.  I will admit that their network of streets and roadways force them to think small.

And, just a word about the home site, our customer has a farm of about 100 acres located between several small and ancient villages not far away.  The farm house and the surrounding farm and out buildings are at least 200 – 300 years old and they rest comfortably about in the center of the property on a slight knoll for a great observation point for the entire property.  The new home will be built in this area, but in a spot overlooking a lake, pastures, forest and two rivers that cross the property and, I believe, join on the property.  For a farm, the site could not be prettier or easier to locate a home on.  The reason we like to do site visits early in the relationship is to observe the features of the land and to better understand all that will affect the home and the construction process.  In this case, it is close to perfection as far as ease of delivery and the construction process itself are concerned.

So now we commit ourselves to making it happen.  Creating or manufacturing the log home is certainly the easy part.  Making sure we are thinking alike and in tune with the customers desires is more challenging because of language and cultural difference, but we are fortunate that our customer is an engineer and his thought processes are very thorough.  He knows what he wants and he is very clear about it, but he is open to suggestions and flexible in his approach.  We are fortunate.  Getting our wood into France with approvals by the various authorities will be by far the biggest challenge.  There are barriers to both protect against foreign invaders of the insect type and of the commerce type.  We believe we can get sufficient help to clear these hurdles.

Now, to focus on your project and your primary concerns, if it is your intention to build this year, you should be getting into the planning process, if you are not already.  Time gets by before we realize it and each step does take time, especially, if it is a custom plan.  Also, commodity items, like framing materials and pressure treated lumber and even panel products have edged up in price and not because of great demand, but because of diminishing supply.  Mills continue to shut down due to lack of demand allowing the remaining mills to raise their prices.  At this point, it is suspected that we will be operating like this for a period of time and getting your log home done now may be a better bet than delaying until the economy does rebound from its present state.  A Fireside encouragement is our BDZing It program that will help you save a substantial amount on your investment, plus our “we’ve got you floored” special if we are involved in the construction.  We want to help you create a very special place at the best possible value and do it this year if that fits your plan.

Thanks for joining us here and join us again on Saturday, February 27th, at our February Workshop.  Have a great weekend!

Don

Week Ending 02/05/10

The rains have returned along with more moderate temperatures and the drought of years past fade dimly into our memory.  It is amazing how much of our personal landscape is taken up by the weather.  It always has been and always will be, at least I am one for not tampering with Mother Nature and the natural causes and effects.  The prospects of foul weather this past week delayed the trip to France.  It seems that they too are having a winter to remember according to our customer in Switzerland who is building in France.  It seems if there is snow and ice, the French like to stay put and do not make any real effort at clearing roadways.  After watching some of the news accounts of how we manage like conditions, maybe the French have the best solution.

Our Workshop of the weekend past was small, but always interesting to me.  In attendance was a wonderful lady who had actually known my Mother which was a thrill for me and she had lived across the street from one of my Mother’s best friends who I had just visited with a few weeks ago.  Anyway, it is always interesting to see where people are in their thinking and planning.  We had a couple in the military who want to build a small log home on property that has been passed down for at least three generations, and they will use it as a retreat as well as make it available for their brothers-in-arms and their families.  What a wonderful plan!  Another couple is getting on with their retirement plan which is still years down the road, but their inclination is to build a garage apartment now, get use of the property, and work and save to have their “bit of heaven on earth” fully paid for by the time their retirement day does arrive.  I am sending them a copy of a plan that we built here in Ellijay that is a real charmer for a garage apartment combo.  This creation was meticulously planned by the homeowners to provide a place to reside while their log home was under construction.  Well, it is so cozy that the owners are still holding forth in their apartment long after the log home has been completed.  This, in itself, is quite a statement for building smaller rather than voluminous.

There is such a great interest in smaller homes right now, and I expect this to only grow for some time, that I want to mention my current favorite small plan. It is called the Calico and has been around for years, but tucked away from view and it is too good to be hidden. If you have an interest in small, I urge you to consider it. I will get it added to the web site shortly but in the meantime, if you'd like to see it, simply click here at dmahaffey@firesideloghomes.com and let me know, then I'll email it to you. The beauty of it is its simplicity and the bathroom arrangement that has a powder room feature, and direct access to the bathroom from the bedroom and the great room. There are many things you can do to add touches of interest such as fixed glass in the gable, extend the loft, add a shed dormer upstairs; let your imagination have a field day! And, consider heating this “cabin” with a wood stove and keep a kettle of water on it. Wood is dry heat and you need to put moisture back in the air. My favorite memory about this plan is that it was designed by a residential architect’s daughter who worked with us for a period of time and she had a real love of small cabins. This plan reflects that love. Could this plan be right for you?

My wife and I are off to France this week with the plan to spend Valentine’s Day in Paris!  Yes, there will be a highlights report!  Thanks for tuning in and have a great weekend!

Don

Week Ending 01/29/10

Hearing from customers from the past is mostly a wonderful thing, but on occasion there are problems to solve and stories we hate to hear because we have worked hard to prevent these which is a major reason we are in this business.  Let me emphasize our reason for being here, before I relate a story that does not spell success.  Our clear purpose is to produce and build the highest and best quality log home with features that will ensure the best possible long term experience for our customers.  Do we do it 100% of the time?  No, but we believe that our batting average levels the league.  However, we have a couple in Oklahoma who bought one of our log homes during a time that we were drawing on a resource from Colorado and Montana, commonly known as “standing dead timber”.  During the short period that we utilized that stock, we noticed things that caused us great concern and so much so that we stopped producing it immediately and refused to utilize the balance of the inventory we had.  It was better to burn it for firewood than to create a problem for folks that put their trust in Fireside.  It was this experience, and others, that motivated us to find a better way; hence, the birth of Process 2000 in 1992.

Another customer from the past contacted us this week and this communication was 180 degrees from the couple in Oklahoma.  These folks built a custom log home on their farm in Illinois.  Their log home was constructed with Process 2000 logs and the words of praise were lavished abundantly on us in a lengthy email from this customer, so thank you Margaret!  But the most exciting thing to us is they are considering downsizing and are looking at one of our standard floor plans to build another “Fireside” log home.  Good for them and good for the home team!

Let’s talk about financing for a moment.  There is no question in anyone’s mind that financing anything right now is a challenge and the further you get away from your current bank, the more difficult it will likely get.  Sometimes it’s better to start at home with folks that you know and that know you.  If you have more money in the bank than it will require to build, you are in wonderful shape and you should sail right through, but do not be totally confident of even that at the moment.  Speaking with your lender as early as you can will serve you well.  We can give you a projected cost range, if you can supply us with some limited information.  Secondly, there are log home financing specialists who operate on a national scale.  The one I am more familiar with is American Log Mortgage at www.americanlogmortage.com and Greg Ebersole there who can be reached at gebersole@bankahb.com and there’s a new one that’s just surfaced that is actually owned by the Royal Bank of Scotland.  This source is known as the Citizens Bank, located in Pennsylvania and the contact is Trish Bryan who can be reached at patricia.bryan@citizensbank.com so if you need to go beyond your local bank, I hope this information will be helpful to you.

If you visit this column weekly, you know that this coming week will be filled with excitement for my wife and I as we travel Monday to France and get to meet our prospective customer from Switzerland.  We will spend three days getting to know each other, discussing the particulars of the project and having some fun just assimilating into this old world culture.  Regarding the log home, it will be built over a radiant heated concrete floor and what is normally known as the loft or second floor in the U.S. is called the first floor in France.  The plan is certainly a custom design and the roof is hipped on one end with an octagonal design.  It is going to be fun and a challenge and there will certainly be a report right here in two weeks for all of you who have an interest.  There is a lot to learn and I will be knee deep in the process next week!

Thanks for tuning in again this week and if you’re where we are in the Southeast, we’re bracing for yet another winter storm this afternoon for our weekend!  We will be staying warm and dry by a fireside in a “Fireside”!  Have a great weekend everybody!

Don

Week Ending 01/22/10

For me it is hard to get through my consciousness that it is 2010.  So I have decided to write it on the chalk board in front of all of you a thousand times, not just to imbed it in, but to celebrate this year, because I have the greatest belief that it can be and will be a good year.  Part of the secret of that is to associate most closely with those who believe and intend it.  If you are reading this, I believe you to be among that number and I would dearly like to hear from you and even better, I would like to hear how you believe Fireside Log Homes and Don Mahaffey can help you make it the best that it can possibly be.  You can do that now by clicking here on dmahaffey@firesideloghomes.com and I know this opens up my email to negative possibilities, but another of my beliefs for the year is that rightness and goodness will trample evil into the earth.

We got an interesting email yesterday from a lady in Florida with a note on the bottom that she had gotten our name from Direct Buy.  This popped up on my screen and I could not resist calling her, because of this note and because she was currently on our web site.  I am delighted that I chose to do this because it was a very pleasant and enlightening conversation, and she was optimistic that the possible sale of her home would enable her and her husband to move forward with their plans.  Our conversation centered on the fact that she had designed a custom plan and whether or not we were open to doing that.  The answer was a strong “yes” and I asked if she could send us a copy, which she immediately faxed to us.  And wow, what a home she is planning!  But a little note she put on the bottom indicated that she was mistaken about the Direct Buy communication.  It makes no difference to us whatever motivates the contact; we are delighted and as it turns out with this nice lady, her name did sound familiar because her husband had been in contact with us several years ago and we had several conversations.  I could not resist calling her back after spending some time studying her plan and trying to absorb it all.  She said she was embarrassed about this mistaken identity and I say, “Do not be embarrassed; be grateful because there is some kind of power involved that we do not fully understand.  I mean how would someone in Switzerland find Fireside Log Homes and place their trust and confidence in us without ever having a verbal conversation?  I pray that it is reason enough for all to be grateful!”

Another wonderful happening took place on Monday as a gentleman bounded through our door with lots of energy and a plan to build a log home nearby.  As it turns out, he had a positive experience with Fireside five or six years ago and that memory and experience encouraged him to come back and to do something of a more permanent nature as his life has taken a different turn at the moment and he is going to make the best of it.  He came back on Wednesday, saw a log home we have under construction that is very similar to what he wants and he will be given a very refined budget figure today.  We are grateful again and again!

In closing, I express gratitude again as I was hosted last night to dinner in a small log home that I had built and lived in several years.  It was a wonderful night conversing with retired friends who love their cabin at least as much as I did.  They are doing retirement right, traveling and touching others with joy and enthusiasm, and if you just happen to be reading this, Bob and Joy, I really do appreciate the people that you are and the good energy that you are spreading every place you go!

Thanks for tuning in again this week and I’m wishing all a wonderful weekend and I wish it were within my means to supply each of you with a good, dry cord of split hickory!  Maybe the thought of that will keep you warm!

Don

Week Ending 01/15/10

January 14, 2010, will be emblazoned in my memory for a while, for after many months of communicating by email, a potential customer called from Switzerland!  Yes, can you believe it, the little peaceful country that almost made log homes popular by itself with pictures of log homes and log barns scattered over the mountainside!  Well gratefully this customer somehow found us on the internet and the rest is history!  Within a few months we anticipate sending a Fireside crew and a log home to France to erect their “Fireside” log home on their horse farm.  And, I can say in advance, if they love their log home as much as they do horses, it is going to be a wonderful experience for all involved.  So, yours truly will be packing it off to France soon to meet our customer at their home site and begin to work out the details of this growing experience.

It looks like the weather may be changing a bit favorably.  I know some folks that would like to pour some concrete and get on with construction.  Lord, we pray that You would allow this, but we also concede to Your larger plan.

Something happened at Fireside this week that I cannot fail to mention.  We had a gentleman visit with us Wednesday that seemed to be well armed with information, like he had been studying Fireside for some time.  He and his wife operate a personal care home (nursing home and assisted living) in the eastern part of the state (Georgia) and he is very enthusiastic about what he does.  In fact this person is just boiling over with love of life and one way that I became aware of that was when he told me what he wanted to do.  You are forewarned – get your handkerchiefs out now!  He has a brother who is terminally ill who has always wanted to build a log home and he is determined to allow his brother this opportunity for whatever time he has left.  A future use of the log home may be as a hospice care home – wow!  There are hearts of gold all over the place; we just don’t get to meet them every day but I count January 13th a blessing because of this new acquaintance and his story.  I heartily agree that a log home as a hospice center would be wonderful to most people and might just change some folks’ minds about leaving.

That same afternoon I went to a funeral of a gentleman who worked with us many years ago.  He was a “man’s man” and my love and admiration only grew for him over the years.  His name was Will Jones and he loved his family each and all, and the rest of humanity, and his “coon dogs”.  I know that there are coon dogs all in this area baying at the moon in memory of this “mighty” and “mighty, good man”.  May God rest and bless his soul.

We celebrate the opportunities that come to us, and the people we meet along the way, and we look forward to serving a good number of you this year.

Thanks for tuning in again this week and have a wonderful weekend!

Don

Week Ending 01/08/10

It’s the end of the first week of the New Year and my wish for you at the moment is that you are “as snug as a bug in the rug”.  That little saying has never meant anything to me until this moment, but due to the chill outside, I think I might join the bug!  The crop of acorns and a few other signs that we had in the fall was a sure sign of what was ahead.  I wish I had a copy of Ben Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack that could have better helped me prepare with firewood.  It is times like the present that an open fire or one in a wood stove mesmerizes the most.  There is something special about the exercise of just building a good fire and then keeping it stoked.  The warmth and the friendliness are a great clue as to why this log home company is named as it is – F I R E S I D E !

The University of Alabama did the state of Alabama and the whole southeast proud to, once again, bring the National Title to the South!  To our friends in Alabama, we share your joy and enthusiasm and cannot help but believe with your coach, you are going to be on top or at least in the top five for a while to come.  If Coach Saban would invest his national title stake in a Fireside on one of your beautiful lakes, it would surely be a boost to Fireside’s pursuit of a National Title in 2010!

If you are getting to build your home, I would encourage you to consider doing something a little different with your fireplace or wood stove.  This is on my mind because of the snow and ice clinging to everything on the outside.  This is it:  if you’re having a fireplace (full masonry or factory built) or wood stove, put it on an interior wall rather than an exterior and, if it’s a fireplace, get bigger rather than smaller so you can build a big fire that can produce some real heat.  Putting either one on an interior wall allows you to keep more heat to the inside and it keeps you from penetrating the exterior wall again, which can in itself lead to a loss of energy.

Whether your primary source is gas or electric, when it gets cold like this, you want another source of heat that you help create rather than burning the additional propane or electricity just to try and hold a comfortable temperature.  Once we create the “Ultimate Green Center”, we will help develop natural systems that satisfy these needs without you burning your $$$!  Most of our customers have a plot that will produce sufficient wood to supply their heating needs.  As a personal note, I fell the largest tree this year that I have ever cut down because it had been struck by lightning.  Just the limbs off of this tree would take care of a modest home’s needs for a year.  Unfortunately for me, I piled them on a burn pile.

Are you tuned in to “BDZing It” yet?  If not, you might ask if this is a new dance or what?  Well it is an “or what” at the moment, but do not count out the dance possibility and, if you are building this year, it can be the source of great savings to you.  The minimum savings can amount to $5,000 and it goes up from there.  Send me a note back if you wish to learn of the details.  If we contract with you to do a “Dry-In” or “Turn-Key” this year, you can realize another major savings that will literally floor you and we mean with a 3½“ wide prefinished oak product that comes in a natural and three other stained varieties.  Even on a small home this can be a substantial savings on the cost of your finished home.  We are really serious about helping you “do it in 2010!”  Help us help you by telling us what it will take to help you get it on!

Thanks for tuning in this week and HOLD THE VISION!

Don

The After Christmas Blog 12/28/09

“Getting a Jump on the New Year” and future years by BDZing it in 2010!

A more simple way of saying the above is that we are, by the grace of God and your help, going to reduce our bank debt to zero in the New Year and give you every reason to invest your log home future with Fireside!

For investing $6,000 and up to $9,000 with Fireside for your future purchase six months or more from the time you invest, you will receive twice that amount of credit on your purchase.  In other words, if you invest $7,500 toward your future purchase, at the time you are ready to make your production deposit to get your log home produced, you will receive a $15,000 credit toward your deposit.  This is a 100% return on your investment with Fireside.  You are on your way to owning your own “Fireside” log home and Fireside is on its way to eliminating its bank debt in 2010!

We are not done with these incentives to act now and invest.  If you make your deposit by March 31, 2010, and take delivery by December 31, 2010, we will add another 10% to your credit towards your production deposit.  If your initial deposit is $7,500, your production deposit credit will be $15,000 + 10% or $16,500 and this could be on a net purchase of $75,000.

Also, we have a construction incentive that is meant to FLOOR you, and we mean literally!  If we contract with you to do a “turn-key” or even a “dry-in” on your log home, we will not only SUPPLY a selection of pre-finished hardwood floors at NO CHARGE to you, we will INSTALL it for very little (only $1.50 per square foot on the first and second floors)!  This incentive will be for 2010 ONLY!

ACT NOW!  We want to help you get Fireside quality at minimum cost and we want to be debt free before year end (2010)!

May we serve you now?

Thanks for tuning in today!

Don

Week Ending 12/18/09

At the moment, in this spot where I am physically, the world seems dark and dreary, but I am feeling good and full of the Christmas spirit because I know the light of the Almighty penetrates every dark corner and every life that is open to God’s love.  The fact that I watched a wonderful special on PBS by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra did not dampen my spirits but elevated one well above the earth.  Wow!

My personal Christmas is already made also by another event.  I picked my son Howard up Wednesday evening to spend some time with him during this season.  According to the world’s terms, my son has some learning disabilities, but our focus has always been on his abilities.  He is now forty years old and growing well in many ways and especially spiritually.  On the drive back to Ellijay he said he wanted to tell me about a prayer he had prayed for a girl that he cares an awful lot about and the circumstances surrounding the prayer.

“First,” he stated, “I got on my knees and I asked God to fill her with His love and to fill her room with His love now and forever.”  I cannot conceive of a more beautiful prayer, so I draw on my son’s words and emotions to ask God for the same for you and your family both during this Christmas season and forever!  May this truly be an old fashion Christmas for us all, where the love of God and each other is the center of it all!

We will be here with a Blog on the 28th that will announce something that might just help you in your pursuit of a “Fireside” log home in the future.  If you are already enjoying yours, may it give you all the love that you have given it in its creation during this wonderful season!

Thanks for tuning in this week and Merry Christmas!

Don

Week Ending 12/11/09

The biting cold of a winter underway is challenging for most of us, but to those who find themselves calling a log home their home, the challenge is a little and maybe even a lot less daunting!

This week I was making the rounds with a customer when we ran into a builder who has built two “Fireside” log homes in the last year.  He came to Ellijay from Florida to do precisely what he has done, and although his timing is a little off, he is a fine, conscientious builder.  To my delight he started comparing conventional construction with the two log homes he has constructed and he mentioned how much more pleasant it was to work in the log home than to work or live in a conventional home.  And he made his point by describing how well the log structures held their temperature overnight and, even on the coldest of nights, the log homes were comfortable when they returned to work the next morning.  People who live in log homes know this to be the case, but to the uninitiated, they think this sort of talk is the perpetuation of a myth. So, what do you think and what has been your experience?

From the present winter weather across the country, it looks like it’s going to be a great winter to be housed in a log home or log cabin, whichever is your pleasure.  It is mindful of a bear spending his winter hibernating in the hollow logs, which makes me think the bears are about as dumb as foxes!

The good news at Fireside this week, despite the economy, the cold rainy weather, and December holiday plans, the really good news is that we have the most people registered for our Workshop tomorrow than we have had in two years!  It is terrifically encouraging for yours truly!  And, if you happen to be among the number coming, prepare yourself for some of the best chili that you have ever spooned!  It will be worth braving the weather and making the drive no matter how far you are traveling to get here!  And if that is you, I thank you in advance for seeking out a good education before making your decision either on log home vs. conventional construction, or just which manufacturer or system offers you the best for your money.  We will visit a log home we have under construction that is almost to the “Dry-In” stage and it’s the perfect time to witness Fireside’s quality in action.  We will also visit one, or more, finished log homes.

Since it happened again this week, I would like to thank all of our homeowners that willingly open their log homes to our prospective buyers.  In this case, it was extremely short notice, but the response was “if they can tolerate the confusion, because we will be baking Christmas cookies with our daughters and granddaughters!”  Oh how I would like to be on this tour!  It sounds like a Christmas card!  Thank you all!

Unless you’re in South Florida or the like, you will probably be bundling up these next few days!  Thanks for tuning in and have a cozy December weekend!

Don

Week Ending 12/4/09

My part of this weeks writing will be real short.  One of the very positive happenings of the week was the receipt of a letter from a gentleman in Florida who did extensive research on our Process 2000 and the chemicals we use.  After my telephone discussion with him, I did request that he write the letter and outline what he discovered.  He graciously did so and it will become permanently attached to our Process 2000 file!  Thank you Ruben Garcia for wanting to fully understand what we do and investing the time to do so!  And thank your son for me also for partnering in your effort!  Here is Ruben’s letter, just as it was received!

Mr. Don Mahaffey, President                                     November 30, 2009
Fireside Log Homes
516 River Street
Ellijay, GA  30540

Mr. Mahaffey,

I just wanted to take a few moments to express my thanks to you for the time you spent on the phone with me during a recent conversation.

I must tell you that I was really impressed with the information that you shared with me about the science of preservation of wood products with PEG, and the means by which you have applied the science to the production of log home kits.

I currently work in the facilities management and maintenance departments of Miami-Dade County Public Schools, but in a work career spanning 35 years, I have accumulated a formal education in three trades, and have had the opportunity to work in two large industries; steel making in the Midwest, and wet process cement manufacturing in the state of Florida.

When I began the learning process necessary to make informed choices when selecting materials for my log home project, I came across a builder whose work was so obviously superior to others in the area, I am thinking of building.  Brad Powell, of the Powell Group, first told me of the unique process that you are using.

Friends and colleagues have told me that I am someone who loves the science of things, and it’s true. My curiosity was immediately piqued. The idea of drying logs in a kiln using a cost effective process, and then introducing them back into an environment that varies in ambient moisture left me unsatisfied as to the expectations for shrinkage, checking, insect and fungus resistance and other factors.

I carefully read the materials posted on your website, and discussed the information with my young son, who is a Mechanical Engineer. He and I embarked on our own little research project, and soon learned about the effectiveness of the use of PEG in the conservation of ancient artifacts salvaged from underwater environments, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regalskeppet_Vasa), it’s use as a tool for artists and craftsmen who use wood as a medium, as published by the Forest Products Laboratory, Forest Service, US Department of Agriculture, (http://owic.oregonstate.edu/pubs/peg.pdf) and various other applications.

The science is good, and makes good sense to me.  It seems far superior to the kiln drying method.  But the thing that impressed us both is the application process that you have created, the integration of other chemical agents to insure insect and fungi control, and most importantly, the testing you have done to insure that you are performing the necessary steps in your application process.  This insures quality control over your product.  In my opinion, this is a complete package, an end to end solution that will ultimately result in less maintenance over the lifespan of the home.

Thanks again for an interesting and informative conversation about your company.  Please feel free to use my comments, or to refer my name to anyone interested in discussing my observations as I prepare to commission my log home construction upon my retirement.  I fully expect to use your beautiful products, and look forward to working with Brad, someone I view as exceptional in terms of the craftsmanship that is obvious in the homes and models that he has built.

Ruben Garcia, Director
Capital Construction Budgets and Control
Miami-Dade County Public Schools
Miami, FL,  33132
305-995-3119

Thanks for tuning in this week.  Have a wonderful weekend!

Don

Special Thanksgiving Blog 11/25/09

In a way this is a continuation of last week’s communication, but, if last week was personal, this message is intensely personal and will cause you to question why any person would open up like this to the public at large.  My answer to that is “I have no idea why, but the subject has been on my mind so much that I am almost compelled by its power to communicate it for whatever value it might have to those that read this column, especially this weeks holiday!”

This has nothing to do with log homes at all, so you might want to move on now rather than investing further time and energy contemplating a significant time and event that occurred many years ago in the life of Don Mahaffey.  A big part of this is about giving thanks and what can happen to you when you do something with great passion.

The day was March 21, 1982.  The circumstance was it was the first day of Spring on a Sunday and my Father was in the hospital critically ill and I was on the way to LaGrange, Georgia to be with him and my Mother, who had been at his bedside for weeks without a break and was close to the point of physical and emotional exhaustion herself.  My Father had an undiagnosed illness that was slowly robbing him of his physical body and from a big man of almost 6’7” in height and 230 pounds, he had lost down to 100 pounds.  Oddly enough, I was probably at the healthiest high of my adult life.  This sense of extreme physical and emotional well being encouraged me to petition God to use my strength and energy to heal my Father.  I was desperately seeking a miracle to transform my Father’s condition.

Well I did not understand it at the time, but I will relate it as it happened.  On Saturday early in the morning on March 20th, I arose to exercise and go on a three mile jaunt as I was beginning a conditioning regimen for the famous July 4th road race in Atlanta, known as the Peachtree Road Race.  I was committed to going to LaGrange the next day and felt like this exercise would relieve my stress about all that was going on and would help me to be of greater service to both my Father and Mother.  Things started out well and I felt great!  The temperature was perfect, but less than a half mile from home I felt like I hit a brick wall.  But determined as I was, I encouraged myself to at least walk my route to give me some sense of accomplishment.  This did not work and I was forced to reverse my route and head for home.  In only a short distance of turning around, it became a real question of whether or not I could even make it home.  My legs had suddenly turned to rubber and I was beyond exhaustion.  Fortunately I was able to make it home under my own power, but once there, it was all I could do to make it to bed where I spent the better part of the day and night, something I had never done on a Saturday.  Saturday’s were always my days to get a whole list of projects done and this one was to be no exception.  No Way!  But my exhaustion was so great that I could not even rest well.

Sunday morning was a different story.  Somehow I was able to bound out of bed, have some quiet time reflecting on the previous days events, and non-events, but more so on the trip ahead to ”really be” with my Father and Mother.  My Father and I had never been really close like a child desires in a relationship, however there was never any doubt about the love, but it was just not as close as I would have liked it and I know better now that he had to spread the little time that he had between my Mother, and my three brothers, and me.  I am sure he felt a little overwhelmed by that demand, but he sure managed well for the benefit of the family.  We all grew up working together and there were no options.

I had committed to Mother that I would be there by mid morning, so I hit the road knowing that Dad was in the most critical of conditions and, admittedly, I was filled with great anxiety.  Not long after merging onto the expressway I decided, to deal with this anxiousness, I would start thanking God for every good thing (blessings) in my life and I knew there were many, so I would do it in rapid fire succession.  Certainly I started with my family that encompassed quite a tribe when you add “in-law’s” and the list extended from there.  This went on for some time and I realized something I had never experienced was happening to me.  It was as if I was becoming lighter than air and not just me, the car and I were floating above the roadway.  I was not conscious of the other cars and vehicles, and all of a sudden I was driving into the parking lot at the hospital.  What I had just experienced from this expression of great gratitude was only a primer from what I was about to experience.

Exiting my car and making my way through the parking lot, I looked up and saw an old friend walking directly toward me.  This was a man who loved my Father and Mother, and whom they loved dearly.  I both loved and admired him which stemmed from working with him as a teenager and just observing him for years in church.  We greeted each other with “the love express”, but then he turned very somber and said, “your Dad is in bad shape and Louise is not doing well herself.”  My Mother was as strong as an ox in every way, so this preparation for what was ahead was basically the voice of God preparing me.

The next three hours were almost a continuation of my experience in the car.  The spiritual nature of it was beyond anything I had ever experienced and whether I ever get to experience it again is for Him to decide, but it was a gift to me almost beyond my ability to fully understand and appreciate.  Upon reaching the room, I found my Mother totally physically and emotionally wrung out.  This state of being was so far from the person that she was normally that it scared the wits out of me and I, with some great doing, convinced her that she needed to go home and get in bed and I would be there and be in touch with her when needed.  She had been up all night with Dad, tending to his needs and holding on to him.  Somehow God strengthened me to take charge of the situation and I took my Mom’s place with Dad.  Only later did I understand that God had used my energy (answered my prayer) to sustain my Dad so I could be with him in his time of transition.

I will not go into all the details of the next two hours, but you will understand by me letting you know there were angels present in that hospital room, and angels came and went, and one stood watch at the door.  My Dad made a request of me and I did as instructed, but mostly I held him in my arms and affirmed not only my love for him, but the whole families love for him.  It was like we were both enfolded in the arms of God.  He took his last breath at 12:00 o’clock.  I did look at my watch and was stunned to see both hands straight up.  And in the very moment he exhaled, a mockingbird lit on the window sill and started chirping to the high heavens.  It was if his spirit went directly into that bird and exclaimed, “I am free, thank God I am free, and I am on my way home!”  I held on to his physical body for a long time and thanked God for allowing me this gift at one of the most meaningful moments in my Father’s life!  Amen!

The follow up to this is that at numerous times since my Father’s passing in 1982, and when I was at some critical stages in my life or faced with a heavy decision, a mockingbird has shown up to offer me encouragement and this has happened more than once in the middle of the night.  And so I ask you, “have you ever heard a mockingbird in the middle of the night?”  Was I allowed this experience because I was able to express gratitude as I did?  Well I do not have a clue about that; all I know is that expressing thanks to God was a huge part of this most significant moment in my life and I will be forever grateful for being allowed that time.  It was a bountiful answer to prayer for which I will be forever thankful.  May your Thanksgiving this year be a highlight for you and your family!

Don

Week Ending 11/20/09

Where does the motivation and inspiration come from to keep going in times like we are experiencing now, especially in the housing related industry?  For me it comes from deep within and can only be described as love and love in its many forms and dispersed in many directions, but it has its origin in my heart of hearts so-to-speak.  And, broadly put, it is the opportunity to serve and to serve our customers for sure, but it extends way beyond that into all the people that I work with on a daily basis, our associates whose loyalty and love and commitment to what they do is a continuing source of my inspiration, our suppliers with whom with at least a few we have had thirty plus years relationships and are still really dependent on them because their commitment is as strong as ours to be the best at what they do.  And to our banks, who are catching a double dose of heat right now in their fight for survival, have enabled us to stay alive and nurture hope for the future, we will be forever grateful to them.  But what makes it really worthwhile is being able to help those individuals and couples who have held that dream for years and know they want a log home no matter what, but they need someone to help them navigate their way to the realization.

Thank goodness there are more and more of these coming out of the woodwork every week.  And the range of interest is from all age groups, but for Fireside, we have more from younger folks than the folks approaching retirement.  This is a great turn of events for me, which means these young folks want to realize the benefits for themselves and their families now rather than two to three decades down the road.  And they want this so bad they have sacrificed present day comfort for something they know is going to take a stretch.  They have taken the time to educate themselves about the real cost of a log home and they are preparing themselves to deal with it.

The dearth of foreclosures available at well less than the cost to construct is not causing this group to turn their heads.  They either already have their land or know what they want with this clear mental picture and will not stop until they find it.  My prayer is that as they seek this ideal property, they will discover Fireside and discover our deep commitment to help them have the best possible log home experience for the long term.  Certainly our Process 2000 is a large part of that commitment, but there are many things and details that contribute to this.  One that we never mention is what we have fabricated especially for us and that is “copper” flashing for our windows and doors.  Why copper when a lot of builders just use wood trim?  Because it has the potential for protecting these openings for hundreds of years and that’s how long we expect them to last.  Hopefully they will be treated like family heirlooms and passed respectfully down through the generations with thoughts that convey “this is where I have some of my fondest childhood memories visiting Grandma and Grandpa, and story time in front of the fireplace.”

We had a contact this week by a young man that had a rather unique idea that I mention here because it might set your wheels in motion and allow you to create a home along with a business plan.  First of all, he is involved in a catering business, but is aware that an area he is interested in does not have an events center to house community and business functions.  His desire is to create such a center with a log structure that will also provide his living quarters.  He has an equally unique property that will add to the impact of the whole experience for those who attend the events.  Sounds like a great place and an innovative person who knows where he wants to go.

My gratitude goes out to all who are expressing an interest in our Workshops and Log Raisings.  It is an encouraging turn of events and is going to make for a great day at Fireside tomorrow, Saturday, November 21st.  I thank you all (in advance) who have registered for tomorrow, and also to those who have registered for our December 12th Workshop.  And if it is your intention to surprise your spouse with the perfect log home this Christmas, Fireside can make it happen!

Thanks for tuning in this week.  Have a great weekend and a safe and Happy Thanksgiving next week!  This Blog may not return again until Monday after the holiday, so we can all enjoy this Blessed time with family and friends!  May peace, love and joy be with you.

Don

Week Ending 11/13/09

Friday the 13th, 2009!  Look forward to good things, even miracles, happening today in your life!  Whatever your needs, be totally open and receptive to receive!  I know this sounds a lot like Joel Osteen, but guess what?  Joel is right; eventually we get what we expect so expect the very best, be it healing, financial blessings or a “Fireside” log home.  The blessing of a “Fireside” will add so much joy to your life that any anxiety you have will flow out the window and be gone forever!  This can also be aided by studying and practicing what Paul encouraged the Philippians to do in the fourth chapter of that letter.

It has been a good week and many things contribute to that, but, mostly it is conversation with folks who are determined to get their own log home.  If I have an addiction in my life, I believe that is it.  I would go without sleep if someone wanted to talk about their dream and desire, and they were searching for answers to their questions.  I would go well into the night to satisfy their need and in fact did that this week.

Since the last writing we have had a couple invest in the development of their “Fireside” log home, and they will receive their preliminary plan within the same week.  Another couple is seeking modifications on a standard plan and those have been made, and I will meet tonight with a third couple who has nurtured their dream for over 20 years with lots of sacrifice to arrive at the point of beginning it.  They will receive their preliminary plans tonight and a broad brush estimate of what it will cost to create.  It has been a good week that should end on a good note.

You will hear more about this later, but I have to report on two other fresh acquaintances I made this week, and the significance of each.  A gentleman called from Florida and left word that he wanted to discuss our treating process with me.  This is all part of what we do, in fact, a really big part of what we do, so I called and to my great surprise, he has put a significant amount of time into researching Process 2000 and the chemistry behind it, and he was so excited about what he had discovered that he wanted to share it with me.  As it happens, he is a wood worker himself so he was familiar with PEG (Poly Ethylene Glycol) and the benefits derived from using it in certain applications.  He differs from the average person in that he likes to dig into the science behind things.  And I am grateful he has this motivation because he got to the heart of the matter and reported to me that he was convinced  that it is the best way to prepare timbers for log home construction.  GOD BLESS AMERICA – someone truly understands!  My new friend in Florida did have an advantage; he has seen a good number of log homes in North Carolina built with our logs and was amazed at how well they looked compared to other products he had looked at and the builder (our customer) encouraged him to call me.  He made my day even richer!

This next one happened yesterday and was as equally as interesting to me.  This gentleman is a builder himself and is looking to build his personal home, but the intriguing thing to me is that he has lived in an earthen home for many years.  He still loves his home, but the world has crowded in around him and he is looking for some fresh breathing room in the country.  The fact that he wants to build a log home means to me that he totally “gets it” about log homes and especially the thermal mass effect.  In fact, he is really focused on an 8” wall thickness, which is a bit overkill according to where he plans to build.  Anyway this gentleman should, and I hope will, become an honorary member of The Francis Society because he not only gets it, he has lived it for years.

To continue with my conversation with “Joe”, he said, “Let me ask you a direct question.  You have a lot of competitors who have gone out of business and taken customers deposits with them, so how do I know you are going to be here?”  Here was my answer to him and it might have meaning to you:  “It is by the Grace of God that we are here now and I believe that Grace will extend for a very long time.”  My belief is that we have been through the really deep valley, which was last fall and this winter, and even spring, but it has been by that Grace and some wonderful customers who have placed their trust in us that has allowed us to survive.  And, one good economic indicator for me is the registrations for Workshops and the growing interest in “Log Raisings”.  We have more people registered for our November Workshop than we have had in well over a year.  Thank God Almighty and “Keep the Faith”!

Thanks for tuning in this week and have a “good” Friday the 13th, and a great weekend!

Don

Week Ending 11/6/09

The rains came and the rains went, but in spite of natures display of abundant moisture, progress in understanding and, I hope, appreciation was made by our hearty “Log Raising” attendees.  We all got treated to some wonderful chili that contained some “fire in-side”!  Wow!  My wife and I are still dining on it and will be sad to see the last bowl devoured.  You can always coax some benefit out of any situation that goes contrary to the plan, and that’s exactly what we did last Saturday.  We did not have the hands on experience or the physical exercise that we were expecting, but our gray matter got stirred in a way that would never have happened had we been stacking logs.

Closing out last week, there was a question hanging in the air with a prod to get folks to imagine what this group of letters stood for:  MONG&EC.  There was nary a submittal, so I am withdrawing the question and will put it back out there when the concept is closer to reality.  My hope is that you are just a little bit intrigued.  It’s all about green energy that has been toyed around with for years.  Now is the time to “git ‘er done” and the further challenge is to use this energy in a way that has a zero negative impact on our environment.  Can it be done?  Yes!  Can it be done at a low cost?  Relative to the long term benefit, I believe it is highly possible.

Fireside can do log homes and I truly believe that we help create the best log homes on the face of the earth and that is our goal, but we want to truly produce the most energy efficient homes that use all of the practical low tech possibilities to achieve this and then use really “green systems” that help produce comfort in the climatic extremes.  I am looking for people who share this desire to work together in creating the “Ultimate Green Center” to push the most practical concepts to reality.  This is not about government funding or seeking a grant.  This is a totally independent effort to solve our problems of energy by focusing on the gifts we have been given by nature.

If you have an interest in being part of this, please contact me direct at dmahaffey@firesideloghomes.com and be a part of the “BRAIN TRUST” that breaks the residential energy code and we can!  If your interest does not extend to active participation, but you wish to support the effort, join The Francis Society.  Your $150 investment will be added to the pool to help supercharge the effort and create the center in Ellijay.  Next week through this web site, you will be guided with an application for membership.

Thank you for returning to this column.  My personal goal is that what is eventually divulged here will bless your life.  Humor is meant to keep us in some state of balance and I, like all of you, have had reasons for both sadness and joy this week and, thank God, a few belly laughs.  This week I include the following for humors sake, for it was forwarded to me by a fellow St. Francis follower.  Be amused!

In this conversation between God and St. Francis, God learns about a lost tribe called the "Suburbanites" who seem to have gotten way "off the program". . .

GOD:
Frank, you know all about gardens and nature. What in the world is going on down there on the planet?  What happened to the dandelions, violets, milkweeds and stuff I started eons ago?  I had a perfect no-maintenance garden plan.  Those plants grow in any type of soil, withstand drought and multiply with abandon.  The nectar from the long-lasting blossoms attracts butterflies, honey bees and flocks of songbirds.  I expected to see a vast garden of colors by now. But, all I see are these green rectangles.

St. FRANCIS:
It's the tribes that settled there, Lord.  The Suburbanites.  They started calling your flowers 'weeds' and went to great lengths to kill them and replace them with grass.

GOD:
Grass?  It is so boring.  It's not colourful.  It doesn't attract butterflies, birds, nor bees; only grubs and sod worms. It's sensitive to temperatures.  Do these Suburbanites really want all that grass growing there?

ST. FRANCIS:
Apparently so, Lord.  They go to great pains to grow it and keep it green.  They begin each spring by fertilizing grass and poisoning any other plant that crops up in the lawn.

GOD:
The spring rains and warm weather probably make grass grow really fast. That must make the Suburbanites happy.

ST. FRANCIS:
Apparently not, Lord. As soon as it grows a little, they cut it - sometimes twice a week.

GOD:
They cut it?  Do they then bale it like hay?

ST. FRANCIS:
Not exactly, Lord.  Most of them rake it up and put it in bags.

GOD:
They bag it?  Why?  Is it a cash crop?  Do they sell it?

ST. FRANCIS:
No, Lord, just the opposite.  They pay to throw it away.

GOD:
Now, let me get this straight.  They fertilize grass so it will grow.  And, when it does grow, they cut it off and pay to throw it away?

ST. FRANCIS:
Yes, Lord . . .

GOD:
These Suburbanites must be relieved in the summer when we cut back on the rain and turn up the heat.  That surely slows the growth and saves them a lot of work.

ST. FRANCIS:
You aren't going to believe this, Lord.  When the grass stops growing so fast, they drag out hoses and pay more money to water it, so they can continue to mow it and pay to get rid of it.

GOD:
What nonsense.  At least they kept some of the trees.  That was a sheer stroke of genius, if I do say so myself.  The trees grow leaves in the spring to provide beauty and shade in the summer.  In the autumn, they fall to the ground and form a natural blanket to keep moisture in the soil and protect the trees and bushes.  It's a natural cycle of life.

ST. FRANCIS:
You had better sit down, Lord.  The Suburbanites have drawn a new circle.  As soon as the leaves fall, they rake them into great piles and pay to have them hauled away.

GOD:
No!  What do they do to protect the shrub and tree roots in the winter to keep the soil moist and loose?

ST. FRANCIS:
After throwing away the leaves, they go out and buy something which they call mulch. They haul it home and spread it around in place of the leaves.

GOD:
Where do they get this mulch?

ST. FRANCIS:
They cut down trees and grind the branches and trunks to make the mulch.

GOD:
Enough! I don't want to think about this anymore.  St. Catherine, you're in charge of the arts.  What movie have you scheduled for us tonight?

ST. CATHERINE:
'Dumb and Dumber', Lord.  It's a story about . . . 

GOD:
Never mind, I think I just heard the whole story from St. Francis.

Don

Week Ending 10/30/09

Talk about using every bit of a month, we are doing it even on Halloween!  Yes, in spite of a dubious weather forecast, we are having our “Log Raising” tomorrow, Saturday, October 31st!  If you have signed up to attend, just plan on bringing some wet weather gear that will allow you to stay reasonably dry.  We will have some shelter if it does actually rain.  Historically when we have done this, the rains cleared up and we have had bright sunny days or at most cloudy days with some misting rain.

We are forging ahead with this event because there are many people expressing an interest and that is all we need.  If we help one person better understand what we do and appreciate how we do it, then it is a successful day and hopefully, another “Fireside” log home will be born in the process!  I know one couple coming will start their log home in the first quarter of next year.  They are going to build their log home themselves, so it will be a really meaningful experience.  So whatever your motivation is, our desire is for you to be fully rewarded for your investment of time and energy.  The best that Fireside has in technical expertise will be on hand instructing and constructing.  I personally look forward to meeting you and getting informed about your goals and dreams for your new log home.

Unfortunately we didn’t make progress in our smaller cabin initiative, but the start of a new month this weekend opens that window of opportunity to get this done next week.  As I mentioned before, we have a “small cabin” plan book, done years ago, that has a number of great looking 500 to 1,000 sq. ft. plans that have a small bathroom and kitchen and a sleeping loft.  There will be a concerted effort to get these published on our web site during the month of November.

In closing I have a question for you.  Can you submit your thought for what MONG&EC stands for?  I will tell you it has something to do with The Francis Society and the Ultimate Green Center and it just might be something you employ in the future for your real benefit.

I hope to see you at the “Log Raising” tomorrow.  If not, we will have a picture or two to share next week.  Thanks for tuning in and have a spooktacular weekend!

Don

Week Ending 10/23/09

A “Log Raising” is upon us!  Because of the interest in a “Log Raising”, we are doing one here in Ellijay at the Walnut Mountain Gated Community on Saturday, October 31st.  Yes it’s short notice and also Halloween, and I apologize for that, but the cliché is to “strike while the iron is hot” and I trust at least a few people can make it and get their hands around some logs and participate in all that is involved!  For those of you who think that the “old bod” is not up to it, let me tell you that it just might be the healthiest thing you can do for yourself and a special way to celebrate this Halloween with an experience you are not likely to soon forget.

You will see and experience the construction of the outside four log walls of a “Fireside” log home from the floor system up.  It’s not that you will see a log home built in a day, but you will see the exterior log walls constructed in a day and see how we put them together.  It will be great fun and exercise (if you choose to be “hands on” but you can just observe), and we will help you educate yourself in the ways of log home construction.  Not all the logs are 16 feet long, in fact only a small percent of them are, as most logs between windows and doors and fireplace openings are short.  But just being here and witnessing the process and the accuracy of everything will really advance your knowledge and appreciation for log homes.

Since some people will be driving from Florida and other distant places, we will make a call on Thursday morning about a “go” or “no go” with respect to the weather.  I will say that the forecast will have to be for about an 80% chance of torrential rain for us to call it off.  We have had a lot more of these events in what some would consider foul weather and they turned out to be productive and very successful.  If this is of interest, please make every effort to make it here.  We can help make overnight accommodations if you have a need for that.  We will meet on the job site at 9:00 am and conclude around 3:00 pm or so.  We will provide coffee and doughnuts in the morning and a light lunch around noon for our crews, guests and participants.

To know how many to plan for and name tags, please register for the “Log Raising” by responding to this under “Click Here to Leave Your Blog Comments or Questions” or call the office at 1.800.521.5647 to let us know you’re coming so we’ll know how many to expect.  If you’re registering via this blog site, under “Comments” you can put full names of attendees and maybe where you’re from and/or what your interest is.  Directions to the job site from our office in Ellijay, which is on River Street (aka Highway 52), are:

• From Fireside’s office, turn right out of our parking lot and head East on Highway 52 about 2 miles.

• Turn left onto Turniptown Road (at the little gas station/Walker’s Bar-B-Q) and go about 5 miles on a winding mountain road.

• At the entrance to Walnut Mountain Gated Community, stop at the Guard Shack and let them know you are a guest of Fireside Log Homes and they will have directions from there to the job site.

Moving on to another subject, there is also great interest in smaller homes right now.  Our Guest House and Cartecay models are catching a lot of interest.  We are going to focus attention this coming week to get our pricing on these models and other small log homes in the best possible position to help as many folks as we can.  We had a visit yesterday from a family who owns a Guest House, in fact the original one we built, and they had their guests with them.  So if you think the Guest House floor plan is too small to have overnight guests, think through it again!  But admittedly, your guests would need to be intimate friends!

Without doing a full travelogue, I will report that Thursday was a wonderful day for me and for many reasons.  Yes, I got out of the office and thoroughly enjoyed the beauty of autumn in the mountains especially along the Ocoee River as I traveled to one of our new log homes to visit with our customers as they were literally moving in.  It is a custom floor plan that our customers labored over and their labor has been richly rewarded!  It is absolutely beautiful and if they are in agreement, I will do a feature on this “Fireside” log home (accompanied by multiple pictures) in this B “LOG” (BLOG) at some point.  Fireside was not the General Contractor but of course it’s our logs and we did the “Dry-In” plus the finish carpentry to produce a real beauty!  I even played a part in the creation with several features!

Secondly, I visited at dusk with the second owners of another Fireside beauty.  My thrill was that these folks have an even greater appreciation for their log home than the folks we built it for originally!  My visit was to discuss several things about the log home that they are trying to get knowledgeable about, plus they even want to expand some space which we are willing to help create.  The best part for me was to share the story on the log home and how it originally came to be which was a labor of love and I mean a deep, committed love of the husband for his wife.  The wife had always wanted a log home of the “country style” variety but the husband, who had serious health issues, was determined to build her a “grand” log home which turned out to be anything but “quaint”.  And sadly just as it was completed, the husband passed away and she followed him only a few years afterwards.  But over the years she did live there, I spoke with her many times about her log home which she appreciated, but she hung on to her picture of her “country style” log home she had wanted.  Now these new owners see and feel all the love that went into that log home and they are “loving” this log home in a way I would hope everybody would experience.

Thanks for tuning in this week and I hope there is a “Fireside” in your future!

Don

Week Ending 10/16/09

Here’s another first, I am sitting here listening to the music of the night, “The Phantom of the Opera”!  If an extra measure of passion comes through, you will understand the stimulation!

It was last December when we staged our last “Log Raising” on a cold, wet day out in the country side near LaFayette, Alabama.  The customers there were building their own log home and I am happy to announce, despite all of the challenging weather this year, they are closing in on completing the home which earns them our hearty congratulations.  The owner has a very responsible position with his company that requires him to be on the road much of the time limiting his time and energy that could be devoted to his “dream” project.  He did it anyway and enters the annals of the Fireside Heroes.  He and his wife sacrificed for years to attain this long held dream.  At Fireside, we highly esteem all of those who express their love in this manner.  It benefits all involved and the greater world around them.

The reason I mention the “Log Raising” is because I smell one brewing.  There is nothing definite yet, but with the things that are heating up right now, it could happen in a number of locations, with some possibilities at a great distance from our home base.  If you have an interest in doing one on your log home, I can tell you that it will add a measure of specialness about the whole experience and just might be your favorite memory.  If you choose to do it and we can work out all of the particulars, you will likely see yours truly hoisting logs on your home!  It would take a team of horses to hold me back from this release of positive energy.  There are few feelings that match the feeling you get from helping someone create their home with physical effort.  Can you imagine in days long ago when the whole community came together to help a young family create their home?  One lucky family got a home and the community deepened its commitment to each other.  We really need to turn the clock back and renew this spirit.

To conclude, if you want to do your own “Log Raising” or just want to attend to learn what our system and products are all about, we highly encourage you to do so.  You will see why the log walls perform as they do at least partially from the way they are assembled and how tight they fit together.  It never fails to impress me and I have experienced it so many times it would be boring for some, but never is for me.

A “thank you” goes out to those who are catching The Francis Society spirit.  You will get your reward in many ways, but foremostly at this point you are committing to support an effort that can have a far reaching impact on our environment over time.  It will for sure help cut the dollars we export for energy.  We will be keeping those dollars working here in the USA and keeping more for other purposes other than energy consumption.  Mother Nature is just waiting to provide!

Thanks for tuning in this week and have a wonderful autumn weekend!

Don

Week Ending 10/9/09

A sign of the times is the current interest in room additions and improvements to older homes.  Do not think that we do not have an interest in helping you with these projects, because we do.  As a matter of fact, we are sending a crew to Ohio to help a customer from the 80’s with their log home.  We are replacing their “all wood” windows with our Windsor brand “clad” windows which means a permanent solution to exterior window care.  Also, we are repairing some logs that need attention.  You might ask why would you not get somebody local to do it.  The truth is they tried but without success.  Folks who are not familiar with logs and our type of construction often times just resist getting involved and our team can get there, take care of it in short order, and the customer is greatly relieved knowing that it is done in the best fashion that it can be done.

Room additions are almost the same scenario.  There is a way to do it where the old and the new work blend harmoniously with each other.  Once again there is a way to do it that is both esthetically pleasing and functionally correct, and then there is great opportunity for creating a mess.  So if you are contemplating anything, Fireside will be happy to play any part in the process so we can help insure a good experience and a good investment for you.

In the case mentioned above in Ohio, we sent one of our folks from Ellijay up there back in the summer to see first hand what was involved.  The trip was fruitful for one big reason, the actual state of affairs was not near as bad as it had been described, and even pictures made it look worse than what it was.  We will post progression pictures of these repairs so you can see how it’s done.

It is wonderful for each of us to be loved and appreciated.  And to have prospective customers, who dig deep enough and see into things well enough to grasp it, and then communicate that to us, is really rewarding.  We received a short note from one of those this week who have been steadily moving toward a winter build in early 2010.  I asked if I might share her note in this B “LOG” (BLOG) and she said sure, so thank you Karen for your love of log homes and especially for your appreciation of Fireside!

Comments:  I just read your blog and saw where you wanted anyone who was interested in a winter build to contact you for incentives.  We plan on starting the building process in Feb. or March, depending on the weather and how quick we can clear our land.  Can you share with us the saving incentives by email or should we call you to discuss?  We have been so impressed with every aspect of your company and are interested in learning more about the Francis Society project.

Warmest Regards,
KB

Thanks for tuning in this week and have a great weekend!

Don

Week Ending 10/2/09

The following might read like an unadulterated ad for Fireside and if it does and if you are offended, please forgive me, but it is the undeniable truth and if left unreported, it could lead to an unhappy experience based on an uneducated decision.

Due in some part to the season and weather of late, raw materials have not flowed into our camp like we have needed them to, so we were left to buy some rough product on the outside to supplement our inventory.  We milled the product yesterday afternoon and after a disgusted complaint by the man in charge at our manufacturing plant, I had to witness it myself to see if the claims had been exaggerated.  It only took a minute to see clearly that not only were the complaints right on, but understated.  It breaks my heart to see material that comes from the same local region as our normal stock degraded to the point that almost none of it will pass our grading standard.  My only solace is that it underscores the way we process (treat) our material.

Once again for you who do not know, and for our competitors who also read this, we pressure treat our timbers “dead green” meaning with most of their original moisture in this healthy state after they have been fresh sawn.  The chemicals we use, Polyethylene Glycol (PEG) and Borate, help stabilize the timbers and help minimize the defects that might have occurred.  Now they will seek a state of equilibrium with the atmospheric moisture and our impregnating system will help keep the normal stresses in the wood from fully developing.

What we witnessed today was the result of the way “we used to do it” ourselves and the very reason we developed our Process 2000.  You want to know why a Fireside looks better to begin with and looks better in the long term?  This is it.  But I have to quickly add that it is also our people, who have years of experience and care greatly about our customers and their happiness, and, likewise, our reputation as a quality company.  We just shipped a log home to Missouri, being built by an experienced log builder, but this is his first “Fireside”.  His kind words of comparison with what he has worked with before are very gratifying.  It is the builders that become our best salespeople.

Our economic report is that the expressed volume of interest continues to grow.  It certainly is only moderate, but the air and people are stirring from delayed projects.  We are encouraged and believe that 2010 may hold some real opportunity to bounce back to a more productive climate.  If you are one considering a build in this next year, call me directly and we will discuss incentives for a winter build.  Now is the time!

To conclude this without some reflection on The Francis Society and its mission would be a sacrilege.  I will give you some specific ideas about our research and development.  Of course the greatest focus will be on harnessing the sun’s energy.  It is the most underutilized source of energy available to us today and has the potential of satisfying all of energy needs when we better appreciate its full potential.  We will be determining the most practical ways of storing and transferring this energy while all the time giving a priority to the cost it takes to create.  We want our systems to be highly affordable, competitive with the conventional ways of creating comfort.  Since the sun is not always available or not a practical source of energy on some home sites, we will be researching wood stoves, the highest efficiency varieties that can also use other agricultural or biomass materials.  We recognize that methane gas can be a tremendous source of highly available fuel and we will be developing systems that help generate it and consume it for residential purposes.  And once again, it will be low tech which we equate with low cost.  Consider your membership in this organization and sew the seeds for a greener world now.  We can make a difference!

Thanks for tuning in this week!

Don

Week Ending 9/25/09

The Francis Society and the benefits of membership!  That’s what I promised this week and so you get it up front.  First, The Francis Society is rising from a concept to a living, breathing force that resides primarily in yours truly at the moment, but the intention over time is that it will affect new construction of homes of all types, but fore mostly log and timber frame homes and as you can imagine, Fireside’s log homes will incorporate these features as they prove themselves out through our Research & Development.

Reread last weeks write-up if you need to better understand it, but in short we will be focusing on “physical facts and laws of nature” to make our homes the most comfortable they can be at the most modest of cost to realize the benefits.  There is a whole world yet to be explored that will astound us fifty years from now and people in that age will wonder why it took so long to deduce, rediscover, or however it arises, the simple systems that protect our environment while enabling us to enjoy it more.  Granted, and all of you who live in a log home already know this, a solid timber home can help jump start a whole list of possible benefits.  Twenty five years ago, or a little more, when I committed myself and resources to this business, I had no idea that this would be the case, nor would I have ever thought that the deterioration of our upper atmosphere would happen to the extent that it has and that it would prompt something like The Francis Society but it has.

The list of benefits will be short, but meaningful.  To begin with, if you already live in a log home and I hope for both of our benefits that it is a “Fireside”, your return on your membership investment may not be so immediate, but with patience and faith, it will come and your investment will be fueling the possibilities.  If you have yet to build and yet to enter the design phase, you will get an immediate return at the outset of the process.  Your fee will be deducted from your design cost, so essentially you get a 100% return immediately.  If you have already been through the design process and you are now ready to get going and you make a production deposit within the next twelve months, your membership will get you a $1,500 credit toward your package purchase.  That’s a 1,000% return!

All members will have an opportunity to earn referral fees for referring friends and others to Fireside for the purchase of their log homes.  The best customer any company has is one that is referred by a satisfied customer or referred by another who is well familiar with the company and their product and services.  It is certainly true with Fireside.  The referral fee can amount to 1% to up to 3% of the materials purchased based on the circumstances/qualifications of the referral.  This can be ultimately rewarding and just requires registering the possibility with Fireside and we will do the rest.

As we develop systems and products, our members will have a chance to participate in the research at very little or no cost to prove the concept out in their own use.  Once these ideas are proven, our members will have a chance to acquire them at less than wholesale value.  All of this information will be available on a “members only” section of The Francis Society web site where the latest information will be published and this will be updated daily.  There will be an input section to our web site that will allow our members to put their own “ideas” on the table for intense scrutiny and to help state their claim personally for helping us all to create a greener future.  Other benefits will be discussed later and others will evolve over time, but one not to be overlooked now is that your investment in an investment in the future care of our environment through enlightened construction and systems creates good for all.

If there is anyone out there with ideas on how to grow the membership, the door of opportunity is open.  Please come in!

As a footnote, we are working on a possibility of a “Fireside” log home shipping to France and building it there also.  If this materializes, you will begin to get some French phrases and words scattered about as I attempt to grow my language skills!

Have a great weekend and I do appreciate you returning to this column.

Don

Week Ending 9/18/09

Today is the day!  This announcement and action comes without hoopla and fanfare, but it comes with great hope and belief that the formation and activation of the Francis Society will result in illuminations for mankind in the area of available natural energy that will allow our homeowners and others to enjoy maximum comfort in their log homes without having to draw on outside energy sources.  And this possibility is closer than you think and yes, it involves low technology and not the other type.  You will be able to understand the sources because it is all natural and a gift to us.

What is the Francis Society and is it something I would want to be a part of?  Below is a statement that defines what the Francis Society is.  Why the name?  Most people are aware of St. Francis and his love of nature and how nature responded to him with love through all of its creatures.  Well it was all of nature that St. Francis had a great love and appreciation of with the sun, the moon, and water being at the center of it all.  All of it is God’s gift to us and by Francis’ discipline, we need to be expressing continuous gratitude for them.  You can learn much more about him, if you choose, from an internet search or from joining the society.

There is a membership fee to join the society.  The fee is $150 which can be paid in lump sum or over twelve (12) months with on initial payment of getting you on the roll.  Next week there will be a list of benefits of membership.  The membership fees will fund everything that is created and accomplished to begin with, but over time, through its beneficial interest in Fireside Log Homes and other entrepreneurial enterprises that it helps initiate, it will have its own funding.  Hopefully the membership will grow to become a powerful force itself (not politically) but as a generator of ideas that can be developed into practical application allowing all of us to live better while enhancing the world around us.

It is begun!  I am the first and the only member at the moment.  If you wish to be a part of this, sign up and let us each be a part of this substantial “green” initiative.  The mailing address is:

            The Francis Society
            P.O. Box 1118
            Ellijay, GA  30540

Thanks for tuning in this week and here’s the statement defining what the Francis Society is:

The Francis Society

What is it? The Francis Society is an organization established for supporting the creation of the Ultimate Green Center on sixteen acres located near the heart of Ellijay, GA. The center is being created as an educational and a research and development center with its focus in the area of log homes and timber framed homes with the goal of helping our members and patrons create the most eco friendliest homes possible. The focus is further on using the gifts and the phenomena of nature to achieve this.

The research and development will lean more toward low tech rather than hi tech, as we seek the most cost effective ways to achieve comfort in our homes. Passive and active solar will be researched to the enth degree, but with the previous statement lighting the way for our research. Everything that affects comfort and creates cost will be a target for investigation.

The center will be created as a place of education where folks can experience classroom education in their area of interest,  and they will further be able to have hands-on experiences in creating a variety of “green energy systems” that can be put to work in their homes. The center will distribute products that are the best and the most cost effective products and systems at the time. This will be determined by our own research.

The Francis Society will be a nonprofit limited liability corporation (LLC), whose function will be to push development in green matters for the general enhancement of our ecosystem and the benefit of its members and certainly the customers of the center and Fireside.  And, although it is a nonprofit, it will hold a beneficial interest in Fireside Log Homes/ Esprit Log and Timber Frame Homes, Inc. The revenue that is generated from this ownership interest will provide forward funding in the exploration of all things green as they relate to our specific areas of interest.

Our members will be the first to know about the results and the discoveries of our R&D. They will also be the first to benefit as we seek to involve our members in the proving process and we will make the products and systems available to them at our cost during this trial period. These opportunities will require an investment on our member’s part, but at this point in the process, they will be assured of getting a fast payback and we get the benefit of their experience.

The Francis Society and its creation of the “Center” will give our members a way of directly voicing their own creative ideas into the center for R&D. They will own their ideas as we seek to help  the development for the general benefit of our shared ecosystem. But as basis for seeking and developing this input, we will  always give credit where credit is due.

At the moment, The Francis Society is a concept, but it is believed, it will soon develop a robust life of its own.

Don

Week Ending 9/11/09

This date stirs memories for not only each of us, but for caring people around the world.  It is right for us to pause and remember the dreadful events of this day in 2001 and the lives lost that day and the many that have died in service to our country since then.  May God bless the families that were and are still directly affected.

In my last B “LOG” (BLOG) on August 28th, I wrote of a meeting that was to take place the following day.  The meeting was held, but the result was not what I wished or anticipated, but I came away with a clearer view of reality.  They say perception is everything and the perception by some of the folks attending was contrary to the real purpose of the undertaking.

In my humble, but for sure, prejudiced opinion, Fireside already produces one of the “greenest” homes that can be created, but there are many things that we can yet do to improve from the “green” point of view.  We are going to commit to making an ongoing effort to produce the greenest possible log and timber-frame homes using the gifts of nature and what I term “low technology” to achieve this.

We will create at our location in Ellijay the “Ultimate Green Center” that will have as its purpose to discover how to practically utilize the gifts of nature to make our log homes the most comfortable and the most energy efficient at the lowest cost of operating.

The “Ultimate Green Center” will be for education, and research and development.  It will be funded, not by the U.S. government, but by people who believe in what we are doing and believe that they will eventually get rewarded through the creation of their own log home and improving the one they are living in presently.

There is yet a lot to be learned and discovered about nature and how it can help us live better by harnessing its natural forces and benefits.  Some of this will be rediscovering what past civilizations knew and practiced before the advent of electricity.  Stay tuned!

Thanks for tuning in this week!

Don

Week Ending 8/28/09

There is something brewing in the Fireside pot and I am quite sure the result is going to be greatly beneficial to you if you are yet to build and can be at least moderately beneficial to you if you have already built.  Thank you for coming back to this column to seek what’s going on with Fireside, to see if blood is still coursing through our veins!

A meeting will be held at Fireside tomorrow, August 29th, that is not open to the public, but will be attended by a group of people who are catching onto a VISION for the future and for what we think can be a better tomorrow in the area of the most natural form of housing since man advanced beyond the cave.  And we will be seeking to learn from the past, even the advantages that the caves offered in creating better homes that are more in tune with our eco system and that add to improving the environment rather than subtracting from it.

At this moment and without offending you, I pray, I solicit your prayers of support for the blessing of God upon this meeting, that His presence will reign and the results will honor and glorify Him and His Creation.  Amen!

Thanks for tuning in this week!

Don

Week Ending 8/21/09

Thank goodness and thank God that there are people who are committed to getting their log homes built now, in spite of all the economic turmoil.  We are certainly grateful for each one that has searched the field and cast their lot with Fireside.  It is a vote of confidence by these folks who believe we are doing it right and they are safe for the long term in our hands.

And speaking of the long term, we have heard from several customers lately whose log homes we built in the mid 80’s, which in my terminology might be expressed as “PD-P2000”.  Some of you might have guessed it; their log homes “PreDate-Process 2000”.  Two of these customers had log deterioration that, in my opinion, was caused by the wrong finish applied, which was a high quality finish, but it over-sealed the wood and caused some dry rot.  This is just my opinion, but I did send someone to Ohio recently to investigate this log home and he determined the damage was not near as severe as the pictures they had taken made it appear.  Their problem can be resolved with some professional carpentry and a small amount of material.

Another customer has some log rot that, once again in my opinion, is caused by splash back of rain off of an attached deck.  If you are in the planning stages of a log home, please do not plan an attached deck that is not covered by a porch roof or a significant extended roof because without this, if you get a lot of rain at your home, the rain splashing off the deck onto the logs will eventually cause the finish to deteriorate and could result in organisms taking hold in these spots and possibly prompting the deterioration of the logs.  If you have this situation on your present log home, just keep an eye on these spots and when you see the finish begin to go, clean it up and restain in this area.  With attention, you should never have a problem.  However, from the comments of this customer, I think he will need to replace a whole log.  This just takes time and patience, and the time comes from getting the old log out, not so much from getting the new one placed.

A recent personal experience with my own log home has convinced me once again that there is great value in our treating process and I need this reassurance because we go to a lot of expense to assure ourselves that our customers will have a great, long term experience.  It was time for cleaning the exterior and I did it myself, and shyly, I admit, I used bleach with a pressure washer.  Using bleach is a little strong for both you and the finish on your log home.  There are other log washes now available from different sources that accomplish the same cleaning results without the harshness that bleach creates.  Anyway, you apply your solution with a pressure washer using the gentle nozzle and wash afterwards with the next nozzle up in pressure.  It is not necessary to use high pressure with these cleaning compounds.  What I observed, after eight years and many cleanings, is that the finish on our log home is still in reasonably good shape and does not demand a coat of finish yet, and further, the logs are in wonderful shape!  Yes!

Stay tuned as the B “LOG” (BLOG) is being revised and announcements are forthcoming about our future and how we might impact your future.

Thanks for tuning in this week!

Don

Week Ending 9/26/08

In my perfect world I would visit a customer’s home site every week and pick up on their excitement about their property and their development plan.  Saturday was another one of those grand days for me as I joined a couple whose engine is revved up for the possibilities.  They were really concerned about my physical ability to scale their peak, which according to their inquiries is either the highest or the second highest elevation in the county.  And, as good fortune would have it, it is a perfect knoll on which to construct almost anything, but a log home, especially a “Fireside”, makes it ever so perfect!  With a little tree trimming, they will have a 360° view of a mix of farms, forest and the distant “Smokies”!

We offer our services to help customers site their log homes, taking advantage of all the natural terrain possibilities.  Most folks have spent a lot of time debating the different aspects of the site and have a good idea of what they want to do and good reasoning to go along with it.  This couple certainly did, but they wanted to know if I saw things differently and had a fresh perspective for them.  They answered the questions I posed quickly and I was left to affirm what they had basically concluded.  Their main interest is the home’s relation to the sun and enjoying its warmth and beauty, especially at the end of the day.  Their plan calls for a wrap-around porch with the front facing west.  Get the picture?  Rocking chairs wouldn’t be too far from the front door and the early evening hours are already scheduled!

Their log home will have a full basement and as most basements do, it will have at least one daylight wall.  The walls that will be exposed on this home will likely be the east wall and possibly some or all of the south wall.  This works well as both of these will get at least some winter sun and possibly a lot.  What you want to avoid if possible is a daylight basement wall being exposed to the north or even northeast or northwest if it can be avoided.  Finished basements can be the most comfortable part of the home in the winter, if a few precautions are taken.  The subsurface walls are protected by the even temperatures of the earth and therefore it takes minimal heat to raise the temperature to a comfortable level.

I have a couple of thoughts about this experience that I put out for your consideration.  This couple was rewarded for their diligence in their search for their property.  They managed to find a 49 acre tract with a major elevation almost centered in the property at a bargain.  They are delighted and I am delighted for them, but one of the development considerations is the length of the driveway and what will have to be done in putting the driveway in to insure that it is not a high maintenance proposition forever.  If you have a similar opportunity, I highly recommend that you get the best grading contractor you can find in the area and have him walk the property with you, make his recommendation and get at least a rough estimate for constructing the driveway in a fashion that best controls the water and minimizes maintenance for the future.  The grading contractor will not be enthralled with the property like you might be and he will be looking at it very practically and how it can best be excavated to your long term satisfaction and allow him to build on his reputation.

In conclusion, Fireside Log Homes is fortunate to have several customers right now where the wife has been the one who has methodically searched the industry to find the best value in a log home that offers the most in long term security.  The couple mentioned here is one of those and I say to them, and to the others, we are grateful for everything you have done to arrive at your decision to invest in Fireside.  Rest assured that Fireside is committed to making your journey one of the best experiences of your life and that goes for the now and your long term enjoyment.

Thanks for tuning in this week!

Don

Week Ending 9/12/08

There is another “Log Raising” on the horizon and it will be here before you know it.  These events are often established with a tentative date and this one is no exception.  This one will be known as the “Jerrell Wilson Payback Log Raising” and the tentative date is Saturday, October 4th.  Why this name?  Jerry, in my mind, has gained fame because of his enthusiastic participation in at least three, and, if I’m not mistaken, four of these log extravaganzas!  He has traveled great distances to do this and has always been well prepared with rain gear when needed, and tools, and he has made a practice of staying with it until the last log was set.  It is payback time for a man who has given much!

Most businesses, I believe, strive today to exceed their customers’ expectations.  It’s not often we get feedback to know precisely how we are doing but in the last month, it seems that we have been laboring in a rich vein of gold.  Three weeks ago we had a prospect in our office/model in Ellijay who was on her initial visit to Fireside when in walked a couple who are our current customers and who are in the process of finishing their own “Fireside” log home right now.  This couple proceeded to tell our guest about their experience with Fireside Log Homes and how pleased they are with everything including the material, the craftsmanship and each facet of the relationship.  The couple went so far as to exchange phone numbers with this young lady and invite her to their log home.  This was coming from a wonderful couple whose own process had not gone perfectly, but who were so excited and delighted by the results that they were able to focus on all the positives in a beautiful show of support for Fireside.  Their own love of their log home had significantly been reinforced by their friends and neighbors who were in awe of the quality of everything.  God has blessed us all!

Since I am on a roll, I have to report a happening that not only made my day about a month ago, but it made my week and we can extend that to the month.  Through our web site, we received a note from a couple from South Carolina that we had worked with in 1985.  Can you believe it?  They feel so good about their “Fireside” log home that they were motivated to send a note expressing that and their gratitude for the contribution to their good experience.  You best believe that I have been in touch with them and will visit them soon with camera in hand!  I have their permission to reprint their letter below:

From: Jim Turner
Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2008 12:48 PM
To: fireside@ellijay.com
Subject: Hello from a Customer

Hello Fireside,

I just wanted to say hello. My wife and I built a Fireside Log Home beginning in 1985 and we are still very happy with it after all these years. Everything has held up extremely well.

We are located on Hartwell Lake just off I-85 in South Carolina. You folks were just getting started at that time. We made a trip to Ellijay to see the model that you were still in the process of erecting. Don took us on a tour of the facilities and around the countryside looking at Log Homes. Ask him if he remembers stopping by here while we were building our home and bumping his head on an all thread rod that I had sticking down from the overhead. I didn't expect someone that tall to be dropping by or I would have cut it off sooner.

Our home is still very beautiful after over 20 years and I want to thank all of you, especially Don, for everything you did to make our home building experience an enjoyable one.

Sincerely,

Jim Turner

May I say as humbly as I can, bank deposits and expressed votes of confidence are wonderful, but to receive a letter like this after all these years is Fireside’s Olympic Gold Medal!  And to the Turners, thank you for conveying your joy; we celebrate with you!

Thanks for tuning in this week!

Don

Week Ending 8/27/08

The Olympic games of the summer of ’08 have come and gone, and what an entertaining and inspiring 2+ weeks it was.  I know this commentary may be out of place in a log home blog, but the inspiration that is the result of years of hard work and single minded dedication should find a good receptive audience anywhere it appears!  Please be assured that I personally and Fireside Log Homes, and Fireside Home Builders, will all function better and at a higher level of proficiency because of what these Olympic athletes achieved, and in some cases failed to achieve, over these last few weeks.

Michael Phelps and Usain “Lightning” Bolt for sure, but others too, proved time and time again that you can go beyond what other men and women have believed to be the limit of human performance.  Physical training and training and training, and believing that results from training, plus building on God given talent and physical attributes, can produce amazing results, and break world records, some that will stand for a long, long time, until the next like focused individual ascends the mountain to accomplish their clearly defined goal.  You think I was inspired by these games?  I do not deny or hide it!!!

Staying up late is not part of my make up, but the U.S. Olympic basketball “Dream Team” did not play the Spain national team until 2:30 am Saturday night, and being a basketball player, I could not deny my extreme interest in how this game would go.  Well it was such a game that I did not doze and was wide awake when it was over.  Yes, we won the “gold”, but our talented bunch had to use their skill and their cool to hold on to the real challenge from an inspired team from Spain who had a 17 year old point guard who performed as well as anyone on the court.

But it was 16 year old Shaun Johnson one of two of our outstanding women gymnasts who won my heart with not just her winning smile, but hanging tough and staying focused when she could have been shaken and thrown off track by some of the what appeared to be biased scoring and even not been as perfect as she expected of herself.  She hung tough and she got her “gold”, and she was a classy young lady who celebrated the victory of her teammate.  What a role model for the young people of today.  The Olympic spirit lives!

What has all of this got to do with log homes and specifically Fireside?  It is time to push beyond what we accept now as the best way and to explore even better ways of making our log homes more efficient, more attractive, less demanding on maintenance and even more affordable so more people can enjoy the special, almost heavenly lifestyle that we call log home living!  May we strive afresh to make it so!

Thanks for tuning in this week!

Don

Week Ending 8/8/08

This day and time when someone sells a home, it is cause for great hoopla and celebration!  Several weeks ago a friend of Fireside who has been patiently waiting for the right person to come along called and announced that they had arrived!  Let the fireworks rip and the champagne flow!  We will not mention names here, but this gentleman is so enthusiastic that he has driven hundreds of miles and expended huge amounts of energy in participating in at least three of our latest log raisings.  His pent up energy for getting on with his log home is now getting released and, if he desires, he could be having his own log raising by late August or September in Western North Carolina.  We congratulate him on his progress and encourage everyone else to keep on keeping on!  There is someone out there who will consider your home perfect for their needs.

The cost of fuel is currently one of the darkest clouds that hangs over our economy.  It is causing each of us to reconsider how we use our vehicles and affect this serious rise in our personal cost of living, because, as we all know, it is the prime mover in the inflation of food cost and every other expense of daily living.  This leads to “what is Fireside going to do to help counter this?”  We have already created and have been quoting a new package called the Fireside “Essentials” package.  Basically, this encourages the purchases locally of what we term commodity products including and primarily framing lumber, sheathing and subfloor panel products, plus a multitude of other smaller items.  This saves our customers additional freight cost and really helps the more local economy of our customers by buying close to home.  Our essentials are mainly our manufactured goods and those other items that our purchasing gives us a distinct advantage on cost.  Fuel costs have taken a positive turn at long last, but they have a ways to go to get back within reason.

Here is a note of encouragement to all of you that are on hold waiting for a property to move:  the phone calls and visits at both of our locations (Ellijay and Asheville) are on the upturn.  We can confidently make this statement after the last two to three weeks of activity.  I must say that we are greatly encouraged after going through a period where it appeared that the whole economy was going to implode, that’s my word, and to me it is a vacuum pressure and not expansive.  We do realize that what we are experiencing may not be indicative of the whole economy.  After all, we are a big country with many ingredients affecting things in every corner, but at least a little bit of economic sunshine is worth sharing, and, we pray, it gives you more hope.

The Fireside family has lost a wonderful friend and associate who impacted our lives so positively, in many ways, that I am choosing to post a memorial to him in this column so all who wish to read about him can.  He made many, many friends for our company and this tribute is meant primarily for his family, and then his many Fireside friends.  May we embody his spirit as a true memorial to him.

And speaking of friends, it is summertime and not only is Fall approaching, but gas prices are moderating so I encourage you to at least visit the website of Appalachian Inn and discover a “bed and breakfast” inn lovingly operated by Lance and Elizabeth Butler near Robbinsville, North Carolina.  A stay  there will stimulate all of your senses.  Yes, it is a Fireside log structure, but it was the passion of the Butler’s that created it and it will be a treat you will long remember if you are able to spend a few nights with them.  And if you do make it to the area, you will be really close to the Joyce Kilmer National Forest which is a once in a lifetime experience you need to have.  In the Southeast this comes as close to an “Enchanted Forest” as anything you will see.  You can walk a rigorous 1+ mile trail and touch trees like you have never seen before.  So enjoy yourself!

And thanks for tuning in this week!

Don

Roger Tallman Remembered

2/28/44 – 7/26/08

The title of these thoughts should be “Roger Tallman – A Tall Man Among Men!”  I count it my great honor to have known Roger for only four short years and it was during most of this time that he was doing battle with an unexplainable, life threatening blood disease.  Did the people that met him casually or even in the business environment know or suspect anything was amiss in his physical body?  No, and he would not divulge it unless asked directly.  It was his own personal battle and he believed mightily that by the grace of God and the love and support of his family and friends that he would defeat whatever this was no matter how ominous sounding it was from the medical folks.

Because of all that Roger has been through in the last 2 ½ years, and his passing on to a higher form, it enabled each of us to witness the real character of the man and to get to know him even more deeply through his loving and saintly wife Donna and his two daughters Melanie and Julie.  It was Julie who I will be indebted to for encouraging her Dad to interview with Fireside after she participated in the Grand Opening of our model log home in Asheville.  Julie evidently sensed that there was something different about this company and she insisted that her Dad at least check it out.  He did, and the rest is history!  Life after life was positively impacted because of this relationship and it may very well be my life that has been lifted the most, as I have always thought that Roger’s last name suited him better than any name that I have known before.  He was a “tall man” in every regard and I, Don Mahaffey, will be looking up to him forever.

Roger “loved” and that love made him a pleasure to be around and it was not just his family, his love seemed to have no limits and I want to share three stories with you that came out on Friday, August 1st, the day we celebrated his life.  The first was related to me by Richard Schulz, his affable associate at Fireside.  While Roger was going through his often administered chemotherapy, he came to the office as much as he possibly could and continued to develop new relationships and build on his old ones.  One day he and Richard were alone in the showroom at Fireside having some personal conversation about life and the challenges we all face, when a customer drove into the parking lot and went back to our model.  It was Roger’s turn at bat and although Richard offered to take them on Roger’s behalf, Roger insisted he was going to do it himself.  He knew that just affirming his commitment would energize him for the task.  He rose to his feet with a burst of energy, but his body would not back his spirit in this moment as his knees buckled beneath him and he fell to the floor.  Was he embarrassed?  For sure he was, but he made Richard promise then and there that there would be no mention of this to his wife, and only then, did he go off to help the customer.

The second story also relates to Fireside.  This happened in the last two weeks of his mortal life when he was in the hospital in Winston-Salem.  Ted Chellis, the General Manager of our Asheville operation, received a phone call from Donna Tallman telling him that Roger insisted on talking with him, so Donna passed the phone to Roger and lo and behold, Roger had developed another prospect in the hospital and insisted that Ted get a package ready for his son-in-law, Laneal Vaughn, to pick it up shortly.  Roger was very specific about what he wanted included in the package and reassured Ted that this was indeed a good prospect.  And just as Roger had indicated, Laneal arrived to get the package.  What a great testimony of Roger still driving the bus and all the passengers at his beck and call!  This all works really well when love and respect are at the heart of a relationship.

The last story is from Roger’s minister which was shared during the celebration of his life.  Roger was a Deacon in his church and he took all his responsibilities very seriously because clearly Roger was serving God and Roger’s commitment was to exemplify the nature of Christ.  One of Roger’s duties as Deacon was to visit with folks who were dealing with illness of all degrees.  Quite often Roger visited with one gentleman who was not nearly as ill as Roger was himself, but this friend reported to the minister that Roger never failed to light up his home with his smile and his great compassion that he offered freely while not even mentioning the difficulties that he was dealing with himself.  It was this Christlikeness that sustained Roger and others that he touched.

The scripture for Roger’s celebration service was John 21:3, “Simon Peter said to them ‘I am going fishing.’”  At the graveside service, the last gesture was made by Roger’s wife of 43 years, Donna, and she peeled off the back of a John 21:3 sticker made for the occasion and placed it on Roger’s casket, giving her approval of this journey.  Thank you Donna, and thank you Roger for serving your God with everything you had and for being an example to all of us of how Jesus Christ desires us all to relate to and care for each other.  Amen to a life well lived!

Humbly,

Don Mahaffey

Week Ending 7/10/08

On July 1, it was my great pleasure to meet a couple from Florida and visit their home site in the far west corner of North Carolina overlooking a pristine lake from a high perch.  What can I say – beautiful, another piece of heaven that we all hope will be graced by their special log home.  It is going to be a little while before construction begins but they are allowing plenty of time to go through all of the proper preparatory work without feeling rushed.

I am once again complimented in that this couple returns to this site and digests whatever comes forth.  We discussed the challenges and the opportunities of being their own general contractor and there is no doubt in my mind that they will realize all of the benefits from this.  With this requested visit they have demonstrated that they will be very methodical and sure about each step in the process and thereby, be very successful and pleased in the end.

When first thinking about reporting on these pleasant hours spent at this site, the temptation was to have a discussion about foundation costs in the mountains and about just being prepared to make the necessary greater investment in property that is steeply sloped.  But then comes along a home site today that is most unusual for the mountains – a creek side home site that is as flat as the proverbial pancake.  This is for sure the great exception.  But it is all your choice and it starts in your mind’s eye about what is your ideal.  If it is a high mountain lot with a distant view, you can count on a greater foundation cost but we have to sacrifice at every turn for what we truly desire.  A larger concern for me on sites like mountain tops or mountain sides is to make sure before you invest that at least a modest drive in can be created (does it make sense?) and that a septic system can be reasonably installed.  If you need help to determine these answers, it is available locally.

Thank you for tuning in to this blog again.  I am going to take advantage of your presence to present a cause, which is really stepping out of the box for me, but it is a cause that I believe in with all my being and if I fail to deliver this message, I will have a hard time living with myself.  This is all about the pending Presidential election.  First of all, this campaign has gone on much too long for the health of our country.  This year the choices are less than inspiring for millions upon millions of people and I have to believe the rest of the world that is dependent upon a strong USA is really concerned.  Well, I am inspired and I want to share it with you.  We have a website that went live on July 4th.  The address is www.groundswellforcolinpowell.org . Please visit this site and if you are so moved, lend your enthusiastic support to this effort.  There is an alternative and there is a leader who can lead and unite us as we desperately need to be united.  I truly believe that Colin Powell will agree to lead this country for at least four years if America rises up and literally proclaims him our choice.

Don

Week Ending 6/20/08

We do not discourage our customers from being their own General Contractor (GC), in fact, we encourage it!  Why do we encourage it?  Almost every person or couple in the process of debating their cost and how to best achieve their overall investment goal wants to consider how to minimize their cost without sacrificing too greatly the big items on their list.  Being your own GC can help save about 10% right off the bat in overall cost.  The builder has to make a reasonable margin to take the risk of building and really deserve it if they are creating a quality structure.  But if the homeowner has enough fortitude to manage the process and to accept the risk that goes along with it, it can be extremely rewarding both in the savings realized and the learning that takes place, plus the additional relationships developed.

Fireside happens to have at this moment probably the most individuals who are being their own GC than in any time in the past.  And, what I am witnessing is pretty impressive.  There will always be problems in the course of construction, most are small and easily dealt with, but on occasion there is a significant one that presents a problem to the inexperienced.  The builder gets paid to solve these and to never let these show up on the radar but the homeowner who experiences this challenge for the first time can be knocked back on their heels.  I said that I am impressed and I am because the individuals and couples we are working with are moving through these hiccups with the greatest of ease.  In other words, they have enough self-confidence and faith to recognize that the problems can be dealt with and all will be well.

The majority of the people that are involved in the building trades are rock solid as far as character goes, and that is especially true right now as we are well into this sorting out cycle in the residential construction business.  This means you are going to find people who are most helpful at every turn and problems, that might have been really significant when everyone was so busy they did not have time to think straight, get focused attention and are solved in a very efficient manner.  I see it happening every day and I am very encouraged and appreciative of how people are working together to make life be the best it can be right now.

Is this encouragement for you to be your own GC?  If you have the time and a nervous system that can take on new challenges, I recommend it, not only for the savings that can be realized, but for the sense of accomplishment that naturally occurs.  And this comes from a builder who loves the process!  May the power be with you!

Thanks for tuning in!

Don

Week Ending 6/6/08

On occasion a call comes in from someone in distress about a log home problem that is beyond the callers ability to comprehend what to do.  The latest situation was a real estate agent in the local community that had listed a home that had obvious major problems.  Thank goodness today the rules of ethics prevent a property from being sold when there is knowledge by the parties involved on the selling side that detrimental problems exist.  The agent wanted my ideas about what it would take to right this situation.

Wow!  There are pictures that I can email to you to make you aware of what can go wrong when things do not go right with the concept and the construction.  For me it is just an affirmation of our original concept of products and construction details.  The product concept was to have wood to wood with double tongue and groove mating surfaces with each log overhanging the log below it in some manner with sealant used between the logs to reduce the chance of moisture and air penetration.  Further, great care would be taken to properly flash any intersecting roof with a log wall to eliminate the chances of what you see in these pictures.

Since it may be hard for you to actually see what’s going on here, let me give you the dreary details.  There is an entry porch that appears to have been added after the home was built.  But either way, it is a major contribution to the problems here.  The roof was not flashed at all, but the joint with the metal roof was heavily caulked to the log wall.  Bad!  One of the reasons for flashing, and in this instance at least a 6” to 8” flashing, is to handle the splash from a driving rain from the roof on to the log wall.  When you combine the absence of flashing with the fact that about an inch ledge exists on the top of the log before the chinking was applied over a styrofoam base, you have a problem.

For this system to work long term, it would be critical for the latex chinking to never separate from its bond between the log and the styrofoam on top of the log.  If the seal breaks, water penetrates and over an extended time it will cause dry rot and failure of the structural integrity of the wall.  It is happening big time in this situation.  In fact, it appears that it has gone on so long that one corner has deteriorated to the extent that it has settled almost two inches.  We are talking major reconstruction.

So, in this situation, the problem started with a bad product concept and it was compounded by a lack of good construction details and now the homeowner is faced with a major expense to make his otherwise attractive home marketable.

To put you at ease, if you do the right things with a good product and good construction techniques, you can avoid heartache and experience all the joy that a log home should help create just as the couple my wife and I had dinner with one night this week after getting a tour of their new log home.  This couple will have a love affair with their home, likely, for the rest of their lives and they are well prepared for it.  We wish the same for you!

If you would like to see the pictures, please email me at dmahaffey@firesideloghomes.com and I will email them to you.

Thanks for tuning in!

Don

Week Ending 5/30/08

Is this a good time to buy?  If you are reading this B “LOG” (BLOG), you are either enjoying your own log home right now and just seeking some entertainment or you are seriously contemplating investing in your own soon, and, you already know what my answer is, do you not?  Well, if you read on, I trust when you are done you will be waving an American flag and considering more seriously taking the big step now yourself.

It is true that oil prices are putting an upward pressure on all costs, but these petrol forces do not begin to compare with the downward pressure on prices brought on by the stagnation in the real estate market and therefore the building industry.  The log home business is a brighter spot on the horizon, but it is substantially impacted because many of our prospective customers are waiting on property to sell.  So Fireside, like all other companies, is lowering prices and considering all types of programs to keep the wheels turning.  It is a great time to ask, “what can you do for me if I start the process right now and keep it moving as fast as we mutually can?”  You might get whisked off your feet into the conference room even before you complete the question.  Be open to new concepts to really help you lower your overall cost, even though you might up your work and risk slightly.  This is called “planting seeds”.  Your expectation for being treated like royalty after asking this question should be very high!

Now back to the stars and stripes and why moving forward at a time like this could be considered a patriotic thing to do.  For our economy to begin to recover, we do need active “doer’s” who willingly set fear of the unknown aside and set their sail into the wind to accomplish their goals and capture their dreams.  And when enough people make this decision and act, we will be in a recovery mode.  Read the last B “LOG” (BLOG) and meet one of those people.  The U.S. economy just needs more folks making those decisions and if that is you, go for it and your reward will be a lower cost by several, several percentage points over what it would have been a year ago.

It is amazing how one new home reaches out and touches so many people positively.  It has a tremendous economic ripple affect.  It may sound trite, but it is far from it.  Right now your investment in your home could be akin to buying U.S. savings bonds during World War II.  This was a period of grave doubt that turned into a crystal clear focus against common enemies.  At this point, the enemy is us and a lack of belief in the future and each other.  Everything that we can do that counters this lack of belief will be one step in the right direction.  With enough feet and steps we will have a parade and with enough people joining the parade, we will create a real reason to celebrate.

If you make this decision and choose Fireside, you are going to get several treats that greatly express our appreciation.  We will give you our best in every way and be unrelenting on quality.

Thanks for tuning in!

Don

Week Ending 5/23/08

An unfolding story!  No names will be used in this short story, but it is one that I cannot resist telling because it involves great emotion and great resolve on the part of the person that is in the center who would much prefer to be somewhere behind the curtain and playing a supporting role.  This story has been evolving for several years, as many of our relationships do, but it has certainly been more intense in the last few months as “the home” is now under construction.

We were first introduced, I believe, after this couple saw our model log home under construction in Asheville (Arden), North Carolina and stopped in to learn more about what was happening and the company behind it.  Since that first introduction, the couple traveled from the Tri-Cities area of Tennessee to both Asheville and Ellijay numerous times and they participated in the grand opening of the Arden model as well as multiple “log raising” events and our Workshop in Ellijay.  You begin to get to know people who invest this much time and energy in a relationship.  It was a true pleasure to develop this friendship for not only was it obvious that the couple was enamored with each other, but they were equally in love with the concept of building their own log home together.

They stayed in touch as life took its twists and turns, and kept them from moving ahead with their project, but they had their land secured on a high mountain site near the Tennessee/North Carolina line in really East Tennessee and way up yonder!  A little over a year ago, their lives took a severe hard turn as the husband suffered a heart attack while cutting trees on their new home site.  In the physical form, this was his last visit to what was to be he and his wife’s log home fulfillment resulting from years of dreaming, planning, encouraging and plain old doing.  Wow!  One minute seemingly healthy as a horse and using his chainsaw and the next minute gone.  At this point we had lost a member of the Fireside family.  What could we do to support his wife and deal with her grief?  Well, we exchanged our sympathies and encouraged her all we could, thinking that this jointly held dream would also pass into the great beyond.  Little did we know, and little do we still know.

Next week the logs will be delivered to give shape to this dream that would not be laid to rest.  The wife has been inspired in many ways by her husband and that includes the spiritual form.  In fact, this whole building project is like a crusade to fulfill her husbands dream and it is happening while she is going about taking her daily direction from the Almighty and accomplishing wonderful things in the lives of her friends and their families.  It is almost more than I can take in, even at a distance.

Now here’s more about the Fireside part, which has been greatly inspiring to me and the reason I am writing this.  The wife, who is growing to legendary proportions in our eyes, has a close relationship with our female Construction Manager in Asheville, and they have been in touch through most of the above.  When it came time to lay the foundation, our Construction Manager, Paula Orr, told our friend that she would like to place a Bible in the foundation of the log home and do it with a little ceremony.  Yes, they were together on this and it was done.  The next thing I learn from this event is that our friend is not done yet, but she is requesting me to write a blessing for the log home that will be inscribed on the first log to be laid.  Talk about being humbled and at a loss for words, but the request will be honored and I will travel to the site to take part in the setting of this log.  May God bless this log home and all of us as we seek to serve in many ways.

Thanks for tuning in!

Don

Week Ending 5/16/08

Details, details, details!  This is not about decorating a log home but about some standard details that you need to be aware of when thinking about and beginning to plan for the construction of your log home.  In this regard, second to questions about electrical, is the question about plumbing in an exterior log wall.  The answer is, “avoid it by design!”  No plumbing pipes should be run in an exterior wall because you should not do anything in your log walls that will impede settling even if the wall needs to settle a quarter of an inch in an eight foot wall.  For the most part, plumbing pipes have a zero tolerance for movement and you therefore design all plumbing to run in interior partition walls, which we do in all our plans

Does this mean that you cannot have tubs, showers or toilets against an exterior wall?  No, it means that the plumbing pipes would be run in a partition wall that they adjoin or the water and the drain lines would run to the fixture through the floor system and would be hidden by the fixture itself.  This is another good reason to work with the log home company that you favor in developing your home plan, because there is an understanding of all the nuances that are peculiar to log homes.

Again on the electrical wiring, a common question is, “how much more difficult is it to wire a log home than to wire a conventional home?”  We tend to downplay the difference to a minimal point, but an electrician’s first time experience with log homes is slightly more difficult vs. an electrician that has several log homes under his belt.  We do predrill the vertical runs for all the receptacles and switches, and also the electrical chases to get into the second floor system or the roof, but what we do not do as of yet (and yes, we will when we automate our precutting) is mortise the pockets for the electrical boxes.  This requires a plunge router and/or a hammer and wood chisel.  With the plunge router, a jig is created to enable cutting the perfect box every time.  It just has to be positioned properly.  All heating and air outlets, and returns, are in the interior walls or located strategically in the floor.

We have two activities that are both fun and educational, “Workshops” and “Log Raisings”.  If you have not participated in these, both are excellent investments of your time and they help get a lot of your questions answered.  The Workshop schedule lists the dates for this year (one Saturday a month), and Log Raisings are posted on our web site (as many times they are scheduled with short notice.)  Like the Workshops, our intention is to hold a Log Raising once a month as well.

We appreciate you tuning in to this, and fire away with questions if you have developed any!

Thanks!

Don

Week Ending 5/9/08

Please excuse the absence here for March and April, and I thank each of you who take time to read these thoughts and encourage them; I am amazed at the interest.  Rather than continuing at the moment with the Wood, People and Health paper, I would like to reflect on this past weekend’s activity, a “Log Raising” in Trussville, Alabama.  At least one of the readers of this B “LOG” (BLOG) was there and, once again, for the third time made a significant contribution, and I thank you, and I know the Galloway’s feel the same gratitude.

If you are reading this, I surmise that you either already have your log home or your log home is still looming large on your screen.  That is a wonderful thing to hold on to and it takes a lot of nurturing sometimes to give it birth.  Such was the celebration we had last Saturday with Bob and Eunice Galloway.  Fireside has actively been working with this much determined couple for over five years, but as the memento that Bob and Eunice passed out to their friends and the workers stated, “this dream has been 30 years in the making.”  If you really desire it, the key is holding on to the dream and nurturing it in every way you can find, until that day when you find yourself saying your own “New Home Blessing” and drinking your toast for persevering!

Not only will Bob and Eunice look back on Saturday, May 3, 2008 as a special day, but I believe everyone who came on to the home site that day will, and I can assure you that all of the folks from Fireside will.  And, this had not just a little bit to do with faith, faith got it to this point, and this was the only practical day that this log raising could take place as Eunice was leaving on a mission trip to India the following Monday.  She had said, “we are going for it, rain or shine!”

The weather forecast was actually scary, thunderstorms with possible tornado activity, and there was nothing positive about the weather clearing up anytime during the day.  Our customer was exercising their faith and we could do nothing less.  Our last log raising was done in early April near Rosman, North Carolina with a similar and an equally motivated and enthusiastic customer, and the results were that we all got wet but had an exhilarating day and stacked the last log at 6:00 pm, one of the longest log raisings in our recorded history, but one of the best because of all the circumstances.

Now back to the Galloway’s event, at 8:00 am, central standard time, the rain was coming down good and not just rain, there was an ample amount of electrical activity in the sky with some looming thunder to go with it.  The friends and workers were huddled in the basement speculating on the weather.  Another hour rolled by and the weather had not changed and the crowd began to get a little agitated by it all, but we hung together.  A neighbor and friend brought over a container of freshly baked muffins that were still really warm and really tasty.  We needed this lift to hang in there. 

About 9:20 am, the rain began to slow down and kept slowing down until it stopped about ten minutes later which was just before some workers and friends were in their cars and preparing to vacate the premises.  Bob got on his computer and printed out the local radar report which showed that we were likely on the back side of the storm and it should begin clearing soon!  With this encouragement, we rounded up “the gang” to roll out the tools and drop cords, and to start laying the logs with this small, but faithful, bunch!  We got busy and as the morning went along, more people showed up, friends helping and being friendly, folks seeking to learn, and still others desiring to participate in a hands-on building/learning project.

Lunch was delayed so we could make some progress on this construction project and it suited everybody to get on with our mission.  And as we all released our pent up frustrations from the late start, there was joy and gratitude in the air as we were actually able to get on with it.  When lunch time did arrive, about 1:30 pm, it was a much anticipated time, both for Galloway’s and myself.  They were very much tuned in to having something of a short ceremony when we “bless the new home”, and the homeowners and the food.  Eunice had some scripture that she wanted read and a meaningful song sang by all who cared to join in, and then a sound system was used to play another song that fit this momentous occasion.  You can be sure that we thanked God for this turn in the weather, as we had now gone from pouring rain and ominous clouds to a clear blue sky.

The crowd was treated by the homeowners to a wonderful barbecue, both pork and chicken, and all the trimmings, including, I believe, the best baked beans yours truly has ever tasted and it was prepared lovingly by Bob’s Mother, Virginia.  There was an assortment of desserts, cakes, cookies and pies that encouraged the work to come to a dead halt.  But, somehow, after enjoying this feast and the fellowship, we were able to make our way back to the floor system and get on with it.  At this point the sun was really shinning brightly and it began to drain our energy, especially those of us who overindulged in the buffet, but our goal was set and we were determined to make as much headway as our strength would allow.  Thanks to the friends of both the Galloway’s and Fireside’s, we got most of the eight foot wall complete.

And then came a first from the Galloway’s, they wanted the Fireside crew that had been there for a week, preparing for the log raising, to sign the last log that was to be placed that day.  They did and we did!  And the pictures below just capture a fraction of the spirit of the day, as the Galloway family celebrates one of the last steps in realizing their log home dream!

Enjoy this group shot and take note of the signatures on the log!  We invite you to join us for our next “Log Raising” to truly grasp this wonderful experience.  Keep watching our web site for the location and date of our next “Log Raising” which we are anticipating will be in early June.  Sometimes “Log Raisings” are short notice, so check our web site often!

Don

Week Ending 2/29/08

We get even deeper this week with the consideration of how building materials affect natural electrical fields.  I personally would like to fully understand the significance of all this, but I think the scientists who have devoted much time and energy to it are still mystified about this phenomenon.

I think what this really involves is right on target with the whole concept of “GREEN”.  To simplify it in my mind, I think that the further that you get from the natural state, of any material in which it was created, the greater the chance for electrical fields and magnetism to be disturbed and to cause conditions that upset the natural order.  If this is truly the case, then wood in its natural state is probably the least disturbing of the materials we can build our homes out of and, if credit is to be given to what these scientists say, then the wood itself contributes to the natural order.  What could be less disturbing than solid timber walls or logs?  Is that my prejudice or is that reality? I choose to believe it is reality.

By the way, I was in a “Fireside” log home this week for the first time since it was finished about two years ago.  The customer, who has always been most appreciative of his home and who was a mechanical contractor during his years of labor, is amazed at how easy it is to heat and cool his log home.  I wished it was some special ingredient that Fireside was able to add, and the way we construct our roofs does help, but it is primarily the nature of the wood itself and its ability to store energy that really make it work.  Enjoy the photos of this lovely log home.

Thanks for tuning in!

Don

Week Ending 2/22/08

If you are one of those who have been on the edge of your seat waiting for this discussion to continue on the Wood, People and Health paper, I apologize for the intermittent creation of these reviews.  Last week I allowed other items to hinder me from continuing this commentary but, on the other hand, I have been studying and trying to better understand what Professor Schneider was attempting to enlighten us about.  Let me say that I have always considered most of these points to be more intriguing to the scientific among us rather than to the average bear, like myself, but I have wanted to try and understand each point from the inside out, which means thoroughly, and my desire would be to be able to explain each point in layman’s terms to those of you who have an interest.  Reluctantly, I admit that I am not there yet, but I am not retiring from the effort either.

The next item (# 5. Ionization of the Air) on our list deals with the nature of ions and what happens to them when they are in a state of change that is prompted by radiation, and the most of this is ultraviolet light, causing either a gain or loss in the electrons of an atom or group of atoms.  As the article expresses, a characteristic of wood is that it enriches the air with small ions that react with the larger, aggressive (and more harmful) ions that have a negative impact on our bodies, and the net result is that the wood actually purifies the air.  Beyond this you just have to accept this as the nature of wood and it just does its thing without prompting of any sort.  However, as I have mentioned many times before, applying a finish to the interior walls and ceilings will tend to reduce the benefit of this characteristic and I believe this to be true for most of the points made in this article.  Once again, I believe that this benefit is a subtle reason that log home enthusiasts say that their log home is just so comfortable!  You are not conscious of this activity, but it goes on and it’s to your substantial benefit.

Thanks for tuning in!

Don

Week Ending 2/8/08

This week we return to our discussion on the points made in the Wood, People and Health paper.  The next item (# 4. Scent) on our list is about the odor of the wood itself.  If you have lived in a log home for a while, this feature will not register that well with you unless you go away from your log home for extended periods of time, and if this is the case, you will definitely notice the scent upon returning.  But, if this is not the case, you will wonder if your olfactory nerve, or sense of smell, is functioning well when new guests in your log home remark about the freshness of the natural aroma.  Case in point, the office of Fireside Log Homes in Ellijay, Georgia was constructed in 1984 and our guests today remark about how good it smells when they enter, although the employees who arrive daily don’t necessarily notice the scent, but it is real and it is ongoing, this freshness that the logs, and a lot of other wood used in the finishing of your log home, will add to your interior environment.  If you doubt this, visit the log home of a friend, or even a model log home, and see how your nose responds.  You will be pleasantly pleased.

Once you have lived in a log home for a while, the fresh odor of the wood will not be near as apparent as the first six months, or a year, but it is always there and becomes part of the overall ambiance of the home that encourages you to say, “I just know I love it and it feels good!”

If you are already in your log home, I trust I hear a chorus of “Amen’s!”  If you are moving in that direction, I say it is worth all the energy and investment that is required to get there, so “Keep on Trucking!”

Yours truly,

Don Mahaffey

Week Ending 2/1/08

We interrupt this discussion with another that I consider an imperative.  Have you purchased your land yet?  If you have and you are really happy with your investment, then you might tune out the balance of this unless you are intrigued.  If you have your land, or lot, and have not read the article that we distribute about Siting a Home, then I encourage you to read it.  This is one of the essentials to getting off to a good start and a key also to finishing strong.

Why do I sound so emotional about this subject?  Well, I have freshly seen another investment in property that was based more on minimizing initial cost rather than the many other considerations that in all honesty should outweigh the lowest possible entry cost.  Even though you may not be a grader, builder, or developer, you still have the ability to listen and let the property talk to you about what the possibilities are.  For instance, if you are looking for a lot in, let’s say, a mountain community and you are excited about a particular site, excuse yourself from the salesperson and just by yourself, or with an experienced person round about, stand in the road and walk the road in front of the property and try to imagine how the drive will leave the road and enter the site.  If it seems that it would be a difficult proposition, that is your first clue that you had better think twice.  The people who execute the work are skilled and imaginative, but they are not magicians.  You could spend most of your savings on the difference in lot price on just getting the road cut into the site.  Going further, if there are other obstacles that are obvious to you, they will be even more obvious to the experienced advisor, so get a grip on yourself because this view, or whatever the attraction (low cost too), may be rapidly disappearing with the increased cost to develop and build.

The driveway is just as all the other points.  You do not want to create a driveway that will forever be a challenge to enter and to exit, and to keep maintained.  There is such a driveway near a home we are presently constructing and I know the difficulties are only beginning with this driveway.  It is a major challenge just to get up and down it.  If you desire no one to visit you, then this might just be your ticket, but most log home owners feel just the opposite.

The last element for this discussion is the siting of the home itself.  In the mountains it is more a question of the grade of the property and having a spot that captures all you wish it to. Disregard all of the other considerations when you are sorting this one out.  Yes you can do a lot with foundations, but you can also spend a fortune trying to overcome natural barriers.  I have seen some things in the last two or three years that have absolutely dumbfounded me such as foundation walls 40’ tall, or more.  As I once told a developer, there are some parcels of land that should never be developed or platted for a home site.  He did not like it or me, I think, but I surely emphasize that even more strongly now because I have seen too many people let emotions overrule logic and just good, plain sense.  Additionally, the best investment just might be a higher priced property that allows for things to flow much easier as in, once again, entry, the drive to the home, and the construction process itself.

Be kind to yourself and be smart for the long term.  If you are salivating, but uneasy, respond to your subconscious and stop, breathe deeply and think logically.  If all else fails and you are still in doubt, call Fireside.  We will be happy to give you our opinion at no charge to you.  One of my favorite activities is walking land, considering all of the above, and choosing a home site.

At your service,

Don Mahaffey

Week Ending 1/11/08

It is time to talk about humidity as we work our way through the Wood, People and Health paper.  This is a more important subject than you might think. It really does affect your health and it really does work.  I will likely be more emphatic about this than any of the other points that we consider.

First of all, by observation, all of nature seems to be striving for a state of equilibrium, and there is always movement to allow this state to be achieved.  This happens on both the inside and outside with moisture, and happens on the inside to a greater extent because the moisture is not impeded by a sealer.  Moisture in the form of vapor is continually moving into and out of the logs, and other wood, striving to stay in balance with the moisture in the surrounding air. When this is working well, the logs are really healthy and the other things (people, or occupants, being one) are healthier too because the moisture is not too great or too dry, or we hope and pray that it is not too dry.

An unhealthy condition can happen when the atmosphere on the inside of a log home gets too dry. It’s bad for the logs, wood furniture and the occupants, and their pets. A reasonable visual picture of this would be for you to imagine a household sponge on the sink in the kitchen. When you are using it, it is full and healthy looking, but if it is allowed to sit for several days without use, it dries out and shrivels up and can really look bad, like it belongs in the trash can. But, you hold it under the faucet for a minute and there it is, full and healthy and ready for a cleaning job.  Guess what?  The same is true for the human.  Adult bodies are composed of about 55% to 65% moisture. When the environment is too dry, the body is affected in many ways, but most directly and immediately in our respiratory systems.  So what’s the big deal?  In the heating season, it is imperative to create the optimum condition in a log home and that moisture be put back into the air to replace the moisture that is being removed by the heat generated.  Wood heat and gas heat that have combustion in the area being heated tend to remove the greatest amount of moisture. So, regardless of the type of heat you are using, with the tightness of homes today, you need to put moisture back in the air and, if it is wood or gas heat, you should put more moisture back into the air.

So why are logs so great in a home situation?  Because they help promote this state of equilibrium by absorbing the moisture when there is a lot and by releasing it when the atmosphere is becoming dry.  Your body appreciates it even if you are not conscious of it.

Yes, I believe in what we do and the great value of log home living!

Thanks for joining in.

Don

Week Ending 1/4/08

As stated in the last Blog, the next few weeks will be spent focusing on the article (paper) Wood, People and Health written some time in the 1800’s (or so I am told)  by a German Professor, Dr. Anton Schneider. We will take one or more of his points each week and relate what my personal experience and education have done to enlighten me about the benefit of using wood, specifically for log homes. You can view the article here or you can dowload a PDF version of it here.

His first point is “A Capacity for Diffusion”.  To begin with, I resorted to Webster’s to be clear about the word “diffusion”. The meaning that best fits this use, I think, is “the mingling of molecules of two or more substances.”  First of all, let me admit that I am not a scientist and do not really understand how all of this works, but this characteristic of wood seems almost miraculous in its ability to absorb particulate matter right out of the air and this phenomenon seems not to affect the wood itself as in a lingering odor or even changing the color of the wood.  Before Fireside appreciated this characteristic of a solid log wall, we put a polyurethane finish on the interior wall of part of our model/office in Ellijay, Georgia when it was finished in 1985, so we diminished the benefit in the areas that we applied this finish. It looked great and still does, but we did have some problems on the outside of this wall and it was some abnormal deterioration of the logs themselves. This resulted primarily, I believe, from the failure of an exterior stain, but now I believe that applying this sealant on the inside was just as detrimental.  The lesson learned is this, wood is alive in some matter and it needs to breathe and when it can breathe, it remains healthy and it produces a healthy environment. You do benefit from a sealant or high quality, permeable finish on the exterior because you want the water to shed as fast as possible and you want the harmful ultraviolet rays to be repelled as much as possible. So it is a fine line for maintaining breatheability and protecting the wood.  Once again, I would suggest that you become familiar with The Sansin Corporation’s line of exterior finishes, but use your own judgment as well.

One experience sticks in my mind that maybe highlights this feature better than any other experience and that was with a family that actually built two “Fireside” log homes, the second because of their good fortune of being able to turn a significant profit on the first. Mr. Burton was a smoker and poker player, and regularly had his friends over for “poker night”.  He related that he was always amazed that the low smoke cloud that accumulated while the game was in process, was not only gone within 30 minutes of his friends departure, but there was no lingering odor from all the smoking that took place.  I can personally state that I was in the Burton’s log home several times and there was no cigarette odor present, something that I am very sensitive to.  How does all of this work?  Maybe Professor Schneider’s “capacity for diffusion” in some way relates to the wonderful ability of wood.

I would also say that item # 3, “Filtration”, is very close to this so we will consider that these two points are covered by this discussion. Let me also relate that over the years we have had a number of customers that suffered with significant allergies and they came to us to help them create a solid timber home, chemical free as much as possible, because of the urging of their healthcare physician. I would imagine that if it is good for them, it likely is very good for the rest of us.

If you have any stories or experiences that might amplify this, I would love to hear from you. Next week we will discuss “Humidity” which is much easier for me to understand and appreciate.

Thanks for tuning in.

Don

Week Ending 12/28/07

Greetings for the last time in ’07, unless you choose to call Fireside in these closing hours, and should that happen, you will have made our year complete. Thanks for tuning in and whether it is a first time visit or one of many, the welcome is sincere and, I hope, to your benefit.

If you have been to Fireside, I trust you have received a copy of the article attached. Without really getting into a discussion about the different points made by this German Scientist, Professor Anton Schneider, many years ago, I will simply state that I have benefited from each of these by living in a log home, full time, for over a decade. They are real and with good foundation. I was made aware of this article in the early 90’s and sought to really understand each of these, but did not scratch the surface enough on the more involved ones to advance my understanding. If you have an interest, please tune in for the next several weeks as I will undertake this study, and, as best as I can, will share my revelations and enlightenment. For the moment, just accept these points as the truth.

And here’s an interesting note, years ago, at the same time Professor Schneider was penning his article, I came across a Chinese wood scientist that was writing the same thoughts, half way around the world!  I trust you will enjoy the article and I look forward to the study and the discussion.

You can dowload a PDF of the article here.

Happy New Year!

Don

Week Ending 12/14/07

You might get the impression from last week and this week that we are steadily engaged in repairing logs that have developed defects. The truth is that it is a really rare thing, but I suspect that a question resides with prospective log home owners on how you deal with one of these defects and pictures, as the old axiom suggests, show that the degree of difficulty to carry out these repairs is much simpler than most might imagine. Let me be quick to add however that if reasonable maintenance is not practiced and problems are ignored, the degree of difficulty can increase substantially.

Now, a little background on the situation this week, this log home is about two years old and Fireside Home Builders did the “dry-in” on the home. The defect that developed was certainly not evident at the time of manufacturing or at the time of installation, which occurred only a week or two after manufacturing. There are two logs involved in this repair and we did the second log because of some severe checking that had developed, and doing this repair now would eliminate years of attention. Since both logs were on the bottom course on the south elevation of the home, we chose to do this project and it would result in what you are now reading.

The log profile is what we refer to as our stacked chink log. It has a groove cut in the top to simulate a chink joint. The log is flat on the face excepting for the chink groove. The repair process is to remove ¾” of material off the face of the log and replace it with a siding product that is identical in look and ¾” in thickness. Now back for a moment to the defect. There is no rot involved in this repair, just separating growth rings right on the face (see Photo I).  Removing the surface and eliminating the exposure of this defected area is all that is required to resolve this potentially negative circumstance. Photo II shows a check that extends from the defected area and what you cannot see is some additional checking (cracking) in the second log.

Photo III shows the removal process underway. The face is being removed using a 3 horsepower router with a straight 1½” bit.  Since the face of the log is flat, setting the limit guide blocks and carrying out the routing is a reasonably simple matter. If the face was round, the jigging to get started and to carry out the removal would be a bit more complicated. Photo’s IV and V show that the initial phase of the removal is complete. The final photo (Photo VI) shows the installation of the siding to the right and the balance on the left waiting to receive the siding. A benefit to this repair is that we were able to cover the end butt joint of the logs. This means that the original base course logs, where the checking and defects existed, are now permanently protected. The original stain was then applied to match and protect the siding. The job was started and completed within a matter of a few hours, and was done mostly by one person (although two men were on the job.)

If you look closely at the initial photos, you can see some premature failure of the finish applied less than two years earlier. The finish was actually flaking off in numerous places. This should never be the case with a quality stain. This product was produced by a prominent finish manufacturer who, I learned from this experience, has removed this product from their product line. It was obvious that this material sealed the wood too much and what happened was likely bound to happen in time. As for a finish recommendation, including the additive NBS30 to the top coat of the finish, you can refer to some past BLOGS: 9/7/2007, 9/14/2007, 9/21/2007, 9/28/2007.

Again, I trust this weeks BLOG has been educational. If it raises any questions or comments, just fire away and you will get a response!  Thanks for joining me!

Don

Week Ending 12/7/07

Yes, I took a little break from creating this weekly, or “whenever the spirit moves”, news and educational note. I do hope there is value in you returning to this site and increasing your knowledge and your chances for a great log home experience.

As promised, I believe in our last note I said I would show you photos of the repair on a corner log on a customers home that, in my opinion, did not go bad but managed to get through our grading process undetected. We therefore sent our most talented technical man, Doug Beck, to make the repair. Doug, by the way, has been with Fireside for almost 20 years and is the man that supplies technical assistance on all of our start-up’s and all along the way with folks that need help. He is one of our greatest assets.

I will show you the repair by the numbers. First of all, when the customer sent the photos, the log was intact. But, before Doug arrived, the bottom quarter of the log fell off because of the depth of the check and the saddlenotch cut. Photo I shows the condition of the log before the repair started. Photo II also shows the end grain of the log which told me initially that there was a deterioration problem with this log. Photo III shows the bad log removed and the remainder piece with the sawsall cut that will next be chiseled out at least one inch beyond the point of intersection with the passing log above it. Photo IV is again another shot of the log removed with the balance that will be hand chiseled out. Photo V shows the replacement piece inserted back into its spot. Doug had this piece with him already prepared to go back in its slot. Photo VI shows the exterior caulking applied before the customer applies the finish.

One comment I will make, there are two adjacent logs that need maintenance attention and I will make the homeowner aware of these, but you can see from the photos that two logs have significant checks on the upper side of their rounded faces. A product I would recommend for this maintenance is “Checkmate”, manufactured by Perma-Chink Systems, Inc. with offices and distribution in Knoxville, Tennessee. You basically fill these checks with the Checkmate, not a caulk, that will keep the water out and allow the movement of the log while stretching and contracting with its movement. Checking is a defect that develops when the logs lose moisture and cells collapse causing stress to develop within the timber that is relieved with the checking. We had hoped that our Process 2000 would eliminate checking and it helps reduce it, but it does not eliminate it.

A commentary on this repair job, Doug drove over 400 miles in one day, made the repair, and was back home before 5:00 pm. Two things:  1) Doug got up early and hit the road, and 2) Doug is very skilled and was well prepared when he arrived at the job. The point is, yes, on rare occasions logs can develop defects that need to be dealt with, but the repairs can be made without great difficulty. I will retract this last statement if bad product or bad construction practices are the root of the problem and I have observed both. As a general rule, in this day and time, I do not believe that would be the case, and if a problem does develop, call an expert who is believable in his assessment and have him estimate the cost of the repair. If you think the cost is too great, call another expert and a third expert if you feel like it is necessary. And if you still feel less than comfortable, call me and I will do all I can to help. By the way, we made this repair at Fireside’s expense because it was a defect that we should have caught in our grading.

Now, not to wear this repair thing out, but to further demonstrate the possibilities, we will make another repair on a customers home that I am choosing to do because of circumstances, but also to relieve fears of those of you who are teetering on a decision of whether to build with logs or not. All I can say is the benefits to log home living are so significant that the rare chance of having to make a repair is such a minimal thing that the decision should not even be a horse race. See how my prejudice just rises to the surface!

And finally, I have to report our activity from last weekend. We had a “log raising” on a Fireside log home near Robbinsville, North Carolina. It was a beautiful day and just perfect for doing this. And, we had people there who were from even 600 to 700 miles away to learn about this construction process. But the highlight for me resulted in more pictures and they are attached. We have done hundreds of log raisings over the years, but never have we had a three year old boy participate and participate with great enthusiasm!  The pictures are of Joey Muehlhausen, the son of Glenn and Lisa, and the grandson of Joe and Karen Russo. The pictures say it all!  If I fast forward my imagination, I can see Joey and his family building their own or even directing his construction company that specializes in log and timber frame construction throughout the US!  Nonetheless, Joey made my day!  And if you are reading this note and you were there, thank you for coming and I trust it was beneficial. And in closing, Jerrell, if you are out there in cyberspace, we appreciate the help on Saturday and I trust all of your body parts are still working well!

Have a good one!

Don

Week Ending 11/16/07

Last week I promised that with permission I would publish a letter written by Don Brown who is a friend, supplier and customer (having since sold his business), but writing the attached letter after being inspired by his own desire to know about the flame and fire retardant properties of Fireside’s treating process, which contains the maximum amount of borate (an insecticide) that can be held in solution. Don’s test was most enlightening and encouraging to me, and he approved the use of his letter in this week’s B “LOG” (BLOG). Click here to download a PDF of his letter.

If you recall last week, I talked about the general resistance of logs to catch fire and burn in a log home. Fireside’s treating process tends to enhance this characteristic. Now I’m certainly not saying that our logs won’t burn. What I am saying is that Fireside’s logs are more resistant to catching fire and flames spreading than materials that are not similarly treated. It should also be noted that our pressure treating process pushes the borate all the way to the center of our logs.

In a closing note, a rare thing happened this week. I received a picture of a defective log from a Fireside customer. The customer was concerned about some checking that had occurred on a corner log. Observing the picture, it was obvious to me that there had been some deterioration of the tree, probably before it was cut, and the defect did not show up until the log was exposed to the weather. Since a lot of folks have questions about how you repair a log that develops a defect, I will run pictures of the log before, during and after the repair process is completed (which will be within a couple of weeks). So if this interests you, stay tuned!

And finally, we received a question through our web site about the use of antifreeze in treating Fireside’s logs. We do not use antifreeze and never will!!! If anyone doubts the environmental and human friendly nature of PEG (Polyethylene Glycol), please know that it is used in over 1,000 consumer products including foods, cosmetics, medicines and medicinal products. If it were otherwise, Fireside would not even consider its use! The ingredient in antifreeze is Ethylene Glycol, not Polyethylene Glycol.

Thanks for tuning in this week!

Don

Week Ending 11/9/07

Current events tend to dominate our thoughts and so it is with the discussion today. We are preparing at this moment to help a courageous lady and her handicapped daughter rebuild their log home that was lost, totally consumed by fire, on October 15th.  The fire was started and fed by a small propane tank that was on her back porch. The tank provided the fuel for a gas grill that I understand she used that evening. I am told the explosion was heard and felt for miles. For this Mother and her disabled daughter to have gotten out of the home is a miracle, so Fireside is excited about being the lead dog in a community effort to create a log home that will be far superior to what was lost, and we want to create a most positive miracle for the two of them.

Their situation prompts the discussion of fire, but the focus here is on the fire safety of log homes, which is contrary to what most people might think. Yes, we have had one or two customers who have lost their log homes by fire, but each will tell you that had it not been a log home, their loss would have been much greater. In fact, last year we did fire damage repairs on one of our log homes that we constructed in 1992, and this customer states, point blank, that had their home been a conventional home and not logs, the home would have been a total loss. This customer took hundreds of pictures to underscore his point and passed a copy on to me. By the way, the fire was started, they believe, in a chimney chase that was added after the original home was built and was caused by an electrical short after mice had eaten through the insulated wire.  So beware of mice!

At our last Workshop, this subject came up and a beautiful thing unfolded. We had a career fireman and his family attending, who currently live in a log home, and he graciously spoke up and gave his educated view of things. He stated that it is the contents that burn and fuel the fire, not the logs and timbers themselves. This family is looking to build another log home to basically upgrade from a home they built themselves years ago.

You are probably not concerned about fire or you would not be on our web site and reading these words of, I hope, encouragement. But, the truth is, you are safer in a solid timber frame home than in almost any other type of construction basically because of the nature of the wood itself. As the wood is heated by an interior fire, it is charred and the charring tends to insulate the wood, allowing it to maintain its strength for a longer period of time, giving you more time to get out of the home and possibly get the things out you treasure most.

The fact that Fireside adds the maximum amount of borate as an insecticide to our treating solution tends to add to this natural benefit of the wood. Borate is commonly used as a flame retardant so we create a double benefit when we use it as we do.

There are many stories that I have heard and/or witnessed that help build my personal enthusiasm for this additional benefit of log home living. In fact one of these is a backyard experiment that one of our business friends did with some of Fireside’s treated wood. I asked him to write a letter to me explaining what he did and I think we will carry this discussion forward to next week and publish his letter in full with his permission.

Thank you for joining us this week, and we trust we can help you, and will help you, in any and every way possible along your journey.

Don

Week Ending 11/2/07

Let’s discuss one of the critical problems of the day for a large segment of the folks considering the purchase of their log home. I choose to discuss this in hopes of heading off a delay or a flat out disappointment in your experience, and this all has to do with appraisals. If you are seeking to finance a large portion of the cost of your project and you are using your improved property for security, you will need a reasonable appraisal to make it all work.

With all the present turmoil in the real estate and lending business, construction lenders, as well as mortgage lenders, are taking a more conservative approach in valuing their security. The appraisers are taking the brunt of the blame for this, but it is the lenders themselves and their restrictive policies that are creating this situation. So, if you will soon be at this point, you need to know how you can have the best affect on a positive outcome.

Number one:  be positively expectant yourself.  It is going to be a challenge so enter in the fray prepared to do whatever it takes to win. Tell your construction mortgage lender that you only want an appraiser who is experienced with log homes and who has had recent experiences in the last year. Tell your loan officer that you would like to interview the prospective appraiser to get a feel for their attitude and their most recent experiences with log homes. Unless you can finance the project out of pocket, insist on this interview. Here is a list of questions you might ask to make your determination:

After this last question, be quiet and listen, and let the responses be your guide. You are paying the bill, so you have every right to have a thumbs up or thumbs down on the choice of the appraiser. If you still have not gotten satisfaction, there are national lenders who are specializing in log and timber frame homes and who have relationships with appraisers in every state. Draw on them or their resources in solving your need.

Are you still short of your goal?  Please call me, without being embarrassed, because every project and every locale is different, and remember, we started this process with a firm commitment to win. Fireside stands ready to help you make it successfully through this step, but we can only contribute if there is communication.

Good for you for making it this far!  Let us celebrate your move-in date with you!

Thank you for tuning in this week.

Don

Week Ending 10/26/07

This will be brief and maybe a bit surprising. The most basic of the basics is the wood itself or the specie that is used to create the log home. There are a great variety of woods used in this country and around the world. The woods that have proven not to work well for whatever the reason have lost favor and are not used in what we call the “log home” industry. So, the most common species, as long as good design and good construction practices are followed (that take into consideration the characteristics of that specie), you can count on being able to create a good, basically trouble free, log home.

All the companies in this industry are trying with all their might to satisfy their customers and create a pleasant, long term experience. Unfortunately, through lack of understanding or lack of caring, this has not always been the case, but that is history and this industry is moving on to become a substantial part of the total offering of the housing industry in North America.

The specie that a particular manufacturer works with is one that is available in their locale and that exhibits the best characteristics of stability, lowest coefficient of shrinkage, and the greatest resistance to insect attack. Basically all woods look great in their natural raw form and all give off a little different aroma. Most aromas are pleasant and not pungent, but all tend to fade into the background over time.

The positive benefits of log homes are created by all the most common species used. Some are high density and some are low density, and this affects the insulating qualities, but all solid logs have mass and the ability to store energy. And all are comprised of a similar cellular structure that combines the qualities that make a log home work, and enables them to be one of the most energy efficient structures that you can build. And, we all know from observing the survivability of log homes through major natural disaster that you cannot invest in anything that will protect you any better unless we resort to a caveman life style and then there is radon gas to be concerned about.

The bottom line is that we are all prejudiced about the way we do things and believe that the wood we work and the processes we put our wood through, and the milling and profiles that we use, are all the best. It is true for Fireside, but in all honesty you can get a good log home with almost any specie, but do be concerned about regional differences. We believe that our product will work well in most climates because of Process 2000. Without it, I would not want to send it to the arid states in the West as we have just shipped our first log home to Utah. I might add, if you want to save a lot of time, you might contact Donna Yaun, a customer in the design phase with Fireside right now, who did extensive research, very methodically, and guess who arrived on top!  Donna, Fireside thanks you for your diligence and your confidence!

Thank you for tuning in this week.

Don

Week Ending 10/19/07

As I mentioned, last week’s B “LOG” was really the outline for a discussion at the Asheville log home show. There were only a handful of attendees, but one was a gentleman from middle Tennessee who indicated that he had been reading this weekly creation. He seemed grateful and interested, so I am greatly encouraged to stay with this. Actually this is all stimulating me to reflect on my years of learning in this business and relate my experiences in such a way that your journey will be improved beyond what it might have been.

One of the items I mentioned at the Asheville show, and I know it caught folks off guard, is my strong recommendation of “do not attach an open deck to a log wall without a porch or extended roof over it”.  Why do I say that, because the splashing to the log wall from a driving rain over and over will cause the finish to break down and break down rapidly. A place that you might be able to observe this is on the side walls of roof dormers. In this situation you can observe that the finish is bright and pretty up under the roof overhang, but at the sloped roof line, it is often faded and the wood is not in good shape. What this means is that you have to pay special attention to these areas by cleaning them and restaining every one to two years. With this attention, you will stay ahead of the game, but if you desire a more relaxed maintenance schedule, extend a roof over this area, at least partially, or build the open deck off a porch deck where splash-back impacts only the post and handrail system. In the log home my wife and I occupy at the moment, we do have an open deck attached to a log wall that is interspersed with clad windows and doors. There are also two planters sitting in front of these walls to offer protection from the problem, but in our new log home, this situation does not exist because all decks have a porch roof over them, and also, there are no dormers on either log home.

Since I’ve called attention to the dormer situation, I want to address it with possible solutions. On a gable or “dog house” dormer you have both the water pouring off its roof and the water being blown onto the sloped roof, so you have a double whammy so-to-speak. I recommend that you hold the wood several inches off the roof, up to 12” would be good, and also, this area could be filled with a metal flashing with a baked on finish with a color that is complimentary to both the stain color and the roofing material. This will help minimize maintenance and eliminate potential problems in an area that is not easily reached. Next time you are looking at log homes, or even conventional homes, with dormers, see what you observe and see if anything was done to protect this area.

This discussion is not meant to discourage building decks or creating dormers, but to help you head off problems before they develop. We want your experience to be the best it can be long term, and some thoughtful planning can help achieve that.

Thank you for spending time with us and we hope to be a part of your creation.

Don

Week Ending 10/12/07

This weekend there will be yet another log home show, this time in Asheville, North Carolina. Fireside Log Homes is participating and I have committed to doing a presentation at the show entitled, “Assuring the Best Log Home Experience.”  If you will allow me, I am going to practice with you right now!

You might find it strange to start with property, but I contend that you need to have your property and the site pretty well determined, or be so determined about how you want your log home to be on a site that you don’t quit searching until you find it. After that, you start investing time in the perfect design, because it’s my thinking that your log home should harmonize so well with the land that it will appear that it grew right out of the soil, as all other vegetation!

Regarding your plan, do not think that this is a fast process, especially if it is to be the last home you ever build.  It can be perfect, but perfection, like most things in nature, takes time to achieve and you need to think about all the conveniences and that includes the use of space, and a multitude of other things.  If you are like most people, while you are trying to speed things up, you will get a lot of blanks, but when you relax, it will come to you and you need to allow enough time to get perfection!  I have come up with a sentence that sums up what I recommend which is to start early, well before you expect construction to begin and a year or more is best. Here is the thought: “start early; allow time; finish confidently” and you will be in harmony with it all!

The next big item is to find a company that you believe satisfies your greatest concerns. The company needs to be the best in design, products offered, and questions answered, and be able to construct the home in a manner you are comfortable with.  And if they don’t construct, do they associate with companies that can make you comfortable as this is the most intense element of the process and where the rubber truly hits the road!

Without being too elementary, I will review the most critical questions below.

This list is short and not exhaustive, but if you ask these basic questions and you have a good feeling in your gut about the responses, you are in all probability in for a great experience in what can be a very stretching experience.  In other words, you need to feel so confident and so comfortable that you can hardly wait another day to get this ball rolling!

Thank you again for tuning in this week.  I trust it was beneficial in some way to you and your success.

Don

Week Ending 10/05/07

If you have followed this writing since it’s inception about four weeks ago, you know I have been hung up on “finishes”. I’ve given the pros and cons, and made some recommendations, on both the exterior and interior finishes of your log home, but particularly I’ve discussed whether to finish the interior wood or not. As a follow up to that, you can download an excellent article from our log home library on this subject entiltled Wood, People and Health. This article contains valuable information that gets well beyond just the romance or coziness of a log home as the primary consideration in creating your own. We are happy to provide you with this very interesting information. Even if you own a log home now and have not read this educational piece, I urge you to do so.

You must have both a love for wood and log homes, especially, or you would not be reading these lines and trying to understand the author!  I think that you can sense the love for both that resides in me, and this love extends to trees and wood in all of its forms. Maybe this whole love affair was capped this very week because I, in the process of building a new log home, cut a heart out of a piece of walnut that had almost the outline of a heart in the grain and this piece was inlaid into a piece of 1 x 12 walnut flooring with the heart going perpendicular to the grain of the board. It captures the love and the beauty in this one little spot. Years ago a person that I loved very much and understood this affair I have with wood gave me a little book entitled A Reverence for Wood.  This title captures my feeling precisely and inspired me onward.

At our Workshop this past weekend, we had two attendees that stimulated my thinking about the nature of wood, its strength and character, and what some possible uses might be of some of the wood that gets into our scrap barrel.  The defect cutting that we do and the defects that naturally occur in timbers and beams mean that we generate an ample supply of material that we greatly desire to better utilize. We have small chunks to long timbers that all have defects that have to be cut around to recover the good. One of our attendees mentioned some flooring that he had seen at a wood science laboratory on the Georgia Tech campus. It just so happens that I had been there about three weeks ago myself and was so excited that I did not look down at the floor!  Anyway, what he related was blocks with the end grain exposed and he remarked that it was just beautiful.  Now I know this was a decorative application, but years ago in the textile mills and other heavy wear operations, this type of flooring was used because you could hardly wear it out with all of the winter wood (hard, denser grain) exposed. Quarter sawn flooring is the only wood that would approach it as a “wear” surface, but for residential purposes, both of these would be well beyond what would be practical.  However, for decorative use, it might be very practical in a foyer or kitchen.

The other gentleman in the discussion about the strength likened the structure of wood to a honeycomb and this nails it precisely. It is the honeycomb effect plus other things that give wood its strength, its insulating qualities and even its reasonable stability. One product or really an industry that will help you appreciate this strength is the corrugated board and carton industry. This is a use of wood fiber reconstituted into corrugations, or a form of the honeycomb effect, to create light weight and high strength. And, in conclusion, you have it in its most original form in your log home. You have the strength, the insulating qualities and, if properly protected on the exterior (roof and finish), the durability that will last for centuries. I congratulate you once again for your consideration and your investment in one of the most rewarding housing options you could choose.

If so stimulated, I encourage your feedback or comments. You can send them to me via our blog feedback form. I would love to hear your thoughts!

Don

Week Ending 9/28/07

It seems that I just cannot get away from the “finishing” issue. Much of that has to do with the visit of Sjoerd Bos and Suzanne White with the Sansin Corporation, but also with my interaction with customers at this past weekend’s log home show in Atlanta.

First, the time with the Sansin folks was very stimulating and got deeply into the technical and scientific side of the manufacturing of quality finishes. Sansin started with the concept and formula for an environmentally friendly finish to protect wood exposed to the elements. The formula, which is still somewhat secret, involves the use of water to carry the protective ingredients on to and in to the wood. Since this beginning, the knowledge and discoveries have continued to evolve and the original concept has expanded into a new world.

I mentioned in my last writing that the small particle size of the pigments is one of the primary contributors to ultraviolet protection, which rivals moisture shedding qualities in protecting the wood.  Well I learned last week that this development has gotten so good and so fine for iron oxide (rust) that it can be as much as 10% by volume in a clear finish without you being able to detect any color at all. This means that if a customer does desire a clear finish on his home on the exterior, there is a greater possibility of getting a reasonable extended life for the finish (protection), still not as good as a visible pigmented stain, but much improved from the past. Sansin produces a line of what they term Nano stains which are all the finest ground pigments available and this should equal the longest life possible.

My report from the log home show in Atlanta this past weekend is that there are many, many people with conventional homes interested in log homes who are having problems with carpenter bees in their present homes. If that includes you, I highly recommend that you invest in several cans of NBS30.  It is only $30 per can and each can be added to five gallons of paint or stain and the next time you put a finish on your home, make sure that additive is in there. Fireside stocks this product and wants you to experience this protection. If you already have an infestation, the latest remedy I have is squirting a little WD40 into the holes and stuffing a ball of tin foil in afterwards!

Good luck and thank you for tuning in!

Don

Week Ending 9/21/07

If you have just discovered this weekly note, I welcome you to this corner of our web site, and I trust you will come back often as I will strive to pen something worth clicking on every week!  The first week was an introduction followed by a two week discussion about the pros and cons of applying an interior finish on the wood portion of your log home. My recommendations are totally my own opinions that have evolved over twenty three (23) years of observation, study and feedback from customers.  These B “LOG’s” (BLOG’s) are short so if you have an interest, you can quickly digest the first ones.  And since I am being paid a visit by a friend this week who just happens to be a finish manufacturer, I would like to continue on with the consideration of exterior finishes. I will provide him with a copy of this note to see if there is accord in our thinking and beliefs.

Since the mid-80’s, there have been great strides made in the quality of exterior finishes. The longevity of quality finishes is also improving and, I believe, will continue to do so, as competition to have the most effective product is great and this will push product development. One of the most often heard remarks from our customers who first see their home rise before their eyes is, “I want the home to stay just like this. What can we apply to the logs and maintain this forever?”  The answer is, “there is nothing you can apply that will maintain that fresh look of new wood.”  The moment it is exposed to sunlight, changes in coloration begin to take place. It is no different than you or me sun burning or tanning with our exposure to this ultraviolet light. And, as true with sunscreen, the wood and wood fiber can be protected from the harmful effects if you apply a finish that has significant ultraviolet inhibitors, but, almost as important, are the pigments. For years it was the pigments that gave the bulk of the protection from the ultraviolet rays, but now the advances in the development of finishes in general, and ultraviolet inhibitors specifically, has changed the nature of stains to some degree, even to the extent that some manufacturers produce clear finishes for exterior use that will hold up for a reasonable length of time. However, the manufacturer will be quick to tell you that the clear finishes will not have near the life or protection as the pigmented stains, especially those with the really finely ground pigments.

Fireside’s recommendation is and has been to invest in the best stain you can buy and I think it’s almost a “crime” to put anything other than a semi-transparent stain on a log home.  The beauty of the wood is in its character and grain, so let it shine through, and enhance it some, with a beautiful stain.

What should you expect to pay for a quality stain?  Nowadays, a really good stain will cost between $40 and $60 a gallon even in a five gallon pail.  If you are looking at a product that costs much less, you are applying a product that will likely not protect your investment as well and certainly not as long.  Since the labor of applying is about 2/3’s or more of the cost, longevity should interest you. Let me say that there are many, many finish manufacturers and I am not familiar even with a fraction of them so there are likely some sleepers out there that might just be a great investment. Satisfy yourself with your own research before you invest.

Now, whatever stain you use, we highly recommend that you put an insecticide additive in the top coat to drive the critters away, with the primary one being carpenter bees. The product Fireside recommends is NBS 30 and it is an all natural citronella based plant oil additive. We believe in this product.

Without sounding like a paid advertisement, I will now tell you that the friend referenced in the first paragraph is with Sansin Corporation, a Canadian company that is technically advanced with their products and they are coming to take pictures of a new application of their SDF product on a new log home/model log home that is a splendid example, in our minds, of the quality of their products.

Thank you once again for tuning in to this column and I would like to hear from you, either pros or cons, on the thoughts expressed.

Happy log home living to you all, and if you’re in the Atlanta area this weekend (Friday, Saturday and Sunday), Fireside will be represented at The Log & Timber Frame Home Show at the Cobb Galleria Centre in Marietta, Georgia (just 10 minutes North of downtown Atlanta @ I-75 / I-285).

Don

Week Ending 9/14/07

With the exception of my last, but exciting, paragraph here, this week’s note basically confirms my thoughts expressed in last week’s discussion on interior finishes, as I just received a monthly newsletter from one of our suppliers who is a finish manufacturer and a very good one. They have specialized in serving the log home industry for a number of years and have created numerous products that serve this industry very well. This is all to say that I truly respect them and what they have to say about “why finish interior walls?”

First, they mention that most people want an interior finish because they cover plaster and sheet rock walls and they expect their wood walls to be finished as well. To this I respond with, “yes there is no better way to bring out the grain and natural color, but a log home is different and there is lots of wood and lots of benefit for leaving it unfinished” (see last weeks BLOG). Second, this manufacturer says that bare wood is an absorber of odors, and this is true.  Bare wood does absorb odors, but what happens after that is truly amazing. The wood absorbs it and basically refreshes the air. I don’t know how; I just know it does. This comes from personal experience and from the experience of our customers, such as Mr. Burton who built his second log home with Fireside after selling his first one at a substantial profit. He said, “I have my buddy’s over for poker playing every week and we all smoke and by 9:30 pm, there is a low hanging smoke cloud in the great room, but within an hour of the time we break up, the smoke is gone and the odor is too.”  So again, I cannot tell you why; I just know it works.

This company also mentions water base finishes, which I totally agree with, if you choose to apply a finish. And they go on to talk about a finish enabling the homeowner to keep the wood clean, and I’m not opposed to having a finish applied on high impact surfaces which are very few, relatively speaking, such as doors, windows, trim and steps, but I would encourage you to consider this, “is it really difficult to keep the wood clean” and “do the benefits of keeping it clean outweigh the benefits of a healthy environment?”

And now for some excitement!  Last Friday was a most entertaining day for me that I will relish for some time. Due to some research we are undertaking to see if there is any way we can improve on our unique treating process, Process 2000, I journeyed to Atlanta to the campus of Georgia Tech and visited the Advanced Wood Products Laboratory and the Institute of Paper Science and Technology!  Wow!  This really gets my clock running and I know the time was valuable for many reasons, however to keep it within the context of a log home web site, all of this proves what an amazing resource wood fiber is and that with all of our advances, man has not created a fiber that equals wood fiber in strength (by weight) and several other characteristics.  And I trust you have built or are considering building your home using this wonderful resource.  Congratulations!

Don

Week Ending 9/7/07

Before jumping into a discussion about interior finishes, allow me to reflect on the event of this past Saturday. Yes, we had a Log Raising near Hayesville, North Carolina and for all of the attendees, at least the ones who were hands-on, involved in the construction, it was a wonderful, satisfying happening that accomplished its goal. The goal was to complete the stacking of fifteen courses of logs, and to help all who had an interest, to understand our wall construction system and to appreciate how precise our logs are cut at the mill. Please see the attached photo and know that the satisfied smiles tell most of the story, but not all. The customer had nineteen friends helping and Fireside’s prospects were numerous, including two dealers and one young man who will be having his own Log Raising near Rosman, North Carolina in October. Thanks to all who contributed!

Now for a discussion of interior finishes and the pros and cons of applying a finish to interior log walls and to the variety of wood products used to finish most log homes. This could be a long wandering discussion, but due to the moment's time constraints, I will keep it brief and rely on my assimilated experiences. Contrary to what I first believed when I first entered this business, and love affair, I no longer believe that a finish should be applied to the interior of a wood in a log home, excepting possibly doors, windows and the surrounding trim. By this statement, you can surely determine that Fireside is not a finish manufacturer. But my belief is that the log walls and all of the other wood products remain the healthiest that they can be without a finish and, likewise, they contribute more to a healthy environment if they are not sealed in any way. There are many reasons for this, but the short of it is that the unsealed wood allows for the free flow of everything, i.e., moisture, air, sound, energy of all sorts, and more, beyond my understanding. So, do not impede all of this movement unless you just have to have some color on the wall, or wherever.

If you do need color, then I would encourage you to choose a water base product that would allow this transporter of the pigments to evaporate harmlessly. There are now some more technically advanced water based products that should accomplish this without negatively affecting the interior environment. I would encourage your personal research if a finish is what you want to do.

There are some who believe that you need to put a protective coat on wood around a high moisture area such as a sink, tub, shower, etc., but from years of really testing this to see if it is necessary, it is concluded that it is not. You cannot be crazy and let the wood sit in water or soak it up continually, but to get splashed regularly and be exposed to steam regularly presents no problem to the wood and does not negatively affect the appearance. Now if you had an unfinished wood vanity top that got a regular dose of toothpaste, mouth wash and all the other toiletries that we use, this would not be good, but just water itself would present no problem.

If you have not read an article written by a German wood scientist over a century ago, contact us and we will email it to you. The interesting thing about this wonderful piece, at least I have been told, is that at about the same time the German scientist created the results of his study, a wood scientist in China was writing a paper that was almost identical to the German paper. So many, many years ago both were encouraging us to “go green” for many wonderful reasons.

We invite discussion and feedback on each week’s topic, so if you have had an experience that conflicts with my thoughts, I would like to know about the situation. Your can send your thoughts and comments by clicking here.   Thank you for investing your time here.

Don

Week Ending 8/31/07

Thank you for taking the time to read this short message, which is the beginning of a new feature for our web site. This B “LOG” (BLOG) will be a weekly communication that I trust will be of value and interest to those of you who commonly visit our web site. It will prompt me to dig deeper into newsworthy subject matter to give you the latest of whatever I am reporting on, but bear in mind that it will be a blended commentary that will most assuredly be colored with my thoughts and opinions that have developed from over 24 years of active interest and involvement in the log home industry. In addition to the latest news in the industry, there will be more than a few thoughts expressed about current events at Fireside, and I will do that now.

Our monthly workshop this past Saturday produced its share of excitement and furthering of many relationships. All were of interest but one in particular is a lady with the first name of Faith, “a real lady”, who journeyed with her Mother to Fireside in Ellijay, Georgia from Arizona. Until she discovered Fireside, Faith was giving up on her desire to build a log home, but once she learned about what our treatment process accomplishes, her hope revived, and we are now focused on helping her design and construct her log home at an 8,000 foot elevation near Tucson. Thank you Faith for the “faith” expressed!

Tuesday of this week included about 19 hours of activity stuffed, actually overflowing, with log homes. One of the highlights was spending the afternoon with Brad Powell of The Powell Group with whom we have a Dealer/Builder relationship in Morganton, North Carolina.  This is a relationship that we are most delighted to have, as Brad’s focus is on quality and going all out to please his customers. Thank you Brad for “teaming” with Fireside in the creation of so many beautiful log homes, and our highest compliments are paid to you on your model, The Ridgeline, in your new community “The Pisgah Preserve” overlooking Lake James between Morganton and Marion, North Carolina. Congratulations are certainly due you!

Now, if a “hands on” log home learning experience has some appeal to you, we will be stacking courses this Saturday, September 1st, near Hayesville, North Carolina for the Brad Ensell “Log Raising”.  The Ensell’s have contributed to four “log raising” events themselves and have thereby earned some payback from the Fireside family, which we intend to clearly express on Saturday.  From our pre-registration, we should have a whopper of a crowd, but not so many that we cannot accommodate you and your family, so please join us as a participant (have your work gloves handy) or an observer, and bring your lawn chairs and sunscreen, as we will stack some logs and you can set your sails for your own log raising adventure!

And this winds up the first Fireside B “LOG” (BLOG), but we will be back next week with a discussion on interior finishes, and their pro’s and con’s.  Join us then, and thank you for tuning in to this note.

Don Mahaffey
President/Owner
Fireside Log Homes &
Fireside Home Builders

Don would love to hear any comments or questions you may have.