Montana Rancher Log Home from Meadowlark, Elvie Takes A Tour 

hi everyone I'm Elvie from Meadowlark log homes behind me we've got a Rancher a single level log home that the guys just got done drying in and Meadowlark log homes the crew pre-assembled this log package at our facility and then the same crew came out and put it all together as you see it and we did everything on this house except the concrete and the wiring you see coming out of the ceiling so right now is a chance to see a metal Arc log Rancher that is exactly as it would be when Meadowlark gets done with what we do and the crew went home and here we are let's take some a closer look at it let's start out with the dimensions it's 30 feet on this end and 44 feet long 30 by 40. the total square feet is 1 320 1320 square feet on one level it's a model after the Montana Rancher it is not a Montana Rancher because it's bigger but it's very similar it's two feet longer and two feet wider the Montana Rancher is 28 by 42 this is 30 by 44. so that's the difference and the two feet longer and two feet wider give it quite a bit more room inside just to be more spacious so let's have a look around again what Meadowlark log homes did is we start at home with drawing the plans custom for this this customer and so we built the log package at home all the logs that you see every log like on the porch the posts the walls the beams Gables all the log work was pre-assembled at our facility by some astounding Craftsmen then it was numbered dismantled and shipped up to the site here and then the crew came out in this case it was the same crew that's unusual usually we have different Crews who do different things like one crew does the pre-assembly of the log package other Crews travel and put them together but in this case to give them some practice keep them tuned up and also a little change of of a little variety we sent them out to put this together and they happily did that and so a local concrete person put the crawl space in the cement footing and the walls and a local electrician put the wires uh you might see them they put the wires in the ceiling in the walls that had to go in as we're building it those are for can lights the rest of it everything that you see metal art log homes Crews provided the materials and the of the labor for this to put it all back together so let's start with the foundation this is our standard porch system let's have a peek underneath so the the footings were provided by the concrete person for the porch uh the porch Piers that go in the ground and then we framed up the pressure treated joist system underneath this porch these are 16 inch on centers all of our joists are 16 inches on Center that carry floors main floors and porch floors and so they're very strong on the outside you'll see a double rim we use that for extra strength on the outside Rim instead of just one we use two for it to hang the joists on so all of the floor system is over built and it exceeds the code and then we mill on our Sawmill at home out of Douglas fir and Larch we Mill this rough Sun planking a two by eight planking it's inch and three quarter by two inch uh I'm sorry about eight inches wide planking for the floor and this will be later sanded a little bit and stained but it's a semi-rough it's rough Sun that we cut so we cut all of that uh out of dead or dry trees for the porch floor and then we also cut a full one inch fascia trim out of Douglas fir for all of the wraps all the way around the house around the porch and the house sometimes we don't wrap the house depending on customer preference we just leave the metal all the way up in this case we put this on the outside going all the way around the bottom and like I said at full one inch you can only buy three quarter inch out of lumberyards but we cut it thick one inch and that's the same material as wraps the roof right along the the porch and the house Edge a double fascia that wraps all the way around the house made of the same material uh one inches thick also the same material trims out the doors and the windows again this is one inch thick custom cut pieces around every window and every door and there you'll see the settling piece that comes down over the there's a piece on top of the window with another piece over it which slides for the settling allowance as well as the doors are done the same way so the same material for the window trim roof trim and porch trim and house trim are on the bottom and this is a deck an 8 by 16 deck on this end of the house let's have a walk around and then we'll get into more of it and go inside the house this is not yet backfilled where the foundation was dug and the cement was poured you can see the four foot wall eight inches thick concrete poured for the foundation wall now for the people back in the united Eastern United States they still use a lot of block walls we discourage against using uh block block walls concrete block they're not that strong we we recommend or actually require a poured eight inch thick concrete stem wall any basement or crawl space wall we don't want you to make it out of blocks we want you to form it and pour it it's much stronger because our logs are too heavy so just the logs in this house fills almost fills two full-size 50 foot semi-flat big flatbed trailers so you can imagine the weight even though these logs are dry it fills two semis so there's a lot of weight sitting on the floor system and the concrete system so we don't want you using blocks and then this gets backfilled which hasn't been done yet there you see a vent that we put in the in the floor system back here it got missed in the concrete we prevent we prefer that you actually put the vents in the concrete and that was not done that way in the back so we had to put them in the floor system but so the floor system is is it right here in between our floor system that we made is here and that trim covers it okay those are vents for the crawl space that allow air to go through the bottom of the house so those are in the concrete and these were supposed to be in the concrete they were not put in there by the concrete guys so we put them in those locations in our floor system right there okay Sierra Pacific Windows these are wood frame and the inside vinyl cookie in the middle and a very strong aluminum colored cladding on the outside and the Sierra Pacific H3 is our favorite window so they're heavy very heavy and very strong and warm and the price for the Sierra H3 are quite affordable compared to some of the other major brands that are a lot more expensive and we actually prefer these to some of the more expensive Brands so we recommend for your log house if you go with our recommendation we highly recommend Sierra Pacific H3 wood frame vinyl cookie aluminum clad colored window for your house and doors also all right Argon gas filled low e-glass okay these are four foot overhangs on each end of the house this is standard unless it's a small cabin that overhang won't be quite as long it might be three feet but in a house it's four feet this comes with every log package at least four feet if you want more this roof can extend a lot more over with a additional cost but that comes with the package is four feet of overhang I might note on our website you'll see prices for a lot of our models quite a few models and that price is only the logs pre-assembled like you see them here but pre-assembled at home at our facility so you're we don't price the whole house the entire house because there are too many options but at least we give you a price to start with for the log package pre-assembled at our facility and it lists exactly what that means but it's the walls those beams and all that as a starting point and then we go from there for the reassembly package let me get up on this porch and we'll have a look around the doors and on the inside the Meadowlark system is a what's called a button pass the logs stick out over about eight to ten inches or more on bigger houses out over this edge of the house One log passes over and the next log butts in that's why it's called a butt and pass system for the corners it's a strong system it looks like a stockade or a barn or a you know a little old-fashioned but it makes a good tight a quality corner done with a chainsaw and all of our logs are hand peeled so every log is different you'll never get two logs in the house the same it doesn't exist every log we have is different from the log below it we use several species and mix them isn't that a cool feature you get some really nice coloration and features on the logs and on we try to get Knotty Pine and with some knots in it for the ceilings of the porch this is a two inch or inch and a half ceiling and it's got some coloration and variation in the wood that will be for a can light in the porch ceiling and this is our Gable truss porch similar to the Montana Rancher but I suppose we'll give this a name one day and then our porch logs are called The Log header the porch header that carries the front of the porch uh the whole roof of the porch and the posts and this customer chose not to have railings so the dirt will be filled up within a foot or 18 inches of the front so they can step from here onto the grass or the walkway with a step but when it's less than 18 inches of drop off no railing is required for code it can just be open he wanted this open so if you have a flat lot and you can get your your floor down low enough to the ground within 18 inches you don't have to have railings although the railings are beautiful there's something to say be said about having it open and just walk right onto the grass that's pretty neat so he's got three French doors in the the front let's see how are these sliding are they French they might be sliding these are sliding doors so the French doors are what swing but the sliders are more common so there that one's open now that's a six foot eight inches high by six foot wide standard sliding door and these are very high quality very heavy steel frame here and the wood on the inside very high quality ball bearings in the bottom they slide very well they won't give you any problems whatsoever you can see the thick metal here it's very heavy and then thick wood and these doors are very heavy to pick up and install so here we got the soaring front like this and then some picture windows here let's go inside the main front room here and this is how the Meadowlark crew left it we put the floor down this is three three quarter inch tongue and groove OSB flooring standard flooring system with BCI which is an eye joist down below full length I believe running this way uh for the ijoice for the floor joists it's a bounce free very stiff floor and now we got several crawl space walls below here frame walls then joist then the plywood and then that metal trim on the outside and then the logs start and they were put on here and put together so here is the interior log Truss which this is a log handmade hand peeled truss but it has flat sides two flat sides on every log and the reason for that flat side on every log of that truss the posts the angles there's reason for that because the customer is going to build a frame wall underneath this it's nice to put it against there with the trim a frame wallet to divide this room from this room and then he's going to put frame walls in these openings here and they fit real nice against the flat it can be with wood covering or drywall or anything you want with some lighting on it and painted so there's a flat surface to mount the frame onto that's really a popular feature the flat Saun hand peeled truss whereas uh the the beams are and the ceiling are all round but the surface of that truss is round and peeled so that gives you an idea of a divider wall under that truss here to make that really beautiful and so here's what the room you'd be looking at that's the great room like the living room the family area here so you'd be looking up at this whole area here all the way to the peak double Ridge pull which carries these big beams which carry you know the purlins on the side and then two triangle windows in the Gable they're not in yet the window company has to come out and measure that now our guys put some frames around there around the flat surface of the log and that's how we left it they're colluded in there and then the window company comes out the Sierra Pacific company and they measure those windows order them and they install them because we're not going to be here but that's what we call a valley a log Valley let's have a look at that craftsmanship straight above me oops hit the wire this is a ceiling fan wire the fan goes up in that beam but look at the notch here this is all done by chainsaw a few pencil marks a couple instruments they use to make them the pencil Mark how to cut it there's notches they'll go together but a lot of it is with your eye you've got to be able to cut this stuff with a chainsaw using your eye you you some of the stuff you can't mark because the surface is round and that's what's incredible because you've got to have a high level of skill to make all this stuff fit together and that Valley takes the ceiling boards and these joints here which are angled all the way down to here which is all this complex notching look at how many surfaces that log has got round on round fits in there with a notch I can't even do that stuff I thought I was pretty smart but when I look at a notch like that I can't do it my son and his team they do this these guys can put all these angles in there those logs go right through that log very complex notching with chainsaws and chisels and all the tools that they use draw knives and so when you have a like a valley in the front or in your house Dormer it really adds a lot of craftsmanship and flavor and just really good artistic design to your whole experience takes time costs money this is not cheap stuff but it's beautiful it's going to last for hundreds of years and the snow load like the load bearing on these roofs is is off the charts I mean you could not the snowfall would get in this area which is quite heavy uh there's there's nothing that could take this roof down as far as snowfall they're they exceed everything that uh snow codes are the loading are are required so standing back here I don't know what room I'm in I think a bedroom and then depending where I'm at frame wall right there bathroom I believe in here this window master bath this goes out I would say deck this would be the mint entry doorway coming into the room I'll leave it open for a little bit more light so we installed that we framed it installed the door windows we don't trim the inside of the windows and doors now you can see they got foamed and they're sealed and they're hung with shims they're they're all put together uh let's see how this door closes now there's no oh there's a knob it's got a handle nice and tight deadbolt but so we hung the door but we don't trim the inside of the doors and windows and that's there's a reason for that these windows are all sealed with this foam and the reason we don't uh trim the these anymore we used to is because many people want to match this trim around the doors and the windows with trim that might go like along this Frame wall some of the doors and along the baseboard or the cabinets over the kitchen you want to match some window color like a dark trim or a colored stain trim for the windows in the interior doors all the interior trim you want to match these windows with some other features of the house along the fireplace along the Cabinetry and especially the frame wall so we we don't want to put pine trim on these anymore it's not going to match what you want to have in the rest of the house so we don't do the interior trim anymore and besides it's a different category a different time a different crew to do that so you see the black foam on top of the doors and windows those are settling areas or the logs will come down settle down on top of the doors and the windows will come down toward them and that foam will squish smush together Tighter and that seals the top of the opening of the windows and doors but the only thing left for the the frame or the trim people to do is trim the surface of these windows and doors and like I said you can match the color of the style of trim whatever you like to have with the interior Decor of the house so we're not going to do that trimming anymore uh and leave that to the interior trim people and a lot of times we hang the interior doors this when we cut the opening and framed it we did not hang the door for a simple reason and I don't know if any of you can guess why we did not hang that door but it's a very difficult to figure out but there was no door here so we didn't hang it so we just framed it and he's going to hang it himself didn't charge him for it because we didn't have the door I know a door just didn't show up maybe it's a covet door things don't want to show up on time so this is a kitchen this is going to be the counter the sink right here countertop over here and going down that way to this Frame wall you see wires poking out of these holes those are for going into the frame walls for getting light lights to turn the lights on in the ceiling inside the cavity these lights go these wires go up into the cavity Turn All the Lights On in the ceiling we've got this Pine 1x6 ton Groove again we try to buy nice and white Knotty Pine it's called a number two and better if we go with number one has no knots it looks way too smooth which I use the number two and better which is really a nice it doesn't mean it's number two in quality it just means it has knots look at the knots number one is as little to no knots and it's just too too uh too perfect and white and the number two is wonderful stuff so we put that on there in the ceiling and above the ceiling there's heavy eye joists running from the peak all the way down Rafters but PCI or eye joists tji is another brand name for them and those create a space and we put five inches of foam in that cavity and you'll see other videos and demonstrations at where we have foam flowing underneath the spacer there's a spacer sitting on top of every purlin and ridge pull every Beam on the other side a two by four spacer and then the rafter so when they put the foaming on top it goes under the rafters and the the entire house the entire roof from that wall to this wall and from that Gable Peak all the way over to that Peak over there is one solid sheet of blown in sticky foam unbroken seal there's no joints there's no Lumber touching the ceiling there's nothing uh to break the unbroken seal of foam spray entire roof it's I don't know if anybody else doing it like that but we do that raised rafter to get the foam in there with absolutely no seal up with no seam so the roof system that we do are incredibly warm we even put the foam over top of these cans like the the foam will cover the top of the cans and so it's all covered and there's no air it's waterproof impenetrable it's it's an insulation barrier that's very Superior and that's an R38 barrier and if you have an area that needs r49 we go with eight inches of foam but normally it's five inches and then there's the OSB 5 8 sheeting on top of that with the felt and then the facial on the outside as I showed to you and that is a roof system that we put on on most of our homes unless you're going to be a do-it-yourselfer or have a general contractor do it for you most of these homes we put together and we have a travel charge we go there put it together put a roof on it and uh this is what you get so this shows you a window the doors inside this shows you what you would get with a metal Arc package where we would do we'd start with the floor system or framing underneath it at the floor system the logs reassembled the tongue Groove and the foam the roof seal the ceiling all the way through the felt it's ready for your metal or your asphalt covering your porch put together all the trim for the outside windows the roof the floor porch floor so this is what you would see if you got a basic metal Arc reassembled dried in on-site package where we travel and put this together for you I hope you guys enjoyed this video and um you can check out the link below check out our website check out our other videos on Amish Meadows YouTube channel there's a few hundred videos that we have and share this with your friends and we appreciate you watching this and uh come back for more I will take more video later when I get over what the leaves have changed on these mountains or the needles it's a the Montana mountains which have a lot of Larch trees which turn yellow in the fall so I'll try to get some some point maybe some snow pictures or video and some yellow needle video beautiful place up here beautiful state of Montana thanks for watching everyone

Channel: Amish Meadows

Views: 104,097

Keywords: meadowlark, log, homes, amish, meadows, libby, Montana, cabin, cabins, handcrafted, rustic, custom

Id: iFl2S6z2a1Q

Length: 26min 16sec (1576 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 02 2023