The Benefits of Living in a Wooden Cabin

For centuries, wooden cabins and huts were the primary form of housing in Canada. Today, wooden cabins may not be everyone’s first choice when it comes to building a new home, but they should always be taken into consideration. There are many benefits to living in a log cabin, including:

Better Insulation

Steel and concrete may be strong, but they provide very poor insulation for homes. A process called thermal bridging allows heat to travel through steel, meaning that there is exceptional heat loss in winter. Concrete allows for significant heat loss as well. Wood provides great insulation against heat loss, and as an added bonus, it can easily be adjusted to accommodate more insulation.

Greater Energy Savings

When determining the energy efficiency of home building materials, heat conductivity is often taken into consideration. A material’s conductivity rating is based on the amount of heat it absorbs. The less heat that a given material conducts, the less energy the house’s utilities must produce to heat or cool the interior. Wood is 400 times less conducive than steel and 8.5 times less conducive than concrete, making it the clear winner in the battle of low conductivity.

Meets More Building Codes

Building codes for energy efficiency have been making an appearance in more and more municipalities around the world every day. In today’s increasingly eco-minded society, many homeowners and builders are likewise finding that traditional building materials cannot meet those codes as well as wood. The versatile nature of wood means that it can be constructed to match just about any energy efficiency requirement, even in extreme climates. For example, if you live in a climate with extremely cold temperatures—like Alaska and the Canadian Arctic—a double wood-frame wall system can keep your log cabin’s interior warm in temperatures as low as 40 degrees below zero.