Published by Farmers Guide, December 2007.

Are these the homes of the future?

Farmers Guide has been to Hingham, Norfolk, where the first log house to gain full Building Control approval is nearing completion, to find out more about this most-sustainable method of building.

IF YOUR idea of a log house resembles neatly sawn timber put together to produce a picture postcard Swiss chalet, then the new two-bed home built by The Log House Company, at Hingham, may come as a bit of a shock.

It literally is a log house, built by stacking one section of tree trunk on top of another from the floor to the eaves. The process is a bit more complicated than that - the narrow and wide ends of the logs have to be alternated to keep the walls level, and each log needs to be shaped to fit snugly against the next - but this really is a case of "it does exactly what it says on the tin".

The power behind The Log House Company, which is based at Parham, near Woodbridge, Suffolk, is Mike Balls. The house at Hingham represents a tremendous breakthrough for Mike and his company as it is the first in the UK to be fully approved under Building Control regulations and points the way forward for the log house sector.

"Two years ago they said it couldn't be done, but I said it could," Mike told Farmers Guide. "And now we've proved that we can meet - and indeed exceed - the thermal values required for modern housing, and we also passed the pressure test (where rooms are pressurised to assess them for escaping air and hence heat) with flying colours. In fact we got one of the best results the tester had ever recorded.

"And it's fitting that the house is located here at Hingham," Mike added. "This village is the ancestral home of US president Abraham Lincoln, who himself grew up in a log house."

The Hingham log house has been built for the manager of a racehorse stable and consists of two bedrooms of about 12ft by 11ft, a kitchen/living room of about 14ft by 20ft, a good-sized bathroom and an entrance/internal hallway.

Apart from the logs that make up the external walls, all the internal walls running from north to south are also made from solid logs, while the single dividing wall between the two bedrooms is a stud wall with a tongue and groove timber finish.

The whole house sits on a concrete and brick foundation - off the ground to allow air to circulate below the house to keep it dry. The floor is constructed like any other modern house using timber joists and floor boards, although it is also heavily insulated using Celotex board (incidentally made at Hadleigh, Suffolk).

The ceiling and roof is also quite typical of modern housing, and is again well insulated. Where it differs from the typical housing however, is that instead of tiles or slates, the Hingham house uses Cedar shingles to keep the rain out.

"Cedar has excellent waterproofing qualities and I was fortunate to be able to source them from a supplier in Birmingham who imports the shingles and treats them to ensure they meet the fire retardant standards demanded by UK building regs" Mike said. "They are all attached by stainless steel nails and have a 20-year lifespan guaranteed. The shingles are a little more than 16 inches long, but only four inches of each is exposed and it took us much longer than anticipated to fit them all."

The effect of the finished roof can't be faulted and it helps the new log house to fit in with its woodland surroundings.

"This is the ideal setting for a house like this, although there's no reason why they can't be built anywhere - other than planners' objections," Mike added. "In Canada a housing group has put up log houses in the centre of Vancouver and these are now some of the most sought after residences in the city." "To me, this quashes the view that they don't fit into an urban area"

While he doesn't see any large-scale move to log houses in the UK, Mike is convinced that there is a market for them in the respect that councils remit now are encouraged to follow a "green" path. Low impact housing is coming, and these tick more green boxes than be asked for, in fact; the more we look into it, the greener and more eco-friendly they become. The planners in some councils are waking up to this and some have taken onboard national directives, but unfortunately, some are lagging light years behind. There is also the leisure sector where he feels that real log cabin holidays could prove lucrative to landowners whom can really offer a differentiated product hence high letting occupancy.

"I'm keen to build some log houses on suitable farm sites and I'm sure we could reach an agreement to build one in return for some land to site a house," he said. If there is anyone interested in either holiday lets or residential, whether permanent or as an annexe style then please call.

The house at Hingham was built on a budget of £60,000 excluding the kitchen and bathroom fittings and took about three months to construct. The timber all came from nearby Tunstall Forest to keep transport costs to a minimum, and in total 30 Corsican Pine trees were used in the building.

"This is really just about the most sustainable form of housing you can get," Mike said. "The trees are a renewable resource and we know for a fact that the ones we used here were planted in 1935 and were ready to cut down. It took the Forestry Commission some three days to find the right sizes, but these trees are not only from FSC forests, but over their normal fell time, so at end of their carbon efficient cycle and apparently, now helping as they will be stored without releasing carbon into the atmosphere.

"The house has ended up with walls that average 16 inches thick and I know that with the double glazed windows, it will be warm inside throughout the winter months.

"As long as the house is well maintained and kept dry, it has the potential to last at least 100 years, which will put many of today's mass produced homes to shame."

There are log buildings still standing in Europe dating back several centuries. So if looked after, there is no reason why this shouldn't do the same.

*****

A life-long non-conformist

Mike Balls had no intention of going to university when he left school, but with a lifelong interest in building and woodwork he arranged to work with a house-building charity in British Columbia, Canada, that was putting up log houses for native Canadians.

"I was lucky that the group I was assigned to had a master builder working with it and I learned just about everything I know about building log houses from him," Mike told Farmers Guide. "When I came back to the UK I wanted to continue building and worked on a few projects, but that was before the days of the internet and it was difficult to get the information needed to convince planners that the houses really stood up to scrutiny."

After a period working for businesses in Suffolk and Essex, Mike returned to building full time when he formed The Log House Company four years ago. After building a number of mainly leisure-related log buildings and other small projects, the opportunity arose to build the log house at Hingham.

"This time I was ready," he said. "The internet and e-mail allowed me to get answers to any questions that came up in the building process and to get the data needed to convince Building Control that the project would meet the regulations."

Mike says that the time is now, if not a tad late, for more eco-builds.

"The carbon rating for this is so low," he said. "There may even be a claim to being carbon negative, which we are working on now. If we can achieve this, the planners cannot remain in the dark ages.

"At the 'Suffolk - Creating the Greenest County' conference, in mid October, we even had John Gummer endorsing this point during one of the seminars. It's been an uphill battle for a small company, but we do seem to be nearing a point where people can turn a key, sit in front of the wood-burner and enjoy an evening in a traditional Log House, in the knowledge they have done something for the environment."

Mike is rightly proud of his achievements, but doesn't have any plans to expand beyond the point where he can retain control of the houses he builds.

"I'll probably add a few staff, but we're not going into large-scale house building," he said. "Log houses are bespoke products and I'm happy keeping alive one of the oldest forms of building known to man."

The Log House Company can be contacted on 01728 720138; or visit: www.theloghouse.co.uk.