How can you complain about the knots in wood? Well someone did recently, and it has prompted me to write a little piece about the characteristics of wood.
It seems that this guy wanted the wood in his garden building to be clean of lines, and knots. I can understand this to a certain extent, but when your building is made from European Softwood you are going to get knots. With a thickness of no less than 19mm, in the boards that make up the log cabins, there is no chance of the little bug**ers falling out and leaving drafty holes, so this could not have been the issue.
Then I thought of how a customer would treat a building with no knots and natural lines in the wood to protect it. Surely the building would still need to be coated in a suitable stain or wood preserver, which would help to disguise the appearance of these beautiful natural features?
How can you expect wood to be one hundred percent free of what makes wood so beautiful in the first place. Of course you can buy expensive types of wood that have fewer of this distinguishing marks, but then it would be hard wood and this would be extremely expensive.
If someone wanted such a clean, not sure if this building is made of wood, look then they may not have considered the natural characteristics of wood at all. For instance in the winter wood has a tendency to expand as the moisture trapped within it reacts to the colder temperatures. This then expands the links between the boards of any garden building.
When summer comes around the affects of the higher temperatures make the wood shrink back again. This then affects the contact points of the boards and movement can then occur. Over time this becomes more obvious and spacing may occur between boards making them slightly loose. This is totally natural and very little can be done about it.
Wood also moves in a more lateral way and warping or bending of the timbers can occur. Again this is completely natural, but the interlocking construction technique of log cabin building should minimise these two specific weathering effects as the overall weight of the building presses down on all of the boards giving a strong resistance to movement.
The best thing about wood’s natural characteristics is the fact that it blends an obviously man made structure into the surrounding of your garden so well. Even painted, as long as it isn’t in garish colours and patterns, the building will still sit well in the natural colours and textures of a garden. The grain and the shapes they make on the surface of the cut timbers take away from the straight lines of the artificial materials of some buildings.
Wood is a sustainable building material so the environmental impact of using it can be controlled and lessened and even bettered by the careful management of forests used for timber.
So... why no knots? I don’t understand, because the beautiful aesthetically, natural textures and look of wood appeals to us all. Unless you are making a statement or have a specific reason you wouldn’t put a plastic shed in your green leaved garden, would you or a metal one next to your lawn? I could be wrong of course, but I’ve never seen someone rush out to replace the wooden beams in their ceiling with steel or concrete ones when renovating their home.
So reconsider, my good man, and celebrate the beauty of wood and all of its natural characteristics.
For further information and to view a range of log cabins click here: http://www.gardenbuildingsdirect.co.uk/Log-Cabins
There is also a Log Cabin Buyers Guide to take a deeper look in to this type of garden building here: http://www.gardenbuildingsdirect.co.uk/Article/log-cabin-buying-guide
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