It is possible to attend our class on a weekend, and start building the very next week. We don’t recommend that course of action, because it usually means you have to pay retail for everything — and that means spending more money during construction,
Many of our members save up to 50% on the finished cost of your home by following this tip: if possible, attend our class at least 2 years before you start to build, then spend that extra time preparing to build. Many of our members are able to build their log home debt free, and avoid the bondage of a 30-year mortgage by following this tip.
If you think building a log home is too difficult for you, then you should try paying off a 30-year mortgage.
THE REASONS ONE CAN SAVE MONEY ARE AS FOLLOWS:
1. Skip encourages his students to purchase all of their “building” material from ALTERNATIVE SOURCES. By doing this, his students are sometime able to save half the cost of their log home. However, it usually takes time to do the necessary “shopping.” Within reason, the more time you spend shopping, the more money you will save when you build your home. HERE ARE SOME IMPORTANT EXAMPLES:
A) One of Skip’s students recently purchased logs from the Forrest Service for 25 cents per log. He paid 50 cents for each tree, but he was able to get two logs from each tree. This meant that the logs for his structure cost almost nothing. However, it took time to make the arrangements for the purchase, the cutting, the hauling, etc.
B) Skip always gets his building material, tools, appliances, etc., at country auctions — salvage dealers — flea markets — swap meets — garage sales — yard sales — rummage sales — estate auctions — pawn shops — classified ads in local papers — second-hand stores — Little Nickel Want Ad Papers — Buy-Sell Papers — demolition sites — surplus stores — etc.
C) It is often true that “used” items are better than the same items that are being manufactured and sold today. Keeping this in mind, students can often get excellent items FREE (from alternative sources). These free items might include the following; bathtubs, toilets, sinks, kitchen cabinets, kitchen appliances, fasteners, hinges, windows, doors, lumber, insulation, carpets, reinforcing rod, AND EVEN A FREE MOBILE HOME TO LIVE IN TEMPORARILY — WHILE BUILDING THEIR LOG HOME.
The class has a short section that explains many ways to get used tools and building supplies for absolutely the least amount of money possible. Sources and examples are given, so folks know exactly what to be looking for.
2. Most people end up with the ‘wrong’ building plans. Having the wrong blue prints means the construction process is unnecessarily complicated, and excessively expensive.
At the course our instructors will talk about how to design a home with a focus on ‘ease of construction,’ and saving the most money. It shocks some people that by making just a few calculated design or engineering choices you can really minimize the labor and cost involved in building a log home.
It is also possible to realize huge ongoing real-estate tax savings by following a handful of easy and straightforward tips. It is an awesome feeling to save money EVERY YEAR on your property taxes, just because you made the right choices when designing and building your log home.
If you end up with the ‘right’ building plan, it means that you still end up with a beautiful home AND you’ll will save TONS of labor and money because of the way you the log home is designed. All of the tips and principles are fully explained at the class, so you can understand WHY and HOW it is possible to save so much money.
We also explain the least expensive method for obtaining building plans. With this method you could get your plans drawn anywhere, and feel confident that you recieved a fair low price.
3. Skip’s students are always encouraged to attend several of the free monthly meetings before they start to draw their plans. This enables them to see plans and scale models that belong to other builders — and exchange ideas with them. A person who is not trained in log home building should never try to design a log home. Understanding the construction process helps ensure you properly design your log home.
4. Another resource for our members is that they get a discount on plans and drafting services from an independent provider. We get no kick backs or referral fees, this is just a discount that we arranged for our member’s convenience. This can jump start a project – thereby saving a lot of time and money. As they say in the construction industry… “Time is money.”
5. After drawing their plans (or otherwise obtaining them), the students generally build a scale model of their log home, using ½” dowels. The model is taken to the next meeting where it is constructively criticized by the other builders. At the meetings, you always hear people say how glad they are that they built a scale model of their home before they built the real thing. On the average it saves a lot of time to build a model before building the real home.
6. There are MANY more reasons why it is a good idea to learn about log homes at least a couple of years prior to building. However, for our purposes here, it will suffice to say that the more “lead” time you have, the LESS EXPENSIVE your log home will be – and the BETTER it will be.
——————————————————————————- IMPORTANT Skip will not accept people in his seminar if they have already started to build their log home, because by that time they have made too many mistakes that are not correctable. No matter where you got your plans, we recommend that you not do ANYTHING until you learn how log homes SHOULD be built.
