by Phil Di Francesco
(Buffalo, New York)
What wood is the best to use for building a cabin in Western New York? The cabin will be in a predominately maple, beech & hemlock woods with plenty of oak,cherry & basswood. It also is located in a valley if that matters.
Banjoe answers:
Dear Phil,
If I had these choices, I know exactly which wood I would use and that is oak. The other woods might be good for furnishings inside the cabin but for the outer logs, you can hardly beat oak. You can get more information on the hardness of each kind of tree you encounter by typing in
tree decay resistance
Also you might be interested in searching for the
Janka hardness test
At this link you can see a quick overview that mentions many of the trees you have:
http://web.utk.edu/~tfpc/publicat/decay.htm
The valley only matters as it relates to keeping your cabin dry. The biggest key to designing a long lasting cabin without tons of maintenance issues is to keep it as dry as possible. You can get more tips on this from my conversation with a visitor to this site who lives in the southern part of our country.
http://www.log-cabin-adventures.com/is-loblolly-bay-a-good-tree-for-building-a-cabin.html
Thanks for the question!