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One-Log Homes - The Green Dilemma

May 20, 2008

There are few effective “green” lifestyles, where a person can limit their detrimental impact on the environment, reduce their carbon footprint, or make any difference whatsoever. It’s all feel-good marketing crap. You’re really just another planet consumer, unless you’re ready to lie down in a mulch pit right now, and let Nature take over. And even then, the toxins in your body will probably kill whatever tries to grow from your remains.

On this cheery note, let’s briefly examine the dilemma of houses made of hollowed out logs from giant redwood trees. There are a couple exhibited as tourist attractions on the west coast — the One-Log House, the Stump House — and even a transplanted log house in Florida. These homes are natural, organically shaped, and blend with the forest. But to make them, someone had to knock down a thousand plus year old tree, spend months chipping it out, and add plumbing. Would it really be more “green” to live inside a tree instead of a vinyl covered double-wide?

One-log homes may be gnarled throwbacks to a time of resource gluttony — or they may be instructive to new generations, a lesson to mend our ways. There’s not much argument that one-log developers — if any still exist — really attempt to make log living attractive. The models currently on display are a cramped succession of narrow rooms, and there’s no butler’s pantry. And if they don’t have some kind of roof, they leak.

Maybe, instead, if we hollowed out a cow and walked around inside of it … wait, that’s a leather jacket.

Sections: Canada, Rants

2 Responses to “One-Log Homes - The Green Dilemma”

1. Shelly May Says:
   June 27th, 2008 at 10:21 am

   Let’s not forget about termites and rotting. All I see when I think about a one log home is mold and bugs. EW.

2. Sarah gale Says:
   June 28th, 2008 at 8:35 am

   This is probably the most genius thing written on the topic of going green on the net! Thanks for your insight and fabulous one-log review.