DALLAS — Although residential builders seem to work year-round, many of them are still able to spare a few days in mid-January at the International Builders Show to catch up on the latest trends or to find out what changes are on the horizon.
It is, however, a squeeze on time. There is a long list of demonstration houses, most of which involve hour-long bus rides to the suburbs through perpetually heavy traffic. There are seminars and meetings, and acres of indoor exhibits.
And who wants to spend all the time working? These conventions are a chance to socialize with people you see once a year, if that often.
To make life easier and to get the most exposure, a number of trade associations, manufacturers and other vendors build temporary structures in parking lots and even on the landings of stairs leading to entrances of convention center buildings.
It was on the landing near the entrance to the main exhibit hall that Honka Homes and Owens Corning decided to build their demonstration houses.
Honka, a Finnish log-home builder, recently opened U.S. headquarters in Evergreen, Colo. As a way of attracting builders as franchisees, Honka built a 1,500-square-foot model log house, complete with a two-story tower.
With the National Association of Home Builders focusing on alternatives to lumber as a building material and environmentalists disrupting the show with protests over the continued use of old-growth lumber in home construction, is this the right time for a log home?
Pekka Laine, president of the U.S. subsidiary, said the logs that the company uses for all of its houses come from Finland, 75 percent of which is covered by forests.
"Environmental laws are very strict in Finland," Laine said. "Since the 1800s, we have been required to replace every tree cut down with another tree planted."
This ensures a healthy supply of Finnish polar pine, "which we believe is of superior quality because of its straight and dense stature, which results from Arctic growing conditions," he said.
The logs that Honka uses are dried from the center of the log out, in a process similar to microwave cooking. Traditionally, logs have been dried from the outside in, but the inner moisture can crack the log as it tries to escape.
Honka's "hot log" process turns the inner moisture to steam so it can be released easily, Laine said.
