Jack,

Congratulations on number 500!! I’m looking forward to many more years of great practical advice, and a great traveling companion (by podcast). Maybe you can reach the one million mark.

If you build a log cabin, don’t build it with vertical logs. My grand parents were in a hurry when they built their first house and used logs vertically (they only had a few months before the snow hit). As the wood dried out it shrank, and nothing stopped the wind from whistling through. Keep your logs horizontal.

Congratulations on #500!! Keep doing what you enjoy.

I’ve been a daily listener since ~ #200 and it only took a couple of months and a little sifting through the archives to realize I was getting way more than $.20 an episode worth of information.

Thanks for the effort, and all the great information.

Jack, add me to the list of people to whom you have been an incredible inspiration. Sincere congratulations on what you have accomplished. Looking forward to the next 500!

Congrats on episode #500! We appreciate your hard work and dedication to helping all of us live a better life.

On the subject of food storage.. I keep hearing people ask about getting climate controlled storage space for food. I’m taking a different approach. Since my home will always be climate controlled for comfort-sake (unless something really bad happens, then of course all bets are off..) I try to make my house do double-duty as much as possible. To do this, I have assessed every closet, every space, every corner to see if there are things that I can move OUT of my house to a garage, a barn, or theoretically to a regular non-climate-controlled storage spot, which would be cheaper than the climate controlled ones. Then I utilize that newly found space for food storage. For instance, there is really no need to keep things like seasonal decorations, camping gear, old paperwork, toys, etc in the house. If you have a barn, tool shed or garage, you can put these items in heavy-duty plastic totes and store them outside of the house.

I took all of the coats out of our hall closet and returned them to each of the owners’ closets in their room. I then added shelves to the hall closet and use it as an extra pantry, plus it houses our bug-out totes and our black-out supplies. It’s all handy, centralized and easily available to all family members.

Under the bed food storage just doesn’t work for me, so instead, I put tubs under the bed to store things that were originally in my linen closet (extra sheets, pillow-cases, etc) then turned the linen closet into storage for all of my medical supplies, toilet tissue, etc. The linens are readily available when I’m changing sheets, and I have more storage in a concealed closet in my bathroom- and everything is handy when I need it.

I use the top shelf in our closets for seasonal storage of clothing, and also for extra new clothes that I catch on sale (particularly socks, undies, tshirts..) This frees up some space in each closet where I can put long term storage cans in the closets. I can push them to the far side of the closet and they are not even visible to the casual observer.

I’ve also downsized my home considerably when it comes to clutter (and I’m still working on it!) by giving away a lot of our books to the local library, thinning out toys that the kids never play with, and defining space for the things we have so we know where to put them away and find them again when needed. It sounds elementary, but it’s easy to get overwhelmed with clutter.

I would advise being creative with whatever space you have in your home before tossing money down the “rent abyss”.. If you have any land at all where you can put a small metal storage building or even one of those rubbermaid storage cabinets which fit nicely on a back porch.. I’d prefer to save up the cash and own my storage building rather than pay someone else to house my stuff and risk not having it close by, or not being able to watch over it (theft, vandalism, contamination).

I think apartment living would be the toughest place to find storage, but you might consider doing something like buying those heavy-duty plastic shelving units from Home Depot that snap together.. lining them up against a blank wall, and making a simple curtain to go across them to cover up the food from view. You can get a lot of food on those shelves and they actually hold up pretty well.

Also, don’t forget to look UP.. some attics can be suitable for food if they are insulated and pest-free.. Also think about adding shelves above the 7ft mark, like above your windows or even all the way around a room about 1 foot below your ceiling line. What else are you going to use that space for?? 🙂

Love the show, Jack. Keep up the great work.

I lived in Alaska for more than a decade and I built a log cabin and have seen many log houses.

If you compare the “R” (insulation rating) of logs to other construction methods, such as frame with fiberglass bats or frame with spray-in foam, you will find that the logs do not rate very well as an insulator.

What they do have is thermal mass – they are slow to cool down and slow to warm up, but if minimum fuel consumption during long spells of very cold weather is important to you, then there are better choices.

It is also critical to be sure that any possible gaps between the log be properly sealed and caulked.

I do agree with Jack about storm integrity – if the corners are properly interlocked, they are excellent.

Congrats on 500 episodes Jack! I learn something from every podcast you put together. The amount of expertise and prep work you have brought to every show is truly astounding. I look forward to #1000!

Congratulations on 500 episodes Jack! Thanks for all the work that you do!