The Customer Experience
with Caribou Creek
The Client's Journey
At Caribou Creek, we strive to not only build you a beautiful home, but to also give you the best possible home building experience – one you won’t forget. Our direct-to-consumer approach helps to streamline the entire process and give you greater control over the final outcome. We are here to help you step by step through the process, making your dream home a reality.
The Journey Begins
1. Meet and Greet
Whether you hear about Caribou Creek’s handcrafted log and timber homes through a Google search, a friend, see a magazine ad, or meet us at a log home show, the first step is to tell us about your ideas. You can contact us through our website form or call 800.619.1156.
When we hear from you, we like to take the time to get to know you and understand what you have in mind for your log or timber home. We are happy to discuss your lifestyle, family, and the location of your building site, and can offer suggestions and sample floor plans to help shape your preferences.
We like for you to get to know us as well because building a custom home is a robust task that has many moving pieces. We understand, hiring a company you trust is of the utmost importance. We encourage you to ask us questions and even come visit our facility so we can show you where the magic happens!
2. Optional Site Visit
After we have met and discussed your project, we would welcome the opportunity to meet with you on your building site. There we can consider: how to best position your home to take advantage of views and sunlight; grade and soil concerns for foundations, basements and poured concrete; drainage and water management to ensure your home lasts for generations; driveway approach; energy efficiency and much more. Many of our clients have found this to be very helpful in bringing the floor plan ideas together.
3. Design Feasibility
Developing a good floor plan design and assessing the cost feasibility of your design go hand in hand, often occurring at the same time. Every handcrafted log or timber home that Caribou Creek builds is a custom home. However, it is often nice to start with a sample log home floor plan, and modify it to fit your family, lifestyle, build site and budget. At this point we would start to work with our design team to develop your custom floor plans. Click here to see some of our sample floor plans.
You may have several meetings with your Caribou Creek representative and a member of our design team during this step. As your plan takes shape you might think of something to add, or see something you’d like to change. This is the time to make sure your home is going to be just the way you like it. To find out more about our in house design team and the design process Click Here.
While you are in the process of finalizing your construction drawings, it is a good time to begin involving your general contractor in the planning. He will be able to add his input on the cost feasibility and the overall design before we start building.
When your plans are finalized, we will draw up a final proposal for the contract amount and an outline of everything included in your custom log home package. Once you have approved the drawings in their completed state, your project is scheduled for construction at our facility!
4. Acquiring the Team
Most custom log homes require a General Contractor and Log Supplier for obvious reasons. However, it may be a good idea to hire an architect and interior designer because they often bring many benefits to the team to produce the highest quality log home. To read more about choosing the players for your team read this…
How to Find A Good Contractor
As you consider which general contractor to work with, take a look at their portfolio. Does it include any log or timber projects? Is the project a milled product, or is it handcrafted? You can ask them which past projects they’ve completed that are similar to yours.
Other questions to ask include whether they are familiar with staining and chinking a log home; are they knowledgeable about managing moisture with regards to a log home (both exterior protection and proper drainage, and also managing interior air moisture with adequate ventilation); how do they integrate conventional construction into your log home, such as where framing and log work intersect?
We’ve worked with several general contractors in the past, and may be able to recommend a company that has experience finishing log and timber homes in your area. We also offer our consulting service to help choose an experienced contractor. Once construction commences, our team at Caribou Creek is here to help you and your contractor during all stages of finishing your log or timber home. We are happy to provide technical support for your contractor and answer any questions he may encounter along the way.
5. Log Construction Begins
People are often surprised to hear that so much of our precision crafting process is done by hand. Often finished with tools similar to what our ancestors used to build their homesteads. As a result, hand-hewn textures, along with other distinctive characteristics, such as hand-peeled tapered logs, showcase each stroke of the blade, preserving the crafters individual touch. Handcrafted log homes epitomize the connection we can only imagine people shared with their homes in the rugged past.
With the enormous detail and precision that goes into a handcrafted log home it’s no surprise the time it takes to create a custom home is longer than a milled-log-kit, or post and beam home.
Because each log is meticulously chosen and individually crafted to match the adjacent logs, the process takes a couple of months.
Once the last log is formatted the home is carefully labeled and dis-assembled for delivery.
Often, while Caribou Creek crafts your home, your contractor can be busy with site prep and foundation construction, consequently, building two components of your home simultaneously
6. Delivery
Our team carefully loads the logs onto the semi. Although this may sound like a simple task, it is more detailed than one may think. We take care to load the logs in reverse order so the first truck to arrive on the job site has the bottom logs, ensuring logs can get placed quickly reducing downtime and the need to store logs on the owner’s property while more trucks arrive. Taking the extra time now reduces the chances of logs getting damaged by being moved around too much.
Additionally, we strive to mitigate damage to the logs while loading, during transport, and unloading. Our desire is to have the logs arrive in excellent condition especially since each log is already crafted for its unique placement.
Once the truck is loaded, the logs are covered and secured for transport.
7. Optional Reset
“Reset” is a term used to describe the restacking of logs on a job site. Not all log home companies offer this service. Some require the contractor or homeowner to construct the house. Whereas, some companies offer a reset service. Caribou Creek is one of these companies. As an optional service, we can send a crew to the job site. We hire a local crane and get to work restacking the house. What can take a contractor weeks takes our crew days; ultimately saving an abundance of time. Approximately 9 out 10 customers choose the reset option because once we are finished, the contractor can get started finishing the home.
To read more about the reset process click here.
8. Construction
The first part of construction begins with the the land. Your contractor can be managing site prep, connecting utilities, and laying the foundation while Caribou Creek crafts the log shell. This is quite a time saver compared to traditional framed home construction. Caribou Creek pre-drills electrical chases and window and door cut outs which enables a contractor’s team to easily pull wires and set doors and windows.
The contractor can get right to work finishing your home as soon as Caribou Creek is finished with the reset, assuming that option is chosen.
Why Do Contractors Love Caribou Creek Kits?
Contractors love Caribou Creek Log Homes for a few reasons…
- Our log kits are easier to put together.
- Electrical chases are pre-drilled.
- Windows and Doors are cut out and pre-notched.
- Caribou Creeks reset costs are usually less than they can offer their clients. That, combined with the significant time saving that comes with our reset service enables them to get projects done faster.
- Caribou Creek offers a log consultant to help with other aspects of the build such as specialty door and window framing that accounts for settling.
9. Move In
Moving into your custom Caribou Creek Log Home is an exciting feeling! But, the house is not complete until it has you. It’s the finishing touches brought about by placing your furniture and decorations that create the biggest transformation. The warmth and spirit of your family is what truly brings the house alive and makes it a home.