Finnlife Peile Log Cabin

The Finnlife Peili Log Cabin is a beautiful cabin which offers a good-sized space inside and enough room for you to create something very special for yourself and your garden.

Like all log cabins in the Finnforest range, the Finn Life Peili is constructed using top quality Scandinavian White softwood. This comes from sustainable forests which which are managed with a conscience and there is a harmonious existence between wildlife and industry.

Use the Well illustrated, step-by-step plans that come supplied with your cabin making assembly of the building simpler and very straightforward.

FEATURES

* Made from Scandinavian White softwood
* 28mm wall logs
* Timber joists
* Pre-cut floor & roof boards
* Roof shingles
* Ready made, fully glazed doors
* Reinforced corners and pre-cut wall battens
* All necessary fixtures and fittings
* Illustrated step-by-step instruction manual

DIMENSIONS

Height:9'5" (2.9m)
Width:9'7" (2.96m)
Depth:14'11" (4.34m)

This log cabin is also available with underfloor heating - see individual retailers for details.

Building a Finnlife Log Cabin

Wonderful lazy summer evenings might be calling, but don’t hurry to build your Finnlife Log Cabin. Spend the time to get to know how it is put together, and you will savour many years of hassle-free pleasure. No carpentry abilities are involved. Anyone can erect a Finnlife Log Cabin, although some jobs may require more than one pair of hands. Build times will alter depending on your experience and the number of people who help you. Of course you don’t have to do it yourself!

It’s possible to present this text to a handyman then take it easy until he presents you with the keys to your brand new Finnlife Cabin. Having said that, whichever person gets the cabin built, the first stage is to familiarise yourself with these instructions. The trick is to be disciplined and to plan ahead. Although Finnlife log cabins share many options in common, each model style is unique. These general instructions cover the basics of wooden cabin construction and apply to all Finn Forest cabins.

For items that are unique to your own Finn Life Cabin – such as dimensions, piece numbers, building plans and piece lists – you should refer to the separate Building Plans and Parts List. If you are building cabins Finn Life Helppo, Finn Life Helsinki, Finn Life Joki, Finn Life Kesa, Finnlife Pori, Finn Life Seita and Finn Life Valo
be aware that certain instructions may be different a slight amount from those found here.

Gravel option: Get rid of all organic debris prior to starting work on the foundations. Foundations should always be laid larger than the base of your Finnlife Log Cabin – 300mm wider in every direction and 6” thick when using dense type gravel. For dense gravel foundations you should use retaining boards to keep the gravel in place and dense.

Before you start to build you ought to ensure that you have a full set of pieces. Check off every piece against the piece list in the Building Plans and Parts List as you remove it from the transit packaging. In the unlikely event that there is a missing piece or that a piece has been damaged in transit get in touch with the distributor, stating the Finnlife Cabin reference number shown on the packing label of the transit packaging. As you check every piece lay them out on the ground around the site of the log cabin. Put every piece close to where it will be used. Laying out aids you visualize how the Finn Life Cabin is built and it means that pieces are ready to hand when you need them. You can utilize the Building Plans and Parts List as a guide to what goes where. Be careful not to lay pieces too close to the Finn Life Cabin footprint. Give yourself ample space to work in.

Put out the four sides of the door frame on a clean and level area so that the doors open outwards. Loosely place them to match the complete frame. The top and bottom jambs are not quite the same. Place the one with the Lock RECESS AT THE TOP AND BOTTOM. Make sure that the door cills go behind the doors. Put the joints together loosely and ensure THAT YOU CAN STILL OPEN THE DOORS before continuing.

Take the frame apart again and squeeze PVA adhesive into the joints at the end of each frame piece. Press the sides together tightly. Ensure that the frame is square by measuring the cross-diagonals. Wipe away all excess adhesive from the frame. Use a damp cloth and rinse it out completely between wipes to stop adhesive smearing onto the frame. When you are happy that the frame is square, secure all corners with the screws provided.

Continue laying wall boards according to the layout of the Building Plans and Parts List you will have received with your order. The final few layers of side wall boards in some Finnlife Log Cabin are longer. The lengths increase iteratively to offer support to an overhanging canopy. Put angled gable boards in sequence starting with the length-most. Be careful with the alignment of the angled gable boards. The sloped roof line should be symmetrical and even at both gable ends. Use nails at both end to fix each layer of gable boards to the layer below. Hammer nails in at an angle through the sloped ends of the gable boards.

Constructing the gable ends shows a succession of gaps for the roof beams. As every gap appears, tap in a roof beam. Make sure that the angled side of each roof beam lies flush with the angle of the gable. Nail through into the gable boards to secure. Tap the ridge beam into place at the apex of the gable ends. Secure by nailing into the topmost gable board. Slide ridge and roof beam extension pieces on top of the exposed ends of the beams at both ends of the cabin. Make sure that the upper surfaces of the beams and the extension pieces are flush, then secure by nailing from each side. Fix the wall board extension pieces to the ends of the topmost wall boards in the same way.

Roofing shingles are rectangular. The lower half of the face side is a decorative green with slits that divide it into three flaps; the upper half is black and coated with bitumen. With the exception of the first row, all shingles are laid with the green flaps at the bottom. Ridge shingles are made by cutting individual roof shingles into three. Put roof shingles when the temperature is above 5°C. We recommend that you use a bitumen shingle adhesive on the underneath of the tiles. This would be an additional measure to ensure longevity of the shingle life.

Put the initial row of shingles with the green/black face topmost and the green flaps at the top. Place the first shingle so that one side aligns with the right-hand edge of the roof and the black bitumen overhangs the eaves face board. Move till the edge of the black bitumen extends about 10mm out from the edge of the eaves face board.The 10mm overhang is known as the 'water drop edge'. Secure the shingle with four clout nails driven through the bitumen patches on the shingle into the roof boards. Finish the row by laying more shingles edge-to-edge until the entire length of the eaves is covered. Remove the excess from the left-hand end of the roof. Keep cut pieces for later use.

Begin the second row from the left-hand end. Put this row (and all subsequent rows) with the green/black face topmost and the green flaps at the bottom. Align the second row of shingles so that the lower edge of the green flaps are just proud of the roof edge. secure with four clout nails driven through the lower green part. Locate these nails just below the line that separates black bitumen from decorative green. Properly located nails will be obscured by subsequent layers of shingles. Remove the final shingle to fit. Keep cut pieces for later use. Put the initial shingle in row three so that the middle of the left-hand flap aligns with the edge of the roof. Adjust its height until the tips of the decorative flaps align with the tops of the slits between the flaps in the row below.

Nail down the shingle. From now on each row has to be aligned with the row below to make an even pattern. Start every row from the left hand end of the roof. In each case the first shingle in the row must be offset to the left by half a flap, that is by 16 of its complete length. That means that the centre of the flaps of the current row will align with the gaps between the flaps in the row below. Continue laying shingle sheets from left to right, edge-to-edge, to complete a full row.cut off the excess from both ends and hang on to cut pieces for later use. Continue putting rows of shingles from left to right, giving each row an additional half-flap offset to the left. If available, use the cut off pieces you have already saved as the first or final shingles in the row. When you reach the final row, the upper edge of the shingles will extend beyond the roof ridge. Bend the excess over the ridge and nail it down. Cut several roof shingles into thirds to make ridge shingles. Cut them by extending the slits between the flaps right through the bitumen layer. You can do the same with other trimmed pieces left over from lower rows. To finish each ridge shingle you should taper the half containing the black bitumen. BeginStart the taper at the point where the original slit ended. Complete it at the furthest edge of the black bitumen. Take the taper in about 10mm at either side of the bitumen.

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