"Slabwood Cabins" Help Attract New Business

Slabwood Cabins Help Attract New Business BUILDINGS Miscellaneous Alec Alberti makes his living selling firewood so he’s always looking for a way to promote his business That’s why he decided to build a pair of “slabwood cabins” made from “mortarless” stacks of firewood One of the cabins is used to store firewood and the other to store woodworking tools It has a wood burning stove inside with a steel chimney flue sticking out the roof To build the walls of each cabin he simply stacked 16-in lengths of slabwood on top of each other “The walls are built without a single nail ” he says The slabwood cabins were erected in 2000 and are still standing in good condition “They’ve become local landmarks and good attention grabbers for my business People stop by to photograph them all the time ” says Alberti “When people first see the cabins they can’t believe they’re really made of slabwood and wonder why they don’t fall down I tell them it’s because of the interlocking technique I use and because of the framing system The strange thing is that all the slabwood is stacked directly on the ground with no foundation at all yet the building never heaves or shifts Building the cabins was easy once he got started he says The first step was to lay interlocking slabwood support stacks at each corner and also at each end of the building The slabwood is simply piled up between the corner stacks “I kept everything leaning inward as I built the walls up ” says Alberti He placed a 15-ft long spruce pole at each end of the cabin to support the rafters lashing the bottom of each pole to a locust pole that’s buried in the ground “I didn’t want to bury the spruce poles in the ground because they would rot ” says Alberti More locust posts are placed at each corner inside the building to support the slabwood The roof’s frame is made from small spruce trees spaced 2 ft apart The rafters never touch the slabwood walls He built the window frames out of 2 by 6’s and nailed them to some slabwood then placed windows off an old building inside them “Each cabin took about 2 months to build ” says Alberti “I fill one of the cabins solid with firewood and take it out as I sell it The wind blows through and dries the wood while the roof keeps rain and snow off ” Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Alec Alberti Jr 4924 Rt 23 Windham N Y 12496 ph 518 734-4689; alecalbertijr@yahoo com

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