Log stacking planner
Logs taper, so if you stack them without a plan, one corner ends up inches higher than the others. Tell us about your logs and we'll work out which ones go in each course, and which way they face, so all four corners finish at the same height.
1 Your building
This works for a square, four-wall shell built butt and pass style. Each course is four logs, one per wall, overlapping at the corners.
Outside corner to outside corner. Every wall log needs to be at least this long.
How tall the log walls should be when you're done.
Fine-tuning (optional, defaults work well)
Highest corner minus lowest corner at the top. Under this counts as level.
Stop adding courses once the walls are within this of your target.
How picky to be about matching each log's taper to the course below. Bigger means more logs considered.
2 Your logs
Number each log (paint or a tag on the end works well) and measure both ends. The top is the thin end, and the butt is the thick end that grew near the ground.
How to measure
- Diameter: measure straight across the end, through the middle. If it's oval, measure both ways and use the average.
- Circumference: often easier on a log pile. Wrap a tape around the log about a foot in from each end, and we'll convert it to diameter for you.
- Measure peeled logs, or take the bark off your numbers. Inches are fine as decimals or fractions, like
16.5or16 1/2. - Length is in feet, like
41.25or41' 3".
Paste from a spreadsheet, or import / export CSV
Columns in order: log #, top, butt, length, notes. A header row is fine. You can copy rows straight out of Excel or Google Sheets.
3 Your stacking plan
How level are the corners?
Each line is a corner. It shows how far above or below the average that corner is after each course. Closer to the middle is better.
Course by course, from the bottom up
Looking down from above, north is up. In each course every log has one end that runs past its corner, the overhang you'll trim or leave as a tail, and one end that butts at the next corner. Tick off each course as it goes on.
Where this comes from
The stacking method was written by Maria Katsova in 2015 and used on site to stack the walls of a real 34 × 34 ft log house from raw peeled logs. It's used here with her permission. See the original project on GitHub and her build blog.
The plan is a guide, not engineering advice. Real logs bow, settle and get scribed, so check your corner heights with a level as you go and trust your eye. Your logs are only stored in this browser and are never sent to us.