It’s Always Earth Day at Pioneer Log Homes

It is clear that at Pioneer Log Homes, we rely on the bounty of Mother Nature to sustain our business. The only way we can succeed is when our forests succeed. Western Red Cedar is one of Mother Nature’s greatest inventions. We take enormous pride in managing the reforestation and renewal of these wonderful trees (In BC alone, about 200 million seedlings are planted every year!). Wood from well managed forests is an excellent environmental choice. Wood is easy to work with, versatile, recyclable and grows using only solar energy and is the only major building material that is truly renewable!

“Living, regenerating forests sequester more carbon per unit area than almost any other type of land cover. A responsibly managed forest stores more carbon than it emits from harvesting, processing, transport and fabrication. But wood’s carbon storage goes beyond the forest. When the trees are harvested and used to make wood products, the carbon remains stored in the wood for the life of the product.” (https://www.naturallywood.com/design-environment/environmental-footprint)

At Pioneer Log Homes we waste almost nothing. We use the log to its absolute maximum potential to build our log homes. The smaller pieces are used by shake and shingle manufacturers and then the remainder (bark & lowest residual) is sent to Atlantic Power Corporation here in Williams Lake. This process produces less pollution than if the tree were to have been left to rot in the forest which creates methane.

“The Atlantic Power Corporation’s power plant in Williams Lake is a $150 million wood waste fuelled electric generating plant. Each year it consumes over 600,000 tons of wood waste from local sawmills to generate 67 MW of electricity for sale primarily to BC Hydro. The plant is the largest biomass power plant in North America and it has enabled the Williams Lake sawmills to close their beehive burners, improving the air quality in the Williams Lake valley.” (https://www.atlanticpower.com) 

We are humbled by the beauty and uniqueness of the Western Red Cedar. A favourite Frank Lloyd Wright quote comes to mind, “The best friend of earth and of man is the tree. When we use the tree respectfully and economically, we have one of the greatest resources on earth.”