The Process

When a Pan Abode home is ready for shipment it is the final step in a long process which begins deep in the coastal forests of British Columbia.

The production begins with the Cedar trees that we cut and sort at one of our many logging sites in BC. A logging operation is a very complicated and expensive operation to maintain. We must establish a camp, complete with accommodations to sustain teams of loggers for several months of the year. Each team of loggers is transported to our logging site at Woods Lagoon by seaplane, as there is no other way to access our site. Each team of 12 loggers stays in the forest for 1 month followed by a month rest while another team takes their place. We provide a camp for them complete with accommodations for sleeping, eating and recreation. The work is very hard and extremely dangerous.

After the Cedar trees are cut, they are transported by Helicopter to a sorting area where the logs are carefully graded for quality. The Cedar logs are then brought by truck to the shoreline of the Pacific Ocean where they are secured together in large booms (large groupings of logs secured by steel cables) and towed by boat from our logging site at Cougar Inlet to the Fraser River and onward to our primary cutting mill called Mill and Timber Products. It is there that the logs are lifted out of the river and into our mill, where we again sort the logs for quality and then cut the timbers that will later become the famous Western Red Cedar timbers used in the manufacture of our fine quality homes.

Once the logs are cut into our 4" x 6" timbers at Mill and Timber, they are then transported by truck to our remanufacturing. When we receive the timbers they are placed in large lifts (piles of lumber) and allowed to dry before they can be further processed. Once the timbers have dried sufficiently, they are then carefully sorted over a green chain (automated belt driven sorting and stacking line). Only the very best grade of Western Red Cedar timber is acceptable for our Pan-Abode. We use a very premium Select Tight Knot, 2-face, free of heart centre grade of cedar for our homes.

When the cedar has dried to a sufficient level, we then profile selected timbers into our unique 4" x 6" double tongue and groove timbers. Each timber is carefully inspected for quality before it is sent to our cutting and notching operation. When the computer generated precision cutting machines have both cut and notched each timber, they are then carefully wrapped and marked for shipment with our home packages to customers all over the world.