Sloan's Mill managing growth

Sloan’s Mill Log and Timberframe Homes is a new guy on the block. But four-fold growth won’t allow the company to remain a secret very long.

Sloan’s Mill sold through four dealers in 2006, but expects that to grow to eight dealers in 2007. National Sales Manager Larry Deal said the company’s assembly system is one reason why.

“Our growth is due to a great concept—building a house to the dry-in stage in less than 10 days—and the fact that we have followed through with the engineering to make it happen,” Deal said. “There were a lot of little innovations that we’ve done.”

Deal said the company’s log homes go up in about the same amount of time. “They’re not prefab, but everything is precut,” Deal said. “And not just precut, but precut, numbered and shipped in logical order. You can go to that first package and it’ll be everything you need in logical order, and then you go to the next package.

“Now that’s not so new in log homes; there are a lot of companies that are precutting logs. But some of them don’t precut the roof, and the roof is what really takes so long to build.”

Deal said other factors in the company’s growth include “the strong demand for timber frame homes. By choosing post-and-beam, we can keep the cost down, making them affordable.”

And regionally, the market is strong, he said. “The demand in the mountains of North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and South Carolina is incredible,” he said. “There have been so many lots sold to people from out of town, and these people need houses built. Our original goal was to fill this niche.”

New dealers are trained in the building method on their first house. “Every time we sell a house, no matter who puts it up, we send a master timber framer from Germany who now lives in the U.S.,” Deal said. “That’s who helped us design these houses to make them go up so fast. He comes with every house; he’s part of the deal. He stays three days; if it’s 3,000 to 4,000 square feet, he’ll stay longer.”

Deal said he’s not sure the company needs any more dealers, at least not in North Carolina. He doesn’t want to exceed the company’s capabilities for production, especially given that speed is one of its selling points.

“We’ll talk to dealers in other states, but they’re already coming to us faster than we anticipated,” Deal said. “And one thing we will not do is make somebody a dealer who’s only after a discount on the house. I want real dealers, who will commit to being a dealer.”