When building a log home it is important to think of preventative maintenance from the beginning design stages. You want to protect your logs against water, insects, decay and damage from the suns UV rays. When you are in the design stage you will want to consider your roof over-hangs to ensure the log walls do not have areas where any rain water will drain along them constantly. When the log shell is complete and erected on your home site, we recommend that the logs are washed to remove any dirt, sawdust or mud splats that can appear after leaving our construction yard. People usually use a pressure washer to rinse the logs at this point. When they are dry you would then apply your preservative wood treatment. This treatment would contain a water repellent with some pigment and UV inhibitor. There are many on the market and they are improving them every year. You are able to get good UV protection now without having to stain your logs with much colour if you prefer a more natural log look. As for the inside, that depends on the look you like. You can oil, stain, varnish or leave them as they are. Consider dusting the logs when you make this choice though. Sealed logs may also reduce some of the checking.
If you do a proper job of caring for your logs when your log house is first built you will save yourself extra work for the future. You should follow the recommendations of the exterior treatment manufacturer for re-applying.
Regarding insects, this issue is dependent on your area and specific to your home site. It is the same concern whether you live in a regular frame house or a log house, if termite nests were all around your property you would want to speak to a pest control specialist. An exterminator can recommend a selection of treatments if you have concerns about insects in your area.
There is more maintenance involved with a handcrafted log home compared to a vinyl sided home, but we think the effort is worth it.
2 comments:
Hello Sitka Family.
Just finished reading this blog and I wanted to let you know that our company has been restoring and finishing log homes for 22 years and we NEVER recommend using bleach to clean a log. Once bleach is put on a log it cannot be removed and bleach fractures the cell structure of the wood. slowly, year after year, eating through a log.Please check out our companys cleaning, brightening, and srtipping systems. They are the best in the market as they were designed by our owner Micheal Lewis who has a degree in Chemistry and has been restoring log homes for 22 years. We also have our own line of finishes which we feel are also the best in the business. Please check out our products at woodguru.com. I would love to send you some free samples of our finish and literature on all of our products. I would love to send you samples of our finishes and see what you think of them. Thank you for this blog. We want to be educators for log home owners and this is a wonderful blog page. Please contact me.
Sincerly,
Christopher Helvey
Sales/Customer Service Rep.
Knock on Wood Restoration
chris@woodguru.com
Hi Christopher,
Thank you for the informative comment.
I've since looked further into the bleach issue with wood and you are right, it can be damaging to the cell structure if not washed off properly...especially if not highly diluted with water to start with.
Our expertise is in building handcrafted log homes rather than wood cleaners and finishes but we definitely would like to continue learning about the new products on the market today so that we can make educated recommendations to our customers.
I have looked through your web site and would be very interested in checking out the products that you offer.
Thanks for the advice and for reading our blog!
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