If you are lucky enough to live in a log you know there are unique ways to maintain your home as opposed to standard housing. It isn’t harder to maintain a log home, just different. It’s best to take a slow walk around the exterior of your cabin a couple of times a year, say in the spring and fall and assess the condition of your dwelling. Look carefully and critically at areas where water may be an issue, such as around doors and windows, dormer connections, roof junctions, chimney flashing and the end logs on your home.
Caulking and sealing are two of the three things we recommend you do regularly. Logs will tend to crack and check over time. This is normal and does not affect the strength or integrity of the logs used as your house’s structure. Over the first year or two as they come into equilibrium with the local humidity and variation over the seasons the logs will swell, contract and check. For the first several years caulking may be a regular part of your log cabin maintenance routine as the logs settle down to moisture equilibrium.
You will also want to regularly seal the large gaps around your windows and doors. We would recommend a re-usable foam gun and a can of expanding foam. If you do not feel comfortable doing this yourself, this is a task a log home builder will easily be able to do.
The third thing we would recommend you do in your home to maintain upkeep is staining. To check whether or not you need to re-stain spray water on your home, if it beads up and runs down the stain is still in great condition. To renew the log stain on your cabin you need to prepare the wood first. Hose it off to get loose dirt and cobwebs and scrub gently any stained areas or patches of mold. The type of stain you use will differ from house to house so be sure to contact one of our log home building specialists before applying a specific stain onto your logs.
Although upkeep on a log home requires you to complete different task than you normally would it is not any harder and does not cost anymore than maintaining a conventional house. Because of our experience in log home restoration and construction projects like this are perfect for the home improvement specialist here at FS Builders. We also specialize in steel building construction, deck building and home remodeling. Call us today at (262) 843-4496 to learn more about any of our services or to discuss what we can do for your Illinois or Wisconsin home.
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