Log home maintenance

We are taking a second look at a log home. I am concerned about the maintenance of a log home. Is it a lot of work, with dire consequences if not done right? Also I do not know what trouble to look for before buying. And how are they on heating? Any help is appreciated.

Thanks, Drifter.

We looked at a log home as well, but didn’t pursue it. I called and talked with a company that maintains them and he quoted me at about $3500-4000 every 2-3 years to reseal and maintain. From what I know, yes it is imperative that you do the maintenance. If not, and the wood begins to deteriorate, it is really hard and expensive to repair.

As far as heating, how it is constructed will be a significant factor. A lot of the “newer” homes have insulation built into the core of the logs.

Good luck!

I bought a hand-scribed log home 6 years ago. Everything Jake47 wrote we have found to be true. They are a lot of maintenance, expensive to keep, and the price is very high if you decide to post-pone or skip what needs to be done.

What to look for? Black spots indicating log rot. I had my log home inspected prior to our purchase. However, the inspector – engaged by my crooked realtor – was unfamiliar with log construction and missed a massive amount of rot and insect damage. If you decide to move forward, do not use a typical home inspector only. Find and hire a competent log home builder/renovation company to inspect the structure. You will learn a ton from them and might save yourself a $100k, 2 year renovation project.

Heating…we have to keep our log home heated to at least 50 degrees all winter. You don’t want hand-scribed logs to freeze/thaw continually. Winter heating is expensive. Summertime, just the opposite.

Bugs…will think your log home is a pile of wood for them to bore and eat into. It’s a constant battle and we resorted to having a service treat the structure 4x per year.

Bats…log homes are not tight like traditionally built homes. You will have bats, potentially colonies of bats.

All that is the downside. You already know the up-side. When you come back to your log home after a long day of working/fishing/hunting, the beauty and glow of the logs never gets old. It’s definitely enchanting.

Brian

Look at split log. Some of the drawbacks of log maintenance. Upside of modern insulated home.

If were to do it again I would look at Everlog.

Everlog Concrete Log Siding

Here is the house that Mike built for me.

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Drifter,

We have a log sided home, but with actual split logs versus just the panels.

As indicated above there is a fair amount more maintenance associated with logs. You will need to refinish the exterior most likely every 2-5 years with the South and West facing walls of your house most likely requiring more work. If you were to purchase the material yourselves it will cost you most likely between $2000-$3500 every few years, but if you hire it out you will be looking at double that amount or more. Also, you will want to wash your house at least every two years but more appropriately every summer. If you’ve got the right equipment and are very careful with the water pressure, etc it’s something you could do in a day by yourself. If you want to hire it out to someone who’s going to do it right, that’s probably around another $500-1000 expense.

You will also want/need to make sure you know exactly how the previous owners managed the humidity inside their home. If you don’t take steps to increase humidity during winter and reduce it during summer you will cause your logs to expand/contract and end up with checking even years after a home was built. Because of the higher humidity inside you will also see some condensation on the interior windows and want to spend some time every couple years buffing and adding a new coat of poly around the interior windows.

There is an excellent, free class that discusses log home maintenance at the Perma-Chink office in Rice MN; however, I think it only takes place in the summer.

Will

after reading this thread you can count me out of any Log home buying. I understand it can be ascetically pleasing to look at but sounds like a huge hassle

I own a log home and the best advise has been given. Find someone that builds log homes to do the inspection for you. There is no law out there for who can do home inspections. Your contract will say the choice of who to choose is up to you.

Find out who they went through for doing the maintenance of the logs and check with them about how often it was done. 4-5 years is normal for getting everything touched up again. For the cost, the wife and I have found it best to make monthly payments to a separate account so when it comes time to be re-stained and caulked you already have it set aside. Its not as big of deal then.

They are more maintenance but for how solid the house is, you can’t beat em. Typically your R-value on a log home is better than stick built construction, so your heating would be less when compared.

Thanks guys! You have given me a direction to start. I will ask who they had doing the maintenance on the home to get a feel on how it was taken care of. It was built in 99 so not incredibly old. Roof looks like it has roughly 10 years left to it.

I am not surprised Crappie that you wouldn’t want anything to do with it. It would require you to spend some of that moldy cash you got piled up! Lol. Just Poken ya’. Hope you can take a joke……

crappie55369 wrote:

after reading this thread you can count me out of any Log home buying. I understand it can be ascetically pleasing to look at but sounds like a huge hassle

Oh my God is that the understatement of the century. Now I’m going to get chills when I drive past them on the highway..

MNdrifter wrote:

Thanks guys! You have given me a direction to start.

Is the direction towards the exit? Lol

deertracker wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>MNdrifter wrote:</div>
Thanks guys! You have given me a direction to start.

Is the direction towards the exit? Lol

Lol. Most likely. But they are begging me to make some kind of offer on this place. It has real potential to be a really good investment. Sounds like it’s about to go to short sale. That’s why it’s so tempting. That and it’s beautiful (I would be embarrassed to live in something like that), 22 acres, decent hunting opportunities, nice little steel shop. Everything I want except the logs.

If you budget $350 a month for maintenence let somebody else do it. If you are looking at a 22 acre property with a log home and a shop you aren’t looking at a $100,000 purchase anyway. If you are getting a buy on it the $350 can probably be absorbed without being to painfull.

Dutchboy wrote:

If you budget $350 a month for maintenence let somebody else do it. If you are looking at a 22 acre property with a log home and a shop you aren’t looking at a $100,000 purchase anyway. If you are getting a buy on it the $350 can probably be absorbed without being to painfull.

Touché. Even at $150 a month the remaining balance wouldn’t be so painful maybe? Good way to think about it Dutch.

Drifter, I have an old log cabin with additions in the 90’s and early 2000’s. I purchased it this past summer. It’s a lot of maintenance. I’m able to do most of it myself. It’s the log replacement / rotten sections that I have the experienced pros take over. Just stay on top of it.

Hello all,

we recently purchased a house which had a log cabin at the back. The cabin looks like a turn-of-the-century 2 story house and hasn’t been maintained very well. I am interested in trying to keep that fun man-cave for as long as I can but I can’t spend thousands of dollars into this project at this moment. I was wondering what I could do to stop the deterioration of the log ends as shown in the attached pictures. I saw wood epoxy repair products available online but they are pretty expensive and it looks like I’ll need a lot. I was thinking of filling in the big and deep holes with expanding foam, then perhaps stuff the end with epoxy wood putty, would that work? Any suggestions?

Thanks/Alain

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New one built roughly 15 years ago. We have refinished one time at 10 years. We spend more time in /on the woods / water then we do working on the cabin. We shut the cabin down in the winter so we definitely don’t keep it above 50 degrees. I guess we will see long term.

Original parts of old one were built in the 50’s. Some logs are close to 100 years old and those were just replaced more from varmint causing holes. Just replaced the floor in the old one with cement. We have re-stained about 6 years ago. We do spend a little more TLC on the old cabin but that’s just filling in cracks, etc.

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