For many people, living in a log home would be a dream. It falls in with their idea of living close to nature when life was simpler. It’s an appealing idea, to be sure, but most people don’t think about log rot when fantasizing about their cabin in the woods.
We don’t want to discourage anyone from buying or building a log home. Like any house, it requires maintenance. If you find log rot on your home, here are some reasons why covering the damage with siding is not the best solution and why you should never use epoxy to deal with log rot.
A great reason not to use siding to address log rot is that the exterior look will not match the rest of the home. The overall aesthetics will not be pleasing to the eye, and the value of the log building will drop.
Using log siding indicates that you made a half-hearted attempt to match the logs and then gave up. Most log siding is approximately 1.5 inches to two inches thick. If you plan to remove some of the wood rot and then install the log siding over the affected area, you will not be able to remove all the rotted wood first.
Often, the affected log has much more than an inch or two of rot. You aren’t removing all the rotten wood. There is still a food source for powderpost beetles and carpenter ants to feed on, which means the problem is not solved.
In many situations, putting siding over the affected logs does not alleviate the environmental pressures that caused the original logs to rot in the first place, i.e., moisture and sun. So, it stands to reason that with the same pressures present, the new pine siding will eventually rot, too.
Most log siding is not made of cedar. Our replacement logs are dry western cedar, which is inherently resistant to rot. We are confident that a rotten log will not rot again once we replace it with one of our cedar logs. This is the main reason we use cedar logs for our repair work. We firmly believe in repairing once and doing it right.
Some people may suggest using epoxy to deal with the problem of log rot. Many companies on the internet are selling products to fix problems with rot in log homes. These fixes include borate rods, liquid treatments, and epoxy fillers. If you’ve researched fixing rot in your log home or cabin, you have likely seen a few of these sites. One of the most common log rot repair products is called “epoxy fillers.” This product type is advertised as something to use to fill holes where rot has occurred.
No matter how well a log home is maintained, sometimes rot takes hold of some logs. This can cause great concern, and the temptation is to fix it quickly to “keep it from getting worse.” This quick fix often inclues using an epoxy filler.
Over the years, we at Edmunds & Company have worked on several buildings that have had epoxy “repairs” done on the logs in the past. We have seen that this type of repair does not last and at worst, it can cause further rot. That is not the solution you want.
The issue is that epoxy is not wood. Epoxy expands and contracts at a different rate than wood does. A few years after the epoxy patch is done, the wood surrounding the patch loosens, and cracks appear around the epoxy. When this happens, water is allowed to make its way into these cracks. Once the water ifnds its way in, the rot continues. (See Why Do Logs Rot.)
Besides not doing what they claim to do, these fillers also don’t look good. Some of these epoxies are mixed with sawdust or wood shavings to make them appear like wood or wood grain. As you can imagine, they don’t have a natural appearance.
When possible, the best way to deal with rot is to cut out the section of the rotten log and replace it with another section of the log. Here are links to how Edmunds & Company replaces rotten logs:
The bottom line is that you should be wary of epoxy fillers for log home repair. They generally do not stand up to real-world conditions over time.
Contact us if you have wood rot and want it repaired in a way that will LAST!
