Full Log Home Restoration, Franconia, NH, including 633 linear feet log repair, false corners and new dormers, 2022.
1 · Opening
Restoration
Most log failures start where nobody looks.
A sill log sits an inch off the ground on the north side of the house. Snow banks against it five months a year. Nobody sees it until a floor starts to move.
We replace it. Not the wall around it, not the house — the log that failed, joined to the ones that didn’t.
The estates that need this work need everything around it.
Full Log Home Restoration, Glover, VT, including 403 linear feet log repairs, 2021
2 · The Work
Structural log replacement
Rotted sill logs, corner notches and course logs cut out and replaced in place, scarfed into sound material. The wall stays standing. On the Okemo Mountain estate we replaced three hundred and sixty linear feet without the house ever coming apart.
Eastern white cedar, from our own mill
We saw our replacement stock in Burke, Vermont. Cedar because it resists rot without chemical treatment; our own mill because matching a hand-hewn profile means milling to the log, not ordering to a catalogue.
Chinking
Perma-Chink over backer rod, applied at the right temperature and the right depth. Chinking fails when it is too thin, too cold, or bonded on three sides instead of two. Done properly it flexes with the wall for decades.
Media blasting
Old finish, mildew and grey weathered surface taken back to clean wood without gouging the grain. The right media at the right pressure. Too aggressive and you lose the hand-hewn face that made the house worth saving.
Staining and finish
Borate treatment where rot risk is live, then a breathable finish that lets the log release moisture. Film-forming finishes trap water against wood, which is how a good-looking wall becomes a rotten one.
Timber frame restoration
Mortise-and-tenon joinery repaired rather than replaced. Scarf joints, dutchmen, sistered members where the load requires it. Original timber stays wherever it can still carry.
Full Log Home & Garage Restoration, Montgomery, VT, media blasting, 2022
3 · What We Find
The four failures we see most
Grade too high. Soil, mulch or a rebuilt walk raised against the bottom course. Wood in contact with wet ground has one outcome.
Roof overhang too short. Under eighteen inches, rain runs down the wall instead of away from it. The south and west elevations go first.
The wrong finish. A film-forming stain applied over damp wood seals moisture in. It looks correct for two years.
Chinking that has let go. A hairline separation at the top edge takes water straight into the joint, where nothing dries.
4 · Process
How a log job runs
The walk. Joe comes alone, before anything is quoted. Probe the suspect courses, look at grade, overhang, drainage and finish. Most of what matters is visible in an hour.
The scope. What has to be replaced, what can be treated, what can wait a season. In writing, with photographs.
The work. Wall supported, failed material out, new cedar in and scarfed to sound log. Chinking, then finish, in that order and in the right weather.
After. We come back. Log houses move, and the first winter after a repair tells you whether the detail was right.
5 · Region
Where we work, and why it matters
Vermont, New York, New Hampshire and Maine.
Northeast log houses fail differently than western ones. Deep frost, long snow load against the lower courses, and a freeze-thaw cycle that works water into every check in the wood. A detail that holds in Montana will not hold here.
We only work in the climate we know.
6 · Close
If something looks wrong, it probably is.
Log failure is slow and quiet. The repair is almost always smaller and cheaper the year you notice it than the year after.
Request a Private Property Review
802 · 710 · 0333
Solanna takes on structural log and timber restoration, and the full estate work that surrounds it — envelope, copper, windows, kitchens, systems, grounds.