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1850 Log Home Restoration

Started by Kevlarwies, February 10, 2014, 02:05:59 PM

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Kevlarwies

As part of my daily responsibilities I stumbled into quite a project.  I volunteered to take on the restoration of a log Home that dates back to 1850.  The building is a two story 16' x 20' stack notched log home.  Over the past two years I've been working with local volunteers and Rooster from the Forum to replace several sections of the walls to make the building whole again.  For each section we used logs from other dismantled log homes from the same time period, and hewed each replacement log to size by hand. 
I'm wondering if anyone has suggestions for treatment products for the logs before we start to re-build the structure.  I'm also looking for suggestions on what type of mortar to use for the daub.  I am planning on using Perma-Chink for the final exterior layer but wanted to use something historically accurate for the rest of the chinking, especially on the inside of the building.  I'm open to suggestions from anyone willing to give em!  Thanks.   



 


 


  

 

beenthere

Welcome to the Forestry Forum.

How about some pics of this project? We like pics and sounds like a lot has happened in this two year time period.

And where are you located?

south central Wisconsin
It may be that my sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others

Kevlarwies

The cabin will be re-built in Dorothy Carnes County Park in Jefferson County Wisconsin.   

Thehardway

Kev,

Kudos for your endeavors  these homes are rapidly being lost to neglect and development.  We have a lot of tobacco barns here in southside, VA that are probably from about the same time period.  They were chinked primarily with boards, stones and clay (Virginia red clay, mud).  Some local log cabins can be found that had limestone based chinking but the clay and mud was more common.

Here are pics of each.

Lime chinked cabin

 


Mud/clay chinked tobacco barn


 

There is also chestnut log home near mine that pre-dates the above.  They used short cedar boards stacked diagonally between logs with Lime based chinking. Clapboard siding was installed later over the logs.  Here is a picture of it.  The bottom is a stacked stone foundation/basement. Then first log course followed by chinking.

 

Interior walls of the Chestnut log home either exposed or were paneled with sawn boards, some up to 20" Wide!  Homes that were plastered usually used lime based cement and animal hair over wood lathe strips.  Were the interior walls plastered?

You will likely find that people used whatever was available locally and was of little or no cost.  Log homes were usually not the construction of wealthy folks.  Some Log homes were acquired by wealthy individuals when property was purchased and preserved using better than traditional materials that would not have been original to the construction of the home.

The builders tried to use rot resistant species when available. Chestnut, White oak, Locust, Cedar.  No treatment was used.  For tobacco barns yellow pine was widely used and the toxins from the tobacco and the smoke usually served as a pretty good preservative.

For today I would use an approved oil base penetrating preservative or perhaps something like Tim-bor or Boracare which are Boric acid based if you don't want to darken the wood too much with an oil based product.
Norwood LM2000 24HP w/28' bed, Hudson Oscar 18" 32' bed, Woodmaster 718 planer,  Kubota L185D, Stihl 029, Husqvarna 550XP

thecfarm

Model 6020-20hp Manual Thomas bandsaw,TC40A 4wd 40 hp New Holland tractor, 450 Norse Winch, Heatmor 400 OWB,YCC 1978-79

D L Bahler

DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT use anything with portland cement, latex, or any other rubber substance, under any circumstances. You will ruin the building and cause irreparable damage. This isn't an opinion, it is fact. these product cause rot in the old wood at alarming rates. I don't know how many 'rescued' buildings I have seen fail swiftly do to well-meaning but ill-informed restoration attempts.

Use lime.

you can stuff the inside-most part with mud mixed with chopped straw, that was historically common across the Midwest. The space might first have been stuffed with moss, wood chunks from hewing and joinery, rocks, dirt clods, etc. then covered over with the dirt and straw (high in clay) and the outside given a final coating of lime based plaster to seal it from the weather.

I am not convinced that permachink has any real virtues. The previously described system, if done properly, has shown its ability to last 100 years or more.


As an aside, not an actual recommendation,

Here in Indiana and in many other parts of the Midwest, log homes were actually not originally built to have the logs exposed.
Historical recreation and restoration often seeks to restore the old buildings here to their 'original' state -removing the siding,  de-modernizing the structture and returning it to an archaic condition, and at the same time restoring it to an 'unclad' construction.
For the vast majority of these structures, this is a complete inaccuracy.
Most were covered with board siding as soon as the logs settled and the home could be inhabited. May not look as nice, but the folks were more concerned with having a house that wasn't drafty.

Just thought that might be of interest. Personally I'm all for restoring them to an 'unclad' condition, even if they might only have stood in this way for their first 2 or 3 years of existence,

Tom King

Do you have any of the original window jambs left intact, or enough pieces to know what they were like?  If you have any part of a sash, I can tell you if it's from the same time period. 

I restore old houses for a living, but have never done a log cabin.

Have a look at my "Windows" page for a recent sash job for a 1780 house.

Virginia Lime Works is a good source for lime mortars and plasters, but it's so slow drying that I'm not so sure how good it would be for a log structure unless just a skim coat over something else.  That's the way it would have been done to start with, if it ever had mortar on the joints at all.  http://www.virginialimeworks.com/

Kevlarwies

The difference in what a log "home" is and what a log cabin is has become a glaring factual difference.  This home was likely covered with clapboard siding from the time it was built until we uncovered it.  The logs were as golden and clean as the day they were cut. 

Through a public process, it was decided to re-create the house to its unclad state; exposed logs with clapboards only covering the gable ends.  My concern now is how to treat the exposed logs, chink between, and fill some of the inward turned checks to make sure the logs don't get rotten or deteriorate faster than we can preserve them. 

So far I have ABRP X100 for the log treatment, mesh lath overlayed with Stoneset mortar mixed with lye, and Abatron two part wood filler to fill the larger checks and damaged wood.  Any other suggestions for wood treatment or preservation?   

I'm also looking for suggestions for 1850 settler home door styles?  Double Z brace, panel, ?????

D L Bahler

What is the wood used? This will go along way in determining preservation methods...
But it sounds like you have purchased a product already, so I assume you will naturally follow that route

I assume also you will be constructing the roof in a historically accurate way, that is with little or no overhang.
That is the principal disadvantage of the American style of log building, is builders applied English style-roofing (rafters seated into the top plate) which made so there could be no sizable overhang.
Compare this to the place of the origins of American log building, Austria (especially Kärnten province) where overhangs are enormous and timber lasts 700 years with no treatment.
Roof overhangs are the single best means of preserving the walls. Roofs in the past were seen as disposable and interchangeable.
But in order to stay faithful to history, I understand you can't do this.

The second best thing you can do is to elevate the wood well above ground, at least a foot.

What is stoneset mortar? What does it contain. If there is any portland cement in it, do not use it. The reason is very simple. Portland cement draws moisture out of the air, and sweats. But it is also impermeable, meaning the moisture will collect on its surface and bead. In a log wall, this means moisture will collect along the chinking and be drawn into the wood by capillary action of both the joint itself and of the wood cells. In simple terms, water will be sucked in to the inside of the joint and absorbed into the wood. The wood will rot at an alarming rate.
This discovery was made by Germans who sought to hastily repair centuries old buildings after WWII, and found that their quick repairs using portland cement instead of the old mortars and plasters caused the old wood to deteriorate faster than they could do anything about it. Some Germans say more old buildings were lost to inadequate repairs than to the actual war itself. That probably depends on where.
Lime works much differently. Lime breaths and does not collect moisture in the same way as portand cement. Lime will actually do the reverse, it will draw moisture out of the wood and release it into the air. Clay and daub act similarly.

Does the Abatron contain any latex or petroleum based rubber? If so, this can have similar results as portland cement.

A lot of times, the old builders would have stuffed the voids with clay or lime (or both)

Here in Indiana, doors were often imported. The settlers would have brought a nice pretty paneled door with them and a few boxes of nails and maybe some milled siding boards before sawmills moved in. These doors were paneled, usually 2 raised panels. More if they wanted to spend money. I've read of similar things occurring on the plains, where settlers brought nice doors with them from the east and put them on their sod houses.
z-panel doors were used by the very first settlers, or on the cabins the government built for the Indians, or on barns.
This causes confusion, since a fair amount of the cabins still standing here were, in fact, barns.   

LarryRB

If anyone is interested I have a log cabin 18x22 laying in my barn that I would like to get out of there. it is all labeled to be put back together. I know the forum would get there  percentage. It is hand hewn to about 7" thick. PM me for more information.

Tom King

I had to look up Stoneset to see what it is.  It sounds like thinset to attach a fake stone or brick veneer to some substrate.  It's cement mixed with silica.  copied and pasted directly from their page:  Speccrete® Stone Set is to be used as a base "bedding mortar" only and is not recommended as a topping mortar due to its high cement concentration.

You can't do this kind of work any kind of way someone dreams up, and expect lasting results.  I'd strongly suggest contacting the guys at Virginia Lime Works about some sort of lime mortar to use on the outside of a chinking system.  They're great to deal with.

The only Albatron products I know of are epoxies in various consistencies.  None of it is very pretty, to say the least, and is designed to be covered by paint.  I don't know of anything you can fill the checks with, and not make it look worse.

Are there other old cabins around there that belong to the National Park Service, or are owned or looked after by the State Preservation Department (don't know about what it would be called up there)?

I restore historic houses for a living, but am not that familiar with the current state of the art in log cabin preservation.  The Preservation movement really saw a big surge starting in the 1970s.  A lot of the stuff was done by figuring it out as they went along, and a lot of that has shown up by coming up with better ways to do things that many found actually caused problems.

The National Park Service has all sorts of "preservation briefs" developed over the years.  I found this on log cabins:
http://www.nps.gov/tps/how-to-preserve/briefs/26-log-buildings.htm

Even some of their preservation briefs that they still have available have proved to need some amendments, and are being worked on right now for houses.

Anyone I know who keeps up with transparent wood coatings always has Sikkens at the top of their list.

I found this:  https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/hp/

and this:   http://wipreservation.org/

I deal with people  in organizations like that down here, and they're always pleasant to deal with, and will be helpful some kind of way.  These people have spent years of their lives, made careers out of it, and millions of dollars have been spent learning how to do this stuff.  All I'm saying is to take advantage of all this work that has been already done.

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