Log Homes, Pests, and Damage. Prepare!

We bought our “forever” home over 8 years ago. Over 20 years ago, we lived in the Southern part of Arkansas, and it was our dream to move North to the Ozarks. We bought 4 acres on a mountain top and used it as “carrot motivation” to work hard towards our goal of building a log home on it. It has a 60-mile view. We met with construction companies at the property and were told that it could be done. We were excited! But as time grew closer for us to take the step and move, the price of new construction had gone up considerably. So I began looking at other properties for sale in this vicinity rather than us building.

I found the perfect home with the dream floor plan we had always wanted. It’s a ranch-style log home on almost 10 acres and, while older, it was a beautiful setting. But … it was out of our price range. I watched that home on the real estate website dreaming of it. Every few months, the price would drop, until finally, a year later, it dropped within our range. The timing was right for us to move, so we viewed the home, fell in love with it, and made an offer. It was accepted! That was in 2016. Though we had the home inspected, we had some issues to repair. I wrote about that in an earlier post.

We absolutely love our place that we call “Peace Hill”. The home had sat vacant for over a year (the previous owners had moved to FL), so the first year living here we had a battle of the wills between us, animals like raccoons, armadillos, deer, and carpenter bees. If you are dreaming of a log home, it indeed is warm, rustic, and cozy, but pests love logs and you have to stay on top of the maintenance to maintain your home! Here’s a short list of pests that are most common:

#1. Carpenter Bees: They are large bees that resemble a bumble bee, only these bore holes in the wood. Typically for us, it would be the rafter beams under our porches that cover 3 sides of our home. Now, I can tell you that you could fill the holes with putty and paint or stain over it and they’d never come back, but I wouldn’t want to lie. Remember the Terminator saying, “I’ll be back!”. Yep, that has to be the bee’s favorite saying. We spray around our home every 3 months with Home Defense, and that has been great to kill spiders and other crawlers and to keep bees from coming here (as much). If you want to kill them instantly, insert WD-40 into one of their bored holes. I feel some cringing going on, but whatever works! 

Wood Carpenter Bee

#2. Termites: The thought of these cause me to shudder! It’s very important to have professional pest control treat and check on termites. Terminix has installed traps around our entire home and shop area with “bait traps” that they come out and check periodically on. Thankfully, they have been clear. To help prevent termites from infesting and destroying your home, you want to insure that you don’t have any wet logs that are rotting around or on your home, avoid having climbing vines like English Ivy or any other plants or bushes that can grow up the side of your logs or brush against them. That gives easy access to pest like termites.

Swarm of Termites

* With all this said about termites, I do want to add that log homes and wood frame homes are not the only homes that can have a termite infestation. My memory flashes back to a little brick home my husband and I bought in 1987. By the Spring of 1988, I began seeing a couple of flying bugs in the hall bath sink. Then a few more. I went into the kitchen and everything unfolded like a horror movie. I couldn’t sweep them out my kitchen door fast enough (I had no experience with termites and at first, had no clue what was happening.) Within 10 minutes, the swarm of termites in our home was worse than the Alfred Hitchcock’s movie of The Birds and I'm running out of there as fast as possible with two small children under each arm! All that to say … don’t let the fear of termites keep you from building or owning your dream log home. It could happen to any home.

#3. Squirrels: Aren't they cute? I raised squirrels as a teenager since my neighbor worked for the U.S. Forestry Department in Deep East Texas. They are fun to watch and I love to hear them bark and chatter in the Fall. Our two hound dogs, Duke & Daisy, love keeping them treed in their perspective places. But sometimes, especially in the Fall, they love to come onto our side porch and nibble at the shudders and porch railing. I'm not a happy camper when they do this. I run them off, but sorry, I can't be mean to them. Our opening vents to the attic are screened keeping them out, or I probably would have another thing to say about them. The little limb rats can cause some major damage! They love antagonizing our indoor cats who sit in the window to watch them. I’ve gone as far as putting Louisiana Hot Sauce on the banister. The squirrel liked it.

Squirrel ... AKA Limb Rat

#4. Beetles & Carpenter Ants: The list goes on with wood damaging insects. The Powder-Coat Beetle gets it’s name from boring holes and finding piles and fine powder sawdust. And Carpenter Ants. They cause destruction and boring through wood as well. The thing about these pests is that they, along with Carpenter Bees, lay eggs, which turn into larvae, and then the whole cycle repeats.

Carpenter Ant

#5. Woodpeckers: Remember Woody? He's alive and well. And so are all of his family! We've had problems from time to time with them "mistakenly" thinking our house was a tree. Seriously, we have so many trees in our yard and huge oaks in the front. But we reroute them if we hear one and they miraculously find their trees again. It might happen once in the Spring. I'm thankful it's not an all the time thing, or I would think the worst about what's in the logs. They can be a problem, so just watch out for them. Believe me, you'll hear them like a jackhammer.

Woodpecker

The bottom line is, if you are planning to build a log home, know before you go into that process that there is routine maintenance to be done to keep your home as pest free as possible to protect it and maintain it’s beautiful appearance. You wouldn’t want to make a huge investment and then watch the integrity of the home structure come down because it wasn’t being taken care of. Even the Lord told us to "consider the cost" before we build. (Luke 24:28)

If you are thinking about buying a log home already built, you will find that it is not as expensive as building from the ground up. Log homes do run higher in price to construct. The savings can be wonderful if you find a home already built, but do hire a (good) home inspector to check out the structure. We hired one. He missed major things. This is why I’m warning you! In all fairness, he probably wasn’t a professional on log homes and didn’t know the checklist of things to look for. Do have your inspector check for water damaged logs on the outside of your home to make sure there isn’t any log rot that was stained over. That can be easy to miss. Have him check the inside of the home ceiling and beams for water damage (water rings at the base of the beams and/or over the fireplace mantle. A hail storm did damage prior to us buying our home “But it was fixed”.) Again, make sure your inspector has knowledge of log homes so they will know what to look for. So those are some things to look for in log homes that are already built.

In addition to an inspector, do call out a professional pest control to check for termites, beetles, and any damage done by them. There would need to be a termite contract on the home by a professional pest control business before the bank would even close on the loan. That’s important, because who wants to move into a home if the structure is compromised by those pests?! Afterwards, do treat around your home for insect pests such as beetle, ants, spiders, carpenter bees every few months. At first, we had our home sprayed quarterly by a local company. However, it didn't kill the spiders. We reasoned if the spray they used didn't kill the spiders, then how would it kill termites? We had a friend who worked for a pest control company that told us the magic ingredient that works ... and that the company could no longer use. Let's just say that we use this product below has that "magic" ingredient and it does the job. We've been using it for over 8 years. You can find it at any home store or order it online. 

Home Defense Insect Killer. Indoor and Outdoor use.

Do You Already Have Log Damage?

In our area of the Ozark Mountains, we have so many log homes and cabins. Private homes, because this is just a beautiful setting for them, as well as lodges and rental cabins around the lake, Eureka Springs, and around Table Rock Lake in the Branson, MO area, just over the state line. Even the College of the Ozarks in Hollister is built of logs. However, the professionals that know how to maintain and restore these beautiful homes are few and far between! It's a specialized type of service.

Don't trust your log home restoration to just any local handyman. If you need your log home, retreat, lodge, or business properly maintained or need restoration services to it, Log Masters Restoration are the professionals to call on. They have extensive services they can provide and operate in other locations as well: Springfield, MO, Chesterfield, MO, Westcliffe, CO, Colorado Springs, CO, and Austin, Texas. Give them a call and schedule an appointment for an inspection if your log home has need of repairs due to pests or log rot.

Despite the maintenance … despite the “battle of the wills” between us and the pests … we wouldn’t change a thing. We love everything about our home! It’s solid. It’s nice to be in when the storms blow in. We love our metal roof, especially when the rain comes down. We love our fireplace with the Buck Stove and the winter snow. The logs are absolutely amazing keeping the temps regulated inside and we have fantastic electric bills. The metal roof helps with that as well. Pests or not, a log home is a wonderful investment and it really is warm and cozy. You just have to stay persistent in maintaining it and pest control.