Trouble with good weather in Alaska is you feel guilty for sitting on your arse. In mid August, we get a beautiful stretch of perfect weather–which happens when a high pressure cell stabilizes in nearby Canada. This guilt trip by mother nature signals us to launch another massive project–cleaning and oiling the logs. Last winter I got tired of watching drips leak through the roof and wind blow through the log walls onto my grand piano so I grab the pressure washer and get to work:

Take a look at 50 years of dirt and weathering effects. For those of you who have never painted a house (let alone a log one), it’s a trick but I’ve finally got it figured out. I use products by Sashco, starting with a powdered soap-like cleaner called CPR which I spray on with a simple pressure sprayer. Then, wait 20 minutes and attack with a pressure washer–it’s like night and day. When the logs dry, they are whitish and need to be reoiled. One problem with pressure washing logs is that it raises a fibre fuzz on the logs. You can ignore this and oil over it or sand each log. I couldn’t see much difference so I just cleaned off the big fuzzy stuff. Here’s the last of the stain being applied:

The last phase of finishing the logs is to caulk with Sashco’s “Conceal” which is a latex based material which comes in syringable 29 oz. tubes. It’s a wrist buster but it really seals and dries to a rubber consistency. They also make an identical product called “log jam” which is used for wider seams.  We added a little blue window trim to finish the job. We have rebuilt all the upstairs windows and will add copper gutters to the upstairs roof to preserve the window frames–it’s a new house…and we’re pooped!