How to Repair Your Log Home After Termite Damage

A termite infestation can result in serious issues in your home — especially in log cabins, where your home is their food. Fortunately, although termites can cause some of the worst structural damage, there are ways to prevent that and protect your home from these pests.

What Do Termites Do?

Termites live in colonies, typically in wood or soil. They live by eating wood and converting the fiber into sugar, and although they typically cause problems in stick homes more than log homes, they can become an issue for either. Generally, termites tunnel to the inside of a log and eat the log from the inside out, which can cause serious structural damage over the long term.

One Way to Self-Repair

If the damage is only to the surface of the wood, you may be able to perform repairs yourself. Because the termites haven't affected the core of the structure, you can handle this type of infestation without hiring a professional.

Your goal is to strengthen the wood and make it much more complicated for the termites to penetrate. The infested structures need to have a wood treatment or wood hardener product applied. This type of treatment works to close up any tunnels that the termites have created and stops them from re-entering the tunnels again and causing even more damage. You can also use wood sealers on the entries to the colonies, which can cut off their oxygen supply and kill the colony completely.

The best way to prevent this type of infestation is to use caulk and seal up anything that could become an entry point for termites in the future.

Another Method to Repair

There is another relatively simple way to repair damage caused by a termite infestation, and it can be used if you suspect that the termites have left trails and are leaving feces regularly. For instance, if you start to see powder coming from the trails over time, then you know the termites are continuing to eat through the logs. However, this doesn't start as a serious problem, and if taken care of quickly, it will remain a minor infestation.

The infested surface area will need to be scraped away with a hammer and chisel, preferably sized to match the damaged area. You should then fill in the scraped area with a wood filler to strengthen the wood. To keep up this type of repair, you should follow up as often as possible by wiping the area and seeing whether any moisture is seeping through the area.

Even considering how serious a problem termites can eventually cause, they can be taken care of easily in the beginning stages. Just remember that over time, these infestations can grow into an even bigger problem. That's why it is so important to take the proper measures to prevent this from happening at all by using caulk and sealants to make your log home more solid.

Image via Flickr by belgianchocolate