robert Parsons's Page

Robert

Normally log home interiors are stained with water based products, then given a clear coat. After that, one seldom needs to do anything to the interior of a house. I know of houses built in the early 80's when the current crop of materials were first introduced and the interiors have never been touched after the initial staining. Hence one does not generally have to concern themselves with what to do about the chinking once it is on.

I am not familiar with the oil based product you are using, but if its worth its salt, it should not require additional coats over time. Any environmental advantage it may have initially would be lost if you had to keep using it. Water based stuff isn't that bad, after all.

If the Organiclear product advises periodic recoating of the interior, then they are not using very current stain technologies and I would be hard pressed to figure out a good reason to use the product.

The reason you can't chink over some oil based materials is that they leave the logs greasy, so to speak. This most obviously happens with oils that contain paraffins, but there are other products that somehow manage to be hard to stick to. If you are using a stain incompatible with chinking then you are creating a difficult situation with no good answers. You can stain over chinking if you chink first and stain later, but it will be discolored by any color in the stain, and you have the additional problem of keeping the color even on the chinking, which can be hard to do given that the color tends to migrate to the edges where the chink meets the logs, and you have to keep brushing until that isn't going to happen, and its hard to have the discipline to do that.

You would have to ask the distributor of your chinking whether it is compatible with the product you want to use. If they have experience with it they can tell you. If they don't, they can't. And don't assume that since one brand said it would work all brands of chinking will work. I normally use the Weatherall brand of chinking, but I have worked on houses where Weatherall said they doubted or knew that their chinking would not adhere, but I was told by Permachink or Sashco that it would, and I used those brands. Since I prefer Weatherall, I tried to stay away from those situations and I normally succeeded. But again, using oils and chinking too may well be opening a can of worms.

As for chinking on the interior, you can do that (I'm assuming you are talking about milled logs, where the chinking is optional in the first place). However, you are usually better served by chinking both the interior and exterior, because it seals up the house better. This can of course vary from house to house because there are so many ways to seal milled houses, and believe it or not, some factory methods are better than others. Hence, if you house is very well sealed because of the method you used, then chinking only the interior may be perfectly fine. If your house, sealed as it may be, still leaks a lot between the logs, then chinking only the interior may not solve all your problems because the unchinked exterior might still allow cold air to get into interior checks and then into the house. So like the oil based stain and chinking, it depends.

If you are satisfied that your house is well sealed and that the chinking is only cosmetic, then its fine to do only the interior.

Hope this starts to answer you questions. Right now I'm traveling around the northwest and getting on the computer in a bit of a hit and miss fashion. It was luck of the draw that I got your message so quickly after you asked. So I may not respond quite as quick every time. But do feel free to ask about this or anything else at any time. And good luck with your new home.

Bob