The majority of log homeowners desire to showcase the beauty of their log home by preserving the natural wood look of their logs exteriors. For most log homeowners, a log home painted in a solid color defeats the purpose of owning a log home. However, to continue to maintain the natural wood look, a realistic approach is required.
Transparent and semi-transparent stains, by their very nature, have their limitations because they can never fully protect the wood surface against the powerful and destructive rays of the sun. Due to this limitation, ANY transparent/semi-transparent wood stain will degrade more quickly and have a shorter service life than a solid color paint/stain. There have been definite improvements with the overall performance of exterior transparent coatings but nevertheless, certain sides of the building are going to wear more quickly (usually the southern and western exposures) and will need to be stained more often than good quality house paint.
To avoid a painted, artificial look, WeatherSeal� should weather to the point where, once cleaned and pressure-washed, a coat or two of new stain will partially replace what has eroded away, thus minimizing excessive build-up of previous coats . The time to apply additional coats of stain will always depend on the condition and appearance of the weathered stain. The secret to maintaining the natural wood look is to wait until WeatherSeal� begins to show