Caulking a log house: how, when and how to do it? Do-it-yourself caulking of a log house from a log house: tasks, stages, working tools and materials How to caulk a log house from a log.

Built of timber, laid, the roof is covered, and the windows are inserted - it's time to insulate the frame. The cracks can be caulked traditionally - with moss, modern material - jute or tow. How to do it correctly and what to prefer after all - read the article and watch the video.

How to choose the right material for insulation. Which is the best fit

It is almost impossible to answer unequivocally, the more correct it is to caulk a wooden bath. Each material has pros and cons, so you need to familiarize yourself with their characteristics, and only then make a final decision.

Moss... You can buy at a hardware store or type it yourself in the forest. Warming with its help was practiced by our grandfathers, and their experience can certainly be trusted. True, now this material is far from a favorite, because there are new ones that are more convenient to use. Nevertheless, the advantages of moss include:

environmental friendliness;
medicinal properties;
profitability;
resistance to decay;
resistance to temperature extremes.

Of the minuses, it is necessary to highlight:

exposure to moisture;
fragility;
high fire hazard;
fragility when dry;
labor intensity of the warming process.

Tow. It can be made from hemp, jute or flax and is sold in rolls and square blocks. The first option is more convenient, because individual strips need to be pulled out of the blocks, twisted and placed in the slot. Among the advantages of the material:

naturalness;
low cost.

Perhaps this is where the visible advantages of tow end. Minuses:

difficulties in use. If over time you decide to remove the tow from the seams, you will suffer;
attractive to mice and moths.

Advice. Tow is a kind of alternative to moss, which many experts advise to give preference to if you choose only between these two options.

Felt. It can be natural or with the addition of artificial fibers. The first is preferable because it is less fire hazardous (it burns worse). Felt advantages:

environmental friendliness;
ease of use.

exposure to moisture and decay;
high price;
high risk of moths. In addition, often the felt becomes the object of encroachments by mice and birds, which pick it out from the seams.

Linen and flax fiber... Made from flax waste. Batting is a material with the addition of artificial fibers. It is more convenient in laying, since it is produced in the form of ribbons. Flax fiber is similar to tow, so working with it takes patience. The materials do not absorb moisture and are resistant to decay. You can distinguish one from the other by color: natural flax fiber is darker than flax.

Jute. This is one of the most popular options among modern owners who build and then insulate the bath with their own hands. It is made from wood of the linden family. Characteristics - feast for the eyes:

high strength;
resistance to moisture and decay;
good thermal insulation;
environmental friendliness;
ease of use - it is sold in the form of ribbons, rolled into rolls.

Of the shortcomings, it is worth noting that jute can stick together under conditions of excessive pressure loads. True, you can try to avoid this by choosing a heater with the maximum density.

Attention! Jute and jute felt are not the same thing. The second material has the same disadvantages as any other fiber felt.

Subtleties of the caulking process

The advantages of a caulked bath are obvious: it requires less fuel, and it takes less time to warm up the premises. Therefore, despite the fact that the work is painstaking and time-consuming, it is better not to neglect it.

Bath cauldron: video

Materials for caulking a bath: photo

High-quality caulking is one of the most important pledges of its reliable thermal insulation. It is highly discouraged to neglect this process, because the comfort and healthy microclimate of the steam room are at stake. But how to properly caulk a log house in order to avoid even the likelihood of the formation of voids, which can negate all the thermal properties of the structure? Let's take a closer look at this further: we will find out the features of materials for protecting the bathhouse - jute, tow and moss, get acquainted with the rules and technologies of caulking, and also watch a video of direct work with a log house.

Caulking materials

Moss, tow and jute are considered traditional materials for caulking a bath from a bar. Let's outline the main features of each of them.

Moss... Environmentally friendly raw materials with high antiseptic qualities. Advantages: minimal thermal conductivity, high resistance to temperature extremes, low cost. Disadvantages: the need for a long preparation for work. Purchased moss must be moistened and then dried before laying. If you collect material with your own hands, it must be carefully sorted out to remove debris and soil, and also dry.

Advice. It is not necessary to completely dry the moss, otherwise it will become brittle and completely unsuitable for caulking.

Tow... Fabric based on soft yet durable linen fibers. Advantages: low thermal conductivity, minimal tendency to electrification, high absorbency, quick drying. Disadvantages: Difficulty laying and unaesthetic seams remaining after caulking.
Jute... Jute wood insulation material. Advantages: high strength, minimal hygroscopicity, inertness to decay, resistance to moisture, ease of installation. Disadvantages: fast material caking and short service life.

Caulking materials

General rules for caulking

The main features of the cauldron of a bath from a bar:

Caulking must be performed two times: the first - either directly in the process of laying the timber, or immediately after collecting the box of the building, the second - after the final shrinkage of the log house, that is, after a year or two.

Advice. If you carry out caulking after the completion of the construction of the bath, do it before the external finishing of the object, since the sealing material will raise the frame by 5-7 cm.

Insulation must be laid on each row of the timber.
Heat-insulating raw materials should protrude 5 cm beyond the boundaries of the grooves of the logs on both sides of the log house.
Caulking must be done both from the outside and from the inside of the walls of the bath.
You need to process the blockhouse in a clear sequence: first, close the outer voids around the perimeter of the lower trim, then follow the same steps on the inside of the building; then go outside again and process the second crown of the log house - repeat the procedure from the inside. Using the same scheme, step by step, protect the entire inner and outer surfaces of the walls.

Caulking process

Caulking technologies

There are two ways to caulk a log house - "stretch" and "set".

Stretch-in technology is appropriate if the voids between the timber are very narrow - almost imperceptible. The material is laid as follows:

form strands from insulation;
lay the resulting strands across the fibers into the voids of the log house, pushing them with a wooden spatula;
Tuck the edges of the material (about 5 cm) and use caulk to hammer them into the slots.

If the voids between the rows of the timber are deep and wide, it is advisable to use the "in-set" caulking technology:

form long strands of at least 15 mm in thickness from the heat-insulating material and wind them into a continuous ball;
gradually unwinding the ball, fill the voids of the log house with material, sealing it with caulking;
to get aesthetic seams, carefully go over the material with a road builder.

Advice. For those where the slots are of different sizes, gain the thickness of the filler by turning the strands or simply twisting them into loops. In this case, first cover the top of the voids, and then the bottom.

As you can see, caulking a bath is a painstaking process, the success of which depends on several factors at once: the quality of the material, the technology of its laying and the sequence of work. To cope with the task at hand and provide the steam room with good thermal insulation, carefully think over each of the indicated nuances and stock up on exposure, because caulking does not tolerate haste.

How to caulk a house from a bar: video

How to caulk a bath: photo

Many are already eyeing wooden houses in the form of a log house. After all, they look beautiful and quite warm inside. Indeed, during the construction of a building, insulation is laid between the crowns of the logs, this gives additional confidence in the quality of the log house.

But now several years pass and after the house has completely shrunk, all kinds of cracks and crevices appear. This not only makes the house cold, but also spoils the appearance. In addition, uncovered cracks are the places where mold and rot will appear first of all, which will further lead to damage to the building.

To prevent this from happening, after shrinkage of the building, the logging is carried out... There are several ways of this procedure, depending on the selected material, in this article we will look at them.

Log caulking material

Log caulking can be made with various materials. If insulation jute was used during the assembly of the building and its ends protrude properly, then this will be enough to perform the necessary manipulations as described below and you will not need additional material.

If insulation was not used during the assembly of the log house or its ends do not protrude from the slots, you will have several options regarding the choice of material.

The oldest method is caulking with moss. Although it is time-tested, today there are many modern materials that have better qualities for this purpose.

Also, tow is very often used for these purposes. In order for the quality of work to be as good as possible, you need to choose jute tow. It will lay down evenly, and it is easier to work with it.

Caulking with a rope is often used, while it is recommended to use a jute or linen rope.

Recently, the so-called warm seam has been increasingly used. This is the result of new technologies that are rapidly advancing especially in the construction industry.

Jute log caulking technology

To perform caulking, we need:

Small hammer - 300 - 400 gr.
Chisel 20 mm.
Caulking shovel or wide chisel
Rubber mallet

The caulking of the log house should be done after the building has settled and shrinks. Previously, during assembly, jute insulation must be laid between the crowns. The caulking process consists in tucking the jute with a spatula from top to bottom and then sealing it in the groove between the logs. This produces light hammer blows on the blade. You will end up with a twisted strip of jute in the shape of a string, which is very practical.

The work is carried out in two stages - primary caulking and main caulking. It should be noted that the caulking of the log house is carried out only after the house has shrunk, for this it must stand for at least half a year.

Primary caulking is done without strong compaction, especially in places where the logs have not yet settled into place. In such places, the jute is rolled up without compaction, and care should be taken to leave room for further shrinkage of the logs. Caulking a log house, its technology is not very complicated, therefore we will consider it in detail below.

Caulking must be performed sequentially - from bottom to top. First of all, the caulking of the lower groove will be made along the perimeter of the building, then the second groove, etc. It is important to do everything around the perimeter, otherwise caulking a separate wall can cause the building to skew. You also need to consider that the higher we go, the less need to seal the grooves with jute. And the uppermost two or three grooves are tucked in only with a spatula, without hammer blows, this is done in order to avoid the slightest compaction of the jute.

The fact is that the frame will shrink for at least five more years, so the upper crowns will crush the jute themselves over time.

In a log house, the ends are the weakest point, because of the cut bowls, so you need to caulk it carefully, without undue effort.

The second caulking, the main one, is carried out together with the finishing, where the caulking of the log house is carried out more tightly. It is advisable to carry out this operation no less than a year and a half after the construction of the building. During this time, the blockhouse will almost completely shrink and you, without fear, will be able to put windows and doors, conduct an electrician and install plumbing fixtures.

Periodically, you need to inspect the log house for cracks, especially after a hot summer. After all, even a small gap can lead to rotting wood.

Video instruction for caulking a log house with jute:

This method is not the best today, because there are already many other modern materials that allow you to perform this procedure faster and better. But if you do decide to use moss for caulking, first of all you need to choose the right one.

So for the caulking of a log house, a moss called "cuckoo flax" or it is also called "red flax" is suitable. It has long fibers, brownish brown in color, with shades of red. Also used is "white moss", or its correct name is "sphagnum moss". This moss is very soft, like cotton wool. Possesses excellent antiseptic and bactericidal properties. A pest of wood will never start in it, the moss also kills all spores of the fungus. Both of these plants are often referred to as building moss species.

During the construction of a log house, it is laid between the crowns of logs as insulation. In the future, using moss, you can caulk it. This is done two times, the first time immediately after assembly, the second after some time has elapsed when the house shrinks. This can take from one and a half to two years, or even more.

Before caulking, the moss must be dried. And already before the process itself, it must be moistened with water, otherwise it will crumble during physical contact.

Caulking a bar with moss also requires special tools, you will need:

Mallet
Caulking

A caulk is a small spatula that is made from the same wood as the log house. This is done so that, in physical contact with the logs, they have the same hardness, which will avoid leaving marks on the log house.

A mallet is a small wooden hammer used to strike a caulk. This allows the moss to be pushed into the crevices with a stronger force and to fill the free space more densely.
As in other technologies, caulking begins from the very bottom, passing the entire perimeter. This approach will avoid possible distortion of the building. First, the crown passes from the inside, and then from the outside.

If "cuckoo flax" moss is used, it is formed in the form of a tape up to 10 cm thick, laid parallel to the log and caulked tightly using the above tools. White moss, when used, is slightly fluffed, laying is done perpendicular to the log, so that the fibers hang down somewhere by 5 - 10 cm. Then caulk is made with the same tools.

Caulking a log house with a rope

The technology of using a rope for caulking is not much different from the above methods. The only thing that needs to be added is that this material needs to be treated more carefully, because it is used not only for insulating a house, but also for decorative design, so even slight damage is unacceptable.

Caulking a log house with a rope, stages:

The places where the rope will be laid must be cleaned and even washed if possible.
Treat the blockhouse with antiseptic properties, it is desirable that they have fire retardant properties.
We make a punching with a rope of a log house using tools. This work is done carefully, make sure that the cord does not twist. They also make sure that the driving depth is the same everywhere.
As with other materials, work is carried out from the bottom up along the entire perimeter.
The undoubted advantage of using a jute rope is its decorative component.

Warm seam technology

Before applying this method, the seams where this technology will be applied must be cleaned. Especially if the cracks are painted with varnish or other materials.

Further, vilotherm should be laid in cracks and cracks - this is a material in the form of a cord made of foamed polyethylene. Note that the cord should be about a third thicker than the slot. This material not only insulates the frame, but will also reduce the consumption of the used sealant.

The sealant is applied with a gun and immediately leveled with a spatula. The recommended thickness of the sealant is 4 to 6 mm. Moreover, the area of adhesion to the tree must be at least 4 mm. from each side. The sealant freezes no more than a day, so at this time it must be protected from precipitation. You can use plastic wrap for this purpose. Full hardening of the substance will occur in about 48 hours at a temperature of 23 degrees. After curing, the sealant turns into a rubber-like substance, so your log house will be protected as well as possible.

Now, after it is completely dry, you can smooth out the seam, remove any excess and paint with acrylic-based paints.

The caulking of the log house in this way can be carried out only after the log shrinkage. Outside, this work can be done after about a year, and inside the house only after a season with the heating turned on.

This technology has several advantages:

This is done only once.

Protects against water ingress to prevent mold growth.

Makes your home significantly warm.

Resistant to temperature extremes, not afraid of moisture.

Easy to use, which allows you to significantly speed up the caulking of the bar.

A beautiful appearance that allows you to disguise even the imperfections of the building itself.

Cauliflower with moss

In caulking with moss, the main thing is no longer the observance of technological subtleties - in this respect it is much simpler than caulking with fibrous materials - but the preparation of the material. More precisely, purchase. Forest and marsh building moss goes on sale, but self-harvesting of tree moss is possible only in some very remote places from civilization, and self-harvesting of marsh moss in most developed countries is prohibited and punishable by law: in recent decades, the extremely important role of bogs as accumulators of moisture and regulators has been revealed natural processes. In addition, mosses actively accumulate in themselves a variety of both useful and harmful microelements; bog moss is a natural filter of radionuclides. Caulking with moss collected on your own, you risk not only infecting the log house with rot, mold and pests, but also yourself and your loved ones are no better at all.

The best moss for caulking is marsh sphagnum, or cuckoo flax, pos. 1 in rice: it never wakes up in buildings and releases substances that protect wood from deterioration. But it is impossible to caulk with bright green fresh sphagnum (pos. 2) - on the contrary, it will spoil the blockhouse. You need to caulk with moss (both marsh and forest), dried to wilting without prettiness, pos. 3. This moss is sold in bags (item 4). In them, it must be stored until use, without allowing complete drying out: moss, still a little alive, is suitable for hemp. Overdried gray or brown building moss (pos. 5) is not a caulking, but an insulating material. By the way, very good.

Note: it is impossible to caulk with rock and ground moss - it will definitely contain substrate particles with embryos of wood pests.

Moss caulking order

Caulk with moss before winter. In the spring, when it’s warm, but it’s not dry yet, they check the hanging scallops (see below) and pluck the green ones. Then the scallops are knocked into the grooves. At the same time, it is very important not to allow the caulking to dry out: if the moss begins to crumble under the caulking tool, the whole caulking will never be whole, and once every 2-5 years you will have to do repeated caulking, and the whole blockhouse will not stand as long as it can. A year later, the building is checked and, if it has split, a secondary caulking is carried out with the same (!) Moss.

Sphagnum moss is laid out in the grooves when assembling a log house with a mountain (item 1 in the figure below), because it is strongly caked under pressure. Swamp moss festoons should hang abundantly from the grooves, pos. 2. Immediately after the assembly of the frame, moss is added to the remaining slots (shown by arrows in pos. 2), knocking from above with an oblique wooden caulk. Quite easily reviving tree moss, on the contrary, is laid out sparingly, but tightly so that there are no empty cracks, pos. 3. Its scallops should protrude from the grooves of the assembled log house by approx. half-palm, but not hanging, pos. 4. Dangling (shown by the arrow in pos. 4) are cut off.

Instead of moss

In coastal areas, you can find durable chopped buildings, buried instead of moss with camouflage - the sea grass thrown ashore by storms or scum. Kamka is also a good insulation material and as such is now sold dried, but you can only caulk with fresh, moist damask. But hemp with a dam is excellent: it releases salts into the tree, making it unsuitable for the settlement of pests, and iodine into the air of the room. Which, as you know, among other useful properties, promotes the elimination of cumulative poisons and radionuclides from the body. Caulk is caulked like moss, with some differences: it is disassembled into flat strands and laid out in the grooves of the log house with a herringbone without gaps so that the ends hang down on half a log. Upon completion of the assembly of the log house, the ends are knocked into the grooves with a wooden caulk.

Synthetics and sealants

Synthetic hemp is used in combination with a rough jute tape, or, for "aesthetics", with a twisted white jute cord. The roughing tape is placed in the grooves of the log house for caulking with sealants without wings, flush with the edges of the groove. If the logs have a Finnish groove, then the edges of the tape should lie exactly on the longitudinal cutouts in the log under the edge projections of the upper log groove.

Sealants for wood are chemically neutral polyurethane: silicone is less consistent with wood in terms of mechanical and physicochemical properties (in particular, in terms of the coefficient of thermal expansion TCR), and under the action of even very weak acids it is destroyed. In turn, the solvent for silicone - acetic acid - spoils the wood, so do not try to replace special wood sealants with conventional construction materials. Synthetics are used to caulk mainly logs made of glued logs and beams - their estimated service life is the same as that of the glued seams of re-glued sawn timber.

Caulking with sealants is quick and easy: the initial composition is squeezed out of the tube into the groove, pos. 1 in Fig. When it grabs, the seams are putty on top of the finishing compound to match the wood, pos. 2 .:

There is also a "supermodern" method of caulking log cabins, folded without any rough caulking: cuts are made along the seams, bundles of self-expanding polyethylene foam are inserted into them and sealed with wood-like sealant, pos. 3. In essence, this is no longer caulk, because this method is suitable for buildings made of lumber without shaped grooves, assembled on pins and impregnated with water repellents (water-repellent impregnations). In addition, it is suitable only for selected materials of chamber drying, completely shrunken and shrunken. And what will happen with the warpage from moisture during operation - wait and see: in practice, the "caulkless caulk" has not been used for more than 10-12 years.

Let's go back to the caulk, which is still caulk, albeit synthetic. Finishing compounds darken when they dry, so they are selected to match the wood by test strokes on the container. But in the light, the finishing synthetic caulk burns out and the walls of the log house take on the form shown in pos. 4. Someone, since such a "decoration" cannot be avoided, orders gluing or filling the caulking seams with a white twisted cord. How much this adds aesthetics and respect to the structure is a matter of taste for the owner. And there is no dispute about tastes. All the more so - about the tastes of people who believe that natural wood needs additional "refinement".

It is much more practical to use synthetic hemp to seal gaping cracks in logs, pos. 5 in Fig. On top of the sealant, the cracks are putty with any wood putty for outdoor use, and the whole structure is rejuvenated. The putty has to be refurbished every 2-3 years - it also burns out in the light - but this is not long, easy and inexpensive.

The final touch is sanding

Caulking is not yet completing the construction of a log house until it is ready for flooring, installation of an attic floor, roof, installation of windows, doors, partitions, for decoration and equipment - a log house is desirable, but inside it is necessary to grind it. Especially - chopped from a wild log, debarked by hand.

Sanding a log house with sandpaper is extremely long, tiring, and this damages the outer most resistant layers of the tree. The blockhouse is sanded with a hand-held universal sander with nylon brushes. Worse - a grinder with them; the drive is too powerful. But the main thing here is still brushes for grinding wood, see the video review:

Video: an overview of nylon brushes for polishing a log house

Grinding a log house with a brush is generally a controversial issue: the brush removes the hemp roller, see fig.

In order to get a perfectly warm log house for permanent residence, it is not enough to correctly mount it. It is also necessary to fill all the gaps between the logs with high quality so that heat loss overcomes the house as little as possible. Not everyone knows how to caulk a log house correctly, and therefore the performance of insulation work sometimes leads to a distortion of the house (in the worst case) or simply to rotting of the tree and insulation (in the best case).

Video and general recommendations for other types of insulation in our material below are about how to caulk moss log houses correctly.

Materials for caulking a log house

Caulking a wooden blockhouse can be done with various materials. Fortunately, the construction market today offers a wide selection of them from natural to synthetic and semi-synthetic. The most popular are the following types:

Construction moss... It can be called "sphagnum" or "cuckoo flax". This type of insulation was used by architects in ancient Russia. The qualities of moss as a heater are priceless and undeniable. Sphagnum is highly resistant to moisture. It seems to live with a tree in case of waterlogging of the latter and simply takes all the moisture into itself. In addition, moss is of no interest to birds, moths and other insects. This means that all the material for caulking will remain in the place that the master will determine for it. Moss "sphagnum" and "cuckoo flax" does not burn, does not rot and is an excellent natural antiseptic for wood for many years.

Important: you can buy construction moss in any volume at specialized points of sale.

Building tow... This type of material also works great in tandem with wood for caulking walls. Hemp is produced from the remains of flax and hemp grass. Tow is also a natural material that protects wood from moisture and cold.
Jute fiber in the form of a tape - an improved natural-type material for caulking walls. Jute is made from a shrub that belongs to the linden family. And linden, as you know, copes well with cold and moisture. Jute is able to slightly moisturize the log when it dries out too much, but at the same time it does not take moisture from the tree when the humidity in the house is 80%. It is convenient to lay the jute tape between the crowns, as well as to stuff it into the cracks when the house is re-insulated.
Flax A linen fiber insulation is produced in the form of a wide ribbon. In terms of its technical characteristics, linen is similar to jute. Convenient for laying between crowns and for stretching caulking.
Felt. Unsuccessful type of insulation for a wooden house. Felt is prone to rotting between logs and if excessive moisture gets on the walls, the felt will not only lose its insulating qualities, but also spoil the wood from the inside.

Tool for work

To properly caulk a log house, you must use special tools. Otherwise, the insulation will lie superficially in the cracks, which will lead to the formation of cold bridges. Mostly professionals use special caulkers made of steel or metal. The first is better. You can also make wooden caulk from solid wood - beech, walnut, oak. In this case, it is desirable that the tool has a rubberized handle for ease of work.

Important: the caulking tool must not have a sharp blade, otherwise the heater may be damaged during caulking. For the same reason, chipping on the surface of the tool should be avoided. In this case, the insulation clings to the teeth and breaks.

The main type of caulking tools:

Typesetting caulk. It is a kind of flat chisel with a blade width of 10x0.6 cm. It is used for filling the seams between logs with insulation.
Curve caulking. The same chisel, but a curved shape. Used for caulking house corners and rounded crevices. In this case, the width of the blade is half that of the type caulk.
Caulking "road builder". It has a fork-like shape and is used for caulking cracks using the "stretching" method. The blade here has parameters 170x15 mm. Depending on the width of the gap, you can use a wide, medium or narrow caulk.
Broken cauliflower. Has a wedge-shaped blade with a width of 30-35 mm. Such a tool is used to widen narrow gaps and fill them with insulation.
A mallet is used to help all types of tools. Using such a rubber hammer, the seal is pushed into the cracks.

Work technology

In order for a log house to be insulated with high quality, the insulation must be laid in several stages. First, roll insulation or construction moss is laid out between the crowns so that it protrudes 5-6 cm beyond the edges of the log. In this case, tape insulation such as jute or flax fiber is fixed to the tree with a construction stapler. By the way, you can do the same with moss.

After the house has settled and settled down, new cracks form. It is through them that heat loss will occur. In addition, the heat leaving the house will form perspiration (moisture) on contact with wood and low temperatures outside. That, in turn, is transformed into frost, which will destroy the log. That is why additional caulking of new slots and packing of the peeping seal between the crowns are required.

The third caulking can be done in 2-3 years, when the house is completely seated and all possible cracks are open to the master.

Caulking methods

Stretch insulation

This method involves filling in narrow gaps and gaps. It is good for caulking houses from logs, since the gaps are minimal. In this case, you should be careful with the caulking of such a log house. There is a risk of over-filling the cracks, which will lead to a distortion of the crowns, and, accordingly, the walls.

So, stretching insulation is performed in this way:

As soon as the 5 cm long edge of the insulation remains, a new bundle of insulation is taken and its edge is woven with the remaining end.
The resulting plexus is hammered into the gap and thus continue to caulk all the gaps.

Important: the quality of the caulking can be checked by pulling on the remaining end of the insulation. If the material flows freely out of the gap, then the job is not done correctly. If the insulation remains in the gap, then everything is done soundly.

Cauliflower "in a set"

This method is used to fill large gaps. Here it is necessary to wind the insulation into a skein. Then, from the resulting fiber, loops are made and the slots are filled with them. Moreover, first, the upper part of the gap is caulked with a ramming tool, and then the loops are hammered into the lower part of the gap with the help of the "road builder" tool. It is worth knowing that the thickness of the insulation loop must correspond to the thickness of the existing gap in the frame.

Important: when working with a mallet, it is worth remembering that one hammer blow should fall on one blade width. Do not be too zealous, otherwise there is a risk of over-filling the cracks, which will lead to a distortion of the house.

There are also a number of general requirements that must be followed when caulking a log house. Observing them, it will be possible to avoid gross mistakes in work:

So, you need to start re-caulking the house from the lower rims, since when the insulation is stuffed into the cracks, the house will rise by 5-15 cm.
It is necessary to fill the gaps alternately outside and inside the house. That is, first, the gap of the lower crown is filled from the outside, and then they go inside the frame and the gaps of the same crown are filled from the inside. This technology will keep the walls of the house flat.
It is best to use natural insulation for caulking. Synthetics blocks the breath of the tree.
If moss is used for caulking, then it should be treated with a special solution of soap and oil in a ratio of 200: 500, mixed with a bucket of water.
The house should be insulated in dry weather at a temperature of + 10- + 20 degrees Celsius.
In addition, the lack of insulation is as bad as too much insulation. It is worth strictly monitoring the amount of fiber in the loops so that their width matches the width of the gaps.

Remember, a job done correctly is the guarantor of a warm and cozy home even in severe frosts.