Palisade Log HomeRestoration Experts

The very conditions that make Palisade Colorado's wine and peach capital, hot days, plentiful sun, and dry air, are demanding on log homes. At 4,728 feet the valley behaves like high desert, and that dry heat pulls moisture out of log walls until they check, cracking along the grain. The upward-facing checks act like little gutters, funneling the valley's occasional but heavy rain straight into the log where rot and insects follow.

On Palisade homes we make check sealing a routine part of staining, closing off the most common path water takes into the wood in a climate built for orchards rather than timber.

Palisade is well known for its wind. Air funneling out of DeBeque Canyon and down the river corridor can blow hard and often, and for a log home that wind is a genuine adversary: it carries grit that works like sandpaper on windward finishes and drives rain and snow sideways into any joint or check that has opened. Finishes that might last for years elsewhere in the valley get scoured thin here on the walls that face the canyon. We identify those prevailing windward walls and give them the toughest finish and the tightest wind-driven-rain sealing.

The abundant sunshine that ripens Palisade's fruit also puts a heavy ultraviolet load on exposed log walls, fading and chalking finishes on the south and west faces and, once the coating thins, degrading the wood fibers themselves. Because the exposure is so intense, a finish that slips a season behind can leave a whole exterior sun-worn at once. We use premium UV-blocking, heat-stable stains and help Palisade owners keep a realistic refresh schedule, so the protection stays ahead of the valley sun.