Log Home Restoration in Okeechobee, FL

Serving Okeechobee and the surrounding lake region for log home restoration and repair.

Log Home Services in Okeechobee

We provide log home chinking and caulking, staining and refinishing, rot repair and wood replacement, termite and wood-boring insect damage repair, media blasting, inspections, and maintenance plans for homeowners in and around Okeechobee. We've been doing this for 42 years — family-operated, with the same crew on every job, no subcontractors.

Serving Okeechobee & Surrounding Counties

Okeechobee is the seat of Okeechobee County. We also travel throughout Highlands, Glades, Martin, St. Lucie, and Indian River counties — including the Sebring area, Buckhead Ridge, Indiantown, the Fort Pierce area, and the Vero Beach area — along with rural areas throughout the region.

Log Homes in Okeechobee and Highlands County

This is cattle country. In 1874 Noel Rabun Raulerson moved his herd from Polk County to Basinger, and the families who followed ran beef cattle on the open range of the Kissimmee River valley. When Peter Raulerson's family settled at "The Bend" — the start of today's Okeechobee — in 1896, friends rode in from Basinger and Fort Drum and stayed three days to help raise the family's log house in 1899. Others lived in palmetto shacks; the first school at The Bend, in 1898, was one.

The land had "an abundance of cypress and pine timber of first growth." A sawmill went up at Tantie in 1908, cutting cypress from the swamps, and the Sherman mill southeast of town cut longleaf pine from 1924 until the timber ran out in 1937. Okeechobee incorporated in 1915. Today the log homes on ranch land and lake property around Okeechobee, Lake Placid and Sebring face a very different climate from North Florida's.

What Okeechobee's Climate Does to a Log Home

A true wet season. Okeechobee averages about 50 inches of rain a year, and about 71% of it falls May through October. Months of daily storms, then months of dry.
Long, intense heat. About 103 days a year reach 90°F or more in Okeechobee, and about 140 at Archbold in Highlands County. Sun is the biggest threat to a finish here.
Few freezes. Only about 2 freezing nights a year in Okeechobee, a few more in Highlands County.
Hurricanes. The 1928 hurricane flooded Okeechobee when the lake surged over its levees. In 2004, Jeanne destroyed 565 homes and badly damaged more than 1,100 in Okeechobee County, weeks after Frances. Wilma (2005) brought sustained winds over 100 mph at the south end of the lake.
Termites. Native subterranean and drywood termites are both found here. Formosan termites were confirmed nearby in Martin County in 1999, and UF/IFAS reports invasive termites spreading across South Florida.

What That Means for Your Log Home

Here, sun and the wet season do most of the damage. Faded, chalky stain on the south and west walls is the first sign the finish needs attention — a UV protective coat every third year and a gentle annual wash (never a pressure washer) keep it from reaching bare wood. Before hurricane season, check chinking and caulking for gaps that let wind-driven rain in, and afterward, look for impact damage and wet logs. On a recent Lake Placid job we restored a gambrel-roof log home from the dormers down.

Related services: Staining & Refinishing · Chinking & Caulking · Maintenance Plans

Climate figures: NOAA 1991–2020 normals, Okeechobee and Archbold stations. Storm details: NOAA, NWS Melbourne and Miami. History: VanLandingham & Hetherington, History of Okeechobee County (1978).