Wooden Railing Cracks

 

LINDA: Yes. We had built a log cabin about two years ago here in North Carolina – and it’s not up in the mountains area. But the 4×6 posts that are used to make the stairway going up to the second floor have begun to have big cracks in them and I wondered what we should do to correct that or stop it from cracking or fill it in or what.

 

TOM: Well, you know Linda, there’s a technical term for those cracks. It’s called charm.

 

LINDA: Oh, yes. Well, it has charm, alright. (chuckles)

 

TOM: (overlapping voices) When it comes to log cabins, those logs are designed to check, they’re designed to crack and that should not affect, significantly, the strength that they provide you as support posts.

 

LINDA: Right. I don’t think that.

 

TOM: You’re not going to stop them from splitting. You’re not going to be able to glue them back together. That’s a natural process of the drying out of the log.

 

LINDA: I see.

 

TOM: So I wouldn’t worry too much about that.

 

LINDA: OK. And don’t worry about it?

 

LESLIE: (overlapping voices) Uh-uh, it’s not structural.

 

TOM: (overlapping voices) That’s right.

 

LINDA: OK, yes. Oh, I thought maybe it’d be better – it just doesn’t look very pretty but I thought maybe I could fill it with something.

 

TOM: (overlapping voices) Well, but some people – you know, when you’re going to have a wood house, Linda, you want to look at some of those natural features in the wood and the cracks and the checks and the knots and all of that, that’s all part of the process.

 

LINDA: Uh-huh.

 

LESLIE: And anything that you could add in, Linda, would just dry out and split.

 

LINDA: Yeah, right. OK, well thank you very much.

 

TOM: You’re very welcome. Good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.