In June of this year, we purchased and you delivered to Iowa several 5 gallon units of both your Seal-It Concrete and Seal-It Wood water seal products. At that time, we were looking for a product to seal cedar half log siding that could be applied over existing concrete chinking without causing staining or other problems with either the concrete chinking or the cedar half logs. All the sealer products that we found in our local paint and lumber chain stores either specifically excluded concrete or wood—-what to do??
At the recommendation of Vern Johnson of your USA distribution chain and your technical departments, we elected to use your Seal-It Wood product on about 3,000 square feet of half log siding and associated concrete chinking. At the same time, we possessed a need for several gallons of concrete sealer so the election was made to order all products from your company. We are very pleased that we decided to do so!
I am sending you some before and after photographs of the cedar half log siding. As you can see from the before photos, no attempt had been made by the previous owner to properly install or seal the cedar logs. Two steps had been neglected in the application and maintenance of the cedar. First of all, the logs had not been peeled. Over many years water had penetrated the bark causing the bark to begin falling off in many areas. This in turn caused the chinking to loosen and begin falling out. Both these problems were solved by a high pressure wash which blew most bark and chinking off the wall. The wall was then consequently re-chinked.
At this point, we went looking for a sealer product that would work over both masonry chinking and cedar logs. It was a month or two before our need happened to come up in conversation with Vern. We finally had our product!
In the interim, dirt had found its way back onto the previously cleaned logs. An additional problem also surfaced which served to highlight the need for a good sealer. In the time that had passed while we searched a sealer product, the logs had again become gray in color in areas where water and sun both fell. We decided to further remedy these areas with a good deck wash and fresh water rinse just prior to installing Seal-It Wood sealer.
After being reminded several times by Vern on the wet, seal, wet, seal, wet regimen required to install Seal-It Wood sealer, the product was installed. What a difference the final cleaning and sealing made. I include several photos so that you might be able to get an impression of just how much of a change that your product helped us make.
The real proof came several days later after a good Midwestern thunderstorm dumped several inches of rain on the building. Previously, the logs turned an even darker shade of ugly gray after being wetted. I was more than pleased to see the logs all one natural cedar tone!! This was just the effect we were looking to achieve and with your product hope to maintain!!!
I would highly recommend your product to anyone with a similar need!!