I work for a company that does fire and flood restoration, WE are in the process of drying out a log cabin home that had pipe break and about 200,00 gallons of water came through. Is there a special way to dry out a log cabin house to make sure we dont crack or split the logs.We have dehumidifiers and air movers going right now?
The slower the better, but that won’t guarantee no checking. If the logs were good and dry before this I don’t think that they will check much. A lot of it has to do with the type of wood and how tight the grain is. Nothing you can do about that. Time is probably not on your side unfortunately.
What ever the case, do not start filling all of the checks (cracks) if they appear. Filling them causes other problems. Eventually the caulk that you filled them with will get a small hairline crack between the wood and filler and allow water to seep down in behind it. Since the majority of the opening is filled, it cannot dry out properly and will rot the log from the center over time. The exception to this is if the check is running into a window or door jamb or maybe a corner and allowing wind, water or bugs to get in then they need to be fill, but inspected for failure a couple of times a year.
Hope I help.