diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index f317911..1471528 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -2,3 +2,4 @@ main
 bin/
 GeoLite2-*.mmdb
 .idea/*
+*.log
diff --git a/cmd/root.go b/cmd/root.go
index 9862576..dcd7b1c 100644
--- a/cmd/root.go
+++ b/cmd/root.go
@@ -35,6 +35,7 @@ func init() {
 		logLevel                          string
 		requestTimeout                    time.Duration
 		disableCentralHarvesterCollection bool
+		logBlockTimes bool
 	)
 
 	cobra.OnInitialize(initConfig)
@@ -46,6 +47,7 @@ func init() {
 	rootCmd.PersistentFlags().StringVar(&logLevel, "log-level", "info", "How verbose the logs should be. panic, fatal, error, warn, info, debug, trace")
 	rootCmd.PersistentFlags().DurationVar(&requestTimeout, "rpc-timeout", 10*time.Second, "How long RPC requests will wait before timing out")
 	rootCmd.PersistentFlags().BoolVar(&disableCentralHarvesterCollection, "disable-central-harvester-collection", false, "Disables collection of harvester information via the farmer. Useful for very large farms where this request is very expensive, or cases where chia-exporter is already installed on all harvesters")
+	rootCmd.PersistentFlags().BoolVar(&logBlockTimes, "log-block-times", false, "Enables logging of block (pre)validation times to log files.")
 
 	cobra.CheckErr(viper.BindPFlag("hostname", rootCmd.PersistentFlags().Lookup("hostname")))
 	cobra.CheckErr(viper.BindPFlag("metrics-port", rootCmd.PersistentFlags().Lookup("metrics-port")))
@@ -53,6 +55,7 @@ func init() {
 	cobra.CheckErr(viper.BindPFlag("log-level", rootCmd.PersistentFlags().Lookup("log-level")))
 	cobra.CheckErr(viper.BindPFlag("rpc-timeout", rootCmd.PersistentFlags().Lookup("rpc-timeout")))
 	cobra.CheckErr(viper.BindPFlag("disable-central-harvester-collection", rootCmd.PersistentFlags().Lookup("disable-central-harvester-collection")))
+	cobra.CheckErr(viper.BindPFlag("log-block-times", rootCmd.PersistentFlags().Lookup("log-block-times")))
 }
 
 // initConfig reads in config file and ENV variables if set.
diff --git a/internal/metrics/fullnode.go b/internal/metrics/fullnode.go
index 69d14a0..6d9e77c 100644
--- a/internal/metrics/fullnode.go
+++ b/internal/metrics/fullnode.go
@@ -12,6 +12,7 @@ import (
 	"github.com/chia-network/go-chia-libs/pkg/types"
 	"github.com/prometheus/client_golang/prometheus"
 	log "github.com/sirupsen/logrus"
+	"github.com/spf13/viper"
 
 	wrappedPrometheus "github.com/chia-network/go-modules/pkg/prometheus"
 
@@ -316,11 +317,13 @@ func (s *FullNodeServiceMetrics) Block(resp *types.WebsocketResponse) {
 	s.preValidationTime.Set(block.PreValidationTime)
 	s.validationTime.Set(block.ValidationTime)
 
-	if err = utils.LogToFile("preValidationTime.log", fmt.Sprintf("%f", block.PreValidationTime)); err != nil {
-		log.Error(err.Error())
-	}
-	if err = utils.LogToFile("validationTime.log", fmt.Sprintf("%f", block.ValidationTime)); err != nil {
-		log.Error(err.Error())
+	if viper.GetBool("log-block-times") {
+		if err = utils.LogToFile("preValidationTime.log", fmt.Sprintf("%f", block.PreValidationTime)); err != nil {
+			log.Error(err.Error())
+		}
+		if err = utils.LogToFile("validationTime.log", fmt.Sprintf("%f", block.ValidationTime)); err != nil {
+			log.Error(err.Error())
+		}
 	}
 
 	if block.TransactionBlock {