Last September my customers bought reasonably-expensive wood windows, factory-primed with alkyd primer. There was one coat of Benny Moore’s acrylic applied – inside and out – before I installed the windows. A second coat was not applied to the exterior as there was to be a lot of trimwork, with the expectation that all would be repainted this spring. However this winter I was dismayed to find that all the lumber had swollen from the moisture (they are across the road from the ocean in the bottom lefthand corner of Canada), by up to 3mm, and of course the paint had cracked at the butts. My customers are of the opinion that they did everything correctly – but it’s the fault of the dealer for recommending acrylic, or that the paint itself is no good. I have suggested that a second top coat of alkyd be applied this summer in order to seal any future moisture out, and that this would solve the problem.
Your input is required, please
Replies
Do a search at http://www.jlconline.com in the April, 2005 issue for the article on glazing and painting windows.
The complete article is worth the read because it concerns conditions in the extreme that causes paint failure in the Pacific northwest.
Without knowing your location, it sounds like your failure is one of the type the author covers in his article.
Read the article and let us know if you think you have one of the problems he mentions.
Dave
Dear Dave,
Thankyou so much for putting me onto JLC which looks another worthwhile source. I will pursue the matter there, too.
Cheers.
With regard to paint, salt air is one of the most corrosive elements. I am not sure of a fix in this case except perhaps epoxy paint. But acrylic paint will outperform oil based paint on exteriors because of its flexibility.
Yes, I can see that oil paint forms a skin (I've scraped too many bubbles off), whereas acrylic 'breathes' better. But the paint sheared off where the horizontal members butted the verticals in a similar manner to oil paint.
Thanks for the observation, tho.
Peter
You can't SEAL OUT MOISTURE.Specially with acrylic.
You can seal out WATER, but not moisture. A finish just slows the transport of the moisture.
US Forest Products labs have some charts showing this.
Nicely put, Bill. My latest research indicates that water running down the glass will seep between it and the frame, as well.
Thanks for the input,
Peter