Ok, the background is that 5 years ago I paid a ‘professional’ to paint my house and said paint (Sherwin Williams) is now splitting and coming off the house in strips. I made the mistake of looking at recent references instead of older ones and didn’t determine that his prep work was poor. My mistake. The problem with avoiding the same mistake this time is that the only other person in the area I know who had their house painted (different contractor, also Sherwin Williams paint) ALSO has the paint coming off. All the rest have homes which do not require paint (vinyl or stucco), so I’ve got nobody to ask.
This time I’m feeling like trying to tackle the job myself because I’m feeling a little cheap right now and because it is SO hard to find a decent contractor without word of mouth. So I’m dimly aware that I have a lot of scraping and sanding in my future, but my knowledge ends there. I don’t know what grit I should be using, how long I can wait between scraping and priming (determines how big of a section I will do at a time), what paint colors and sheens I should use (the red is peeling worse than the sand, though both are having problems) and all those little details that make the difference between a passable job and a disaster.
I’m considering buying the book by Taunton on House Painting, and I was wondering if you guys can recommend anything else to help me educate myself?
Thanks!!!
Amy
Replies
well.. you should determine why the paint is comming off in strips.. even bad paint jobs don't usually do that unless there is an underlying reason..
like moisture behind the siding working it's way out..
do you have a basement or crawl space.. is it wet..
what kind of siding do you have ?
what is the history of the siding... is it new... old.. was it backprimed.. was it left unpainted for a long time when it was new..
a lot of woods develop a glaze that has to be scuffed if they are left in the weather without primer.. then the primer never develops a good bond
Mike,
All good questions, of course!
We do have a basement, it is dry, in spite of this being a record snow year. I've checked that pretty regularly to make sure that I don't miss any moisture coming in. The siding is pine (I think) on the old part and cedar (I know) on the newer part of the house. The cedar was backprimed and primed with oil based before they painted with latex - and I do know that they only waited a day after pressure washing before they primed the raw cedar. I never saw sandpaper or even a scraper in anybody's hand, but I didn't stand over them watching them do their job either. The cedar was definitly exposed for several months before painting. The splitting of the paint has occured everywhere (North, south, west, and I haven't really looked at the east, both old part and new part of the house), and the strips are coming off the fascia of the garage (which is bright red, like the rest of the trim).
Does this help in diagnosis?
Thanks.
Edit to add: the fascia where the paint has come off in strips is applied to exposed rafter tails, so there is no moisture pushing out from the house because there is no soffit.
Edited 8/8/2005 5:21 pm ET by aimless
cedar is notorious for developing a glaze .. if it was installed, then left to weather.. it should have been sanded to new wood before it was full body primed..
good painters know this... but most people do not want to pay for that kind of prep work..Mike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
"most people do not want to pay for that kind of prep work.."
Really? That's funny, because that is exactly why I hired somebody instead of trying to do it myself the first time - I wanted somebody who knew what they were doing on the prep work. To me the easiest part (not that any of it is easy - painters earn their money!) is the actual application of the paint. My house is only one storey, so most of it can be painted from a step ladder.
Well, now I know that I'll be sanding the entire addition down to new wood so it won't happen again. Good thing this is a relatively small house. Thanks for the info!
I do know that they only waited a day after pressure washing before they primed the raw cedar.
That could be part of the problem--I am not a big fan of pressure washing and I wonder whether the wood had time to dry out before they primed. Pressure washing can really push water deep into the wood.
Nowadays, I generally prime as soon as I can after scraping--like today I scraped in the morning and after lunch I primed what I had scraped in the morning. This may be extreme, but I've found that if you wait very long, the paint peels more (all the exposed areas from scraping) and you often feel you should scrape again before priming. Plus, after a morning of scraping, I'm ready for a less strenuous afternoon of painting! (Today I spilled the primer in the driveway, so my afternoon wasn't so non-streeful after all! But the primer should be really good--had a heck of a time hosing it off the driveway!)
You might want to get "Finishes for Exterior Wood" Forest Products Society. It is based on the research from the US Forest Labs.
Amazon list it as a "hard to find" book. The FPS does not list it on their online ordering, but there download catalog shows it as item #7291, $19.95
ISBN 0-935018-82-3
http://www.forestprod.org/
I could not quickly find it, but I think that they recommend primming within a couple of weeks of sanding/scraping. They also suggest 50-80 grit sandpaper to give the wood some "tooth".
Ideally painting over with primer or first coat within 48 hours and to wash down the surface if it is over 2 weeks.
It is more technical, but they do have a discussion of where and why paint starts failing.
And they suggest that on but joints and ends of boards to treat them with a paintable water repellant, protectant before priming.
Thanks Bill, I'll take a look for it.
I remember a few years back where three houses in the community were painted a cranberry SW color. All three of them suffered horrendous peeling after just a few years. |
I knew the one lady and they had gone out of there way to prep correctly and paint according to specs.
She even had a SW rep make a trip out there to see the deal.I thought it unusual to see that same cranberry color do that at the same time on 3 different houses painted by three different folks.be no charge for that info
A person with no sense of humor about themselves is fullashid
Hmmmmm. That is pretty interesting. I love this color red, so I wonder if there is a benefit to switching brands? I realize that the darker colors soak up the sun more and will deteriorate sooner, I was just hoping to get more than 4 years out of it (the peeling started last year, I'm just now getting around to thinking about doing something about it next year).
Then a good stain might be your best bet, if properly prep'd (*) it won't peel, just fade to a different shade of red.
I am not sure that you will see any real difference between stain and paint in the sun, particularly if you insist on a darker color, if anything you might be better off with a stain as I think a faded stain looks better than faded paint, and with red it will no doubt fade.
Remember that a stain on the house exterior will last much longer than on a deck, which is what most people think of when they think of stain.
As said before, do not pressure wash - that may have been the key problem with the first application.
Thanks, I will look into stains, they may be just the ticket for the trim, if I can get the 30 year old paint at the bottom of the stack off.
I will not be pressure washing - I've been reading this site long enough to know that nobody seems to recommend it. Just scrape, sand, and wipe with a damp rag to get rid of the dust.
Actually, stain is usually recommended more for the base rather than the trim - trim gets much ore moisture and is more prone to rot (maybe even in Utah?)
Paint tends to hold up better to moisture in an area like a window sill, which may have standing water, unlike on siding where the water just beads down.
Trim is usually painted a higher gloss than base, so stain's out on that issue, too
I just had a discussion with my painting contractor and we were talking about his paint brand of choice. I asked because of the pending elimination of oil base coverings. He said he would never use water based paints for his exterior finishes. He didn't know what he was going to do in the future, but for now, oil based was all he would use that wouldn't fail.
I did not see which form of paint your guy used 5 years ago, but that would be a big issue for me. And why it failed is the #1 question you have to ask and answer! Otherwise, what makes you think you are going to avoid the same problem? Why did it fail? It might have been inadequate prep, but it might have been an unseen source of moisture. In any case, make sure you know why before you start. Good luck.
Oil-based paints may adhere better under ideal conditions, but I avoid using them because they are much less moisture permeable than latex paints. Any moisture which collects under oil-based paints is more likely to cause blistering and peeling than latex paints.
Something else to be considered is that today's oil-based paints are probably not as good as they once were because of VOC restrictions. Latex paints don't suffer the same restrictions and have been getting better.
There are applications where oil-based is the best choice (like priming cedar shakes), but sometimes I think that people who avoid latex are stuck in the past.
-Don
don.. i agree with you... i've got two houses right up the street from my office that i built in '78.... both owners have never repainted them..
they were both oil primed and 2 coats of SW A-100 latex..
they are dull and faded.. but the paint is still thereMike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
LATEX PAINT IS NOT WORHT A C - - -!!! THEY TRAP MOISTURE.... HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED WHY WOOD ROTS AND THE PAINT NEVER BLISTERS OR PEALS OFF???
THE BIGGEST PROBLEM IS NO OIL BSED PRIMERS..... ONCE THE MOISTURE ETS INTO THE WOOD.... IT CAN NOT GET OUT... THEN WE ROTTTTTTED WOOD...
THE PRIMER IS THE PROBLEM
winstall... latex paint does not trap moisture..
why are you yelling ?Mike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
Must be he feels strongly of his opinion.
A person with no sense of humor about themselves is fullashid
I know one of the major paint company vp's and he told me years ago that latex paints were getting much better because that was where all the research was going. They weren't doing anything to speak of with oil-based paints because oil was going away.
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I agree with your point, in fact, that is why I was talking to my paint guy! I had done my own house (built ca. 1904) and used the top of the line Sherwin Williams exterior latex. Worked great and was great to use. There is virtually no oil based exterior semi-gloss in NJ, so I tried the SW and was pleased. My real point in the original post was to point out that regardless of what aimless does, he/she should know why it failed, or have a pretty good reason. It sounds like they do now, given the direction of the thread.
True. I've been told (haven't tried it) that Sherwin Williams will come look at paint failures to see what went wrong.
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just checked out their build like a pro book on painting.its not to bad. id buy it. Oh yea im at the library right now with the kids and this where I check out the book
Thanks for the recommend - that's the one I was considering and it's nice to hear that somebody who knows thinks there is probably useful info in there. Maybe I'll check my pitiful library first to see if they have it.
If you're going to go through all that work, you might take a look at the stains. They aren't the same stain you would traditionally think of but I have been looking into it and am almost sold. Almost. It's hard for me to take that leap.
That's a good suggestion, but I wonder how well those stains hold up in the desert sun? My understanding is that stains have to be redone more often than paint, and I'd really like this next job to last 8-10 years.