Peeling exterior paint after one year
I live in New England and had my 80 year old clapboard house repainted last year by a contractor. This spring, there was substantial peeling down to the bare wood in a few areas, mainly on the north side. This is the second time I’ve had the house painted and the first paint job lasted 7 yrs. with nothing like this happening. My painter came back this summer to check out the peeling and measured high water content in the wood (We’ve had a lot of rain in May and June). He recommended that I put shims under the siding every 12-18″ to help dry out the wood, and he offered to come back and rescrape and repaint the affected areas at his cost. SInce I didn’t have any problems the first time, I’m wondering if the second painter’s methods somehow caused the peeling, and I’m wondering if the proposed cure sounds reasonable. I’m hoping the pros can give me some advice.
Replies
If it's peeling off like sunburned skin, the problem is either moisture behind the paint pushing it off, or a silicone residue on the wood preventing adhesion.
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
the basic problem is wood outside.
Hardie does not have that problem.
the basic problem is wood outside
Wood has been used outside successfully for over a hundred years. All it takes is attention to detail.
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
The trees seem to do ok outside, too.
Over a 'hundred years'? Wow.
<G>
Have you moved yet?
Looking for a new house. We have an offer on the old one.
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
Good luck on your move. How do you find the housing prices there vs. SA?
Was the wood scraped or sanded down to bare fresh natural wood colour, not gray aged wood, before applying the primer?
What type of primer did they use?
I had a similar experience on scraped-bare wood clapboards when i used an alcohol-based primer for fast drying on the recommendation of the store clerk, and latex paint; this peeled in a few months. I sanded and scraped it all down again, used latex primer and paint the second time with no problems.
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Nope, the chain FKA "Coast-to-Coast", now morphed into "True Value". Same dumb clerks...
What brand of latex primer/paint?
I tried latex primer on my first house, a 200 year old Cape Cod, but it did not stick. In my area, the common line now is to scrape/sand to bare wood (no gray sunlight exposed wood), prime with an oil/alkyd based primer which then can be followed by a latex top coat. The oils adhere to the wood better as a base. Make sure the oil/alkyd primer directions say that it can be covered by a latex!! Use the same brand for primer and top coat.
I started using the expertise of the Pittsburgh paint store after that fiasco; the owner was a very savvy guy who always steered me right. The building i was fixing up was my first owned woodshop (not rented space) with drop-lap. I wanted it to be just so, so i scraped loose paint, belt-sanded the flat parts smooth, took a heat gun to the coves under the laps, then went over the whole place with 80 grit on a 1/4-sheet sander. The neighbors kept asking me if i intended to varnish it. After the BIN primer peeled, i got to do it all over again. You probably don't want to hear my ten-coat recipe for floor finishing perfection. <G>
I would agree with others that it could be moisture coming from behind the clapboards. Wedges underneath is a pretty extreme method of drying them out. If you have that much water on your hands paint adhering is your last thing to address.
Peeling paint can take a lot of different forms. If the top layer was peeling off to the primer he applied then the finish coat is the issue. If it is peeling to the wood surface a couple things could be happening. First the obvious moisture from behind. Second: either poor quality primer, no primer or primer applied to moist wood could be the culprit. Lastly one problem we run into in older houses is paint peeling caused by a sandwich being formed between new layers of primer and paint and the old base layer. Each expands and contracts at different rates. When the top finish coat expands the bottom is contracted. These new layers can often peel paint back to the wood surface in no time.
Hope this helps,
Jon
I live in Worcester, MA and had the exact same thing happen to me. 90+ year old house, repainted last year, paint on the north clapboards came off in sheets this spring. During all that rain we had this spring I had actual puddles behind the paint, as in a bubbles formed and when I popped them, water came pouring out. The peeling only occurred in areas where there were several earlier layers of paint. Money is tight, but I think it may be time to reside the house one section per year probably using hardiplank. The painters are back fixing it today, but I have a feeling it isn't going to last long.
The thing that puzzles me is that on 90% of the house the paint is doing fine, no peeling. The peeling is limited to areas that don't get direct sun, and in those areas, the whole wall more or less is peeling. Based on the possible problems you described, I think the problem was probably primer applied to damp wood. It sounds like its critical to do the repainting only when the wood is dry enough. Is there any other way to dry out the wood besides the wedges?
Thanks
Did the painters powerwash it before scraping it? Maybe the north side of the ouse has trouble drying before the priming due to no sun on that side and that led to the poor adhesion?
Did they wash the house with a TSP/bleach solution? Just a guess but being the north side did you have any mold/mildew problems?
I remember an old painter told me 15 years ago to remember painting is not a science. You can do everything right and it won't adhere and conversly you can do everything wrrong and it will never peel.Drying out clapboards is a matter of time. Wedges or not that moisture needs to migrate out of the core of the wood and wedges are no neccesarily going to ensure it dries behind as well.Are there eavestrough above this area? Pictures would help us for sure. Your painter sounds like he is up for the challenge which is great.Jon
Re location of peeling paint:
The worst area is on the outside walls of an unheated garage. It has a slab on grade. The bottom of the siding is close to the ground, but not in direct contact. The ground outside the wall is flat and always in shade. It's a damp area, to question. (pictures attached)
The second peeling area is halfway up a two-story wall. It's near a new gutter downspout. (see picture). The house does have balloon framing with rockwool insulation. Most of the house sits over a dry basement, but the section with the most severe peeling is over an unpaved crawlspace.
Sounds like moisture is clearly the culprit. I'd check the step flashing on the adjoining roof in photo 2363, suspecting either a leak or a lack of kick out flashing.
Inside corners, as in one of your photos, can be very damp - shady, and sheltered from winds.
The dirt crawlspace is another moisture source that can contribute to paint failure. I'd poly the floor and dehumidify.
The garage is hardest. You can't go back and install a sub slab vapor barrier, which had it existed at first, might have helped. The nearness of the wall to the soil suggests that this area may be damp. Are there gutters? The solution that comes to mind is to improve the grading so that the ground water runs away more quickly. If that's not practical, I'd consider excavaing a trench along the garage that's as deep as practical. That is, if you can go to the footings with it, and still have sufficient pitch to drain to daylight elsewhere on the property, then go that deep. Otherwise, go as deep as you can drain. Line the the trench with filter fabric, place perf pipe in the bottom that ties to the solid drain going to daylight, and fill with clean gravel.
As long as there's moisture, there's paint failure. Andy
"Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig." Robert A. Heinlein
"Get off your dead #### and on your dying feet." Mom
All good advice. What puzzles me is what changed? Last paint job lasted 7 years; this one didn't even make one. Sure seems like one contributing factor is poor prep - wood not allowed to dry, wrong primer, ...
Who knows? It's been an extraordinarily wet spring, which may contribute. Could be poor prep - A lot of people don't realize that wood that's been exposed to sunlight for more than 2 weeks needs sanding before it's painted. Was that an issue?
Perhaps moisture content? Missing gutters? Change in exhaust fan use? New unvented heater? Perhaps new paint inside that created a vapor barrier where none existed before, leaving water only one way out. Perhaps footing drains clogged up, raising the soil moisture. Perhaps the last paint job was done in a waning moon. <G> Andy
"Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig." Robert A. Heinlein
"Get off your dead #### and on your dying feet." Mom
Re: the time between sanding and painting.. The painter was in and out of the whole job within about three weeks. I'm pretty sure that no sanded areas were left bare for as much as two weeks and those walls would never have seen direct sunlight. Although I don't remember exactly, there may have been some rain between when the job was started and finished, so it's possible that some of the sanded areas got wet before they were primed.
Re; gutters, there are brand new new gutters on the house, which were installed the fall priot to the spring of the paint job. However, the garage walls that are peeling do not have eves or gutters above. The gutters are on the side that are perpendicular to the peeling walls.
Re: other changes indoors. There were no internal changes like the ones you mentioned (painting, exhaust fans, unvented heaters).
Re: the prior paint job. It did hold up for seven years overall, but the garage area was where the first peeling failures started.
The other suggestions you make about moisure control make a lot of sense and I'll consult with the painter about making those repairs before attempting to repaint.
I think that's a good approach. Use your head implementing any ideas you get here (even mine <G>), because none of us have been to the house. Keep an open mind, and give it a little time before spending money. It's quite easy to latch onto a solution that makes sense, only to have it not work.
Good luck.
BTW, have you tested the siding's moisture content? You can buy testers for under $100. That's money well spent. Andy
"Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig." Robert A. Heinlein
"Get off your dead #### and on your dying feet." Mom
locational specific prioblems like that are clues.north side experiences more cold to encourage comndensation in the wall. So find out where the water is coming from and deal with that.Maybe you are ballon framed and it is coming up from a damp cellar
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Moisture moves from warm to cold, so a guess is that sun was driving moisture out of the siding where it could, and so the paint stayed there.
North side, no sun, cold material got saturated with water coming up from the soil through the foundation. Probably that was going on everywhere else, too, but the sun's moisture drive prevented a paint problem.
I think wedges may be a BandAid solution. The big issue is the water. Where is it coming from? How close is the soil to the siding? Does the ground fall away from the house, or does the house collect ground water? If that's the problem, you need to fix it before any paint will stick to the house.
http://www.buildingscience.comAndy
"Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig." Robert A. Heinlein
"Get off your dead #### and on your dying feet." Mom
What is behind the wallls that are peeling? Laundry room? Bath? Kitchen sink?
The garage - unheated - is behind the area awith the worst problem.
It's all in the prep work. I use KILZ as the primer, followed by a quality latex paint. In some cases, the clapboards are so old, I replace them with primed cedar clapboards. Some of my paint jobs are going on 9+ years now with no peels or problems.
Renaissance Restorations LLC
Victorian Home Restoration Services
http://www.renaissancerestorations.com
Read your website section on clapboard replacement:
Be careful using Tyvek behind clapboard with no rainscreen installed. It is about 6 times more permeable than tarpaper or Typar and on south facing walls will let sun driven reverse flow water vapour into sheathing and wall cavities where rot can occur. Tyvek is a good product but has been implicated in some premature failure (6 years old) of pine clapboard, sheathing and framing here.
In 1998-9, I consulted to Cap Cod Siding here who had problems with their two coat finish on all sides. The back prime/finish coat was supposed to prevent water being stored in the unpainted back of the board which it did. Water was being trapped by capilliary action and wind driven rain up under overlaps and in 2 semicircular stress-relief grooves on the backside of boards. It was then driven back in throuigh the Tyvek. I have pictures that I used in a presentation on "Rainscreens" to architects and home plan designers. Since 2000-1, Cape Cod require a rainscreen behind their products.
It was about '99 or 2000 that Ii did a house with Cape Cod siding, chosen and bought by HO. the warrantee info required rainscreen installation. It was primed both sides. I was just this morning down to look at it to figure out filing a claim. The whole west side ( gets hot sun summers and wicxed wind driven storms winter) is in a state of paint failure while the rest of the house is fine.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
When it was painted time before last, was it painted with oil based paint? Was it painted with latex last time? Latex over many coats of oil will peel the paint back to bare wood due to the extreme differences in the coeficient of expansion between latex and oil. Perhaps because this is happening on the north side, cold exacerbates this condition more than sunlight or heat.
Once you are down to bare wood, you can prime with oil, or if you have sanded to a new wood surface, with latex primer and then cover with 2 coats of latex.
Hope this is useful.
Regards,
Jonathan