My painter assures me that as long as it is done from above, it will be fine, but I do not know the details to refute this. Are there any pros other than ease.
What are the cons.
What are the other options without spending a fortune? I do not care about a perfectly smooth surface as long as what is left is all solid. (1890’s farmhouse in Central VA. Pine siding is original, but done in at least three phases over the last 100 years, the last being about 50 years ago)
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What is the purpose for the water?to blow off old paint,or clean the house?prior to painting.The worst area on clapboard is the butt and just below,where all the paint accumalates over the years.He's right about shooting from above but this misses the worst spots.Are you stripping to get a better job or has the paint thickness reach an ugly stage? I've spent 25 years redoing old houses,painting (on Nantucket Island and CT.)and the only way I've ever seen to do it right is strip the whole thing.That said it ,is expensive an labor intense and then raises the option of just replacing it all.any other ?s just ask .
I am looking to strip the paint. Like I said, I do not care about a perfectly smooth final product, as long as it is all solid.
Do I need to remove everything to get a solid paint job? Someone suggested a stripper. What about scraping?
Thanks for your help
My home is 65 yrs old and the paint on the wood claps has said "I give up". I am tearing off the siding and replacing with fibercement. I respectfully suggest you consider the same. At least price out the various options.
Eric S.
My 2 cents .............. using a pressure washer to wash and rinse is fine but to use one for stripping paint ( close up and high pressure) is bad news. You will drive water into places you don't want to and damage the wood. If you need to strip paint, use another method.
Over the past 30 years I've probably pressure cleaned 10,000 houses. Stucco, brick, vinyl, clapboards, T1-11, RB&B, aluminum, concrete block, you name it I've pressure cleaned it. I've used the pressure washer to strip paint off of all of them too and never done any major damage although I have unzipped some vinyl, blown holes in totally rotten wood and washed the mortar out of some joints but never anything major.
I owned a house once that had been painted 20 or 30 times over the years. In spite of good prep work I couldn't get a paint job to last more than 2 years on the west and south because of all the old layers of paint. I had scraped and sanded till my arms ached only to have the paint flake and peel within months. At that point I figured I had nothing to lose so I got the 3000 PSI washer out. I mixed Red Devil lye and wallpaper paste in 5 gallon buckets and swabbed it on the clapboards with a soft 24" floor broom and an extension handle. By the time I had a 100 square foot area done the paint was running off the walls like a scene from a horror movie. I used a stainless steel brush in the corners and the pressure washer to blast off the remains and followed that with an acid spray to neutralize the lye. The water and lye left the wall looking furry so after letting it dry several days I painted on a good coat of primer. The primer locked the fibers so all I had to do was hit them with 60 grit and I was good to go. A good caulk job and 3 top coats finished the job. I moved out of the house 12 years later and the paint job still looked good.
The lye and the acid are both nasty and dangerous so I am not recommending this technique but simply pointing out that desperate jobs may call for desperate measures. Technology has come a long way since then and there are some great strippers out there now.