Or probably more likely paint prep failure.
Regardless… These rafters were totally weathered with paint hanging in ribbons when I bought the place. Scraped & sanded it all down, filled the cracks, primered with oil-based primer (Zinsser IIRC) and two coats of BM’s top of the line exterior latex.
Couple of years later, looked pretty much the same. This time I really worked the prep – sand to bare wood, fill all the cracks with MD Ready Patch, primer with Zinsser 1-2-3, two coats of BM’s best.
This is what it looks like after 9 months. Argh!! I still hate plumbing more, but this is coming in a close second!
Any ideas on an approach that would get me any better milage?
Edited 1/13/2008 10:24 pm by wrudiger
Edited 1/13/2008 10:25 pm by wrudiger
Replies
i'm going to get hit with what a hack,but heres what i do when the woods really bad or won't hold paint. i rip a pc of hardi the width of the fascia,nail it on ,paint it and not worry about it for the next 12 years. larry,
thats mr. hack to you....
if a man speaks in the forest,and there's not a woman to hear him,is he still wrong?
Thank you, Mr. Hack. Excellent suggestion!
What a hack! I'd bend aluminum around it all. Bob's next test date: 12/10/07
i have to laugh,my suggestion to cover with hardi,i have a tapco sitting in the shop that i HAD to have. i was going to do all these great things with it. i've probably bent up 50' of stuff in 5 years. my wife reminds me about it when she see's it.
i 'm a sucker,i wanted one so went to a dist. lunch one day.they had a guy there demoing it and making stuff,really cool stuff,brick mldg with a lip for the siding to slid into. takes him about 3 mins to do 10' stick.i gotta have one of these. after about the third bend on a pc of metal and i'm lost...... larryif a man speaks in the forest,and there's not a woman to hear him,is he still wrong?
If I couldn' replace the wood, I would get it to bare wood and use some Smiths penetraing resin, prime and paint. Local product, made in Richmond
http://www.smithandcompany.org/CPES/index.html
Mike
Trust in God, but row away from the rocks.
Edited 1/13/2008 11:57 pm by ruffmike
Mike,
I was coming to the "replace the wood" solution, but really didn't want to go there. I actually used a Smith product to fill some rotted wood at the peak. You can see in one of the pictures that's one area where the paint is holding well. I didn't think about just using the penetrating resin (first half of the wood repair kit, followed by the filler) on the whole board but that makes all kinds of sense. That stuff's amazing.
Wayne
The resin creates an ideal bonding for paint, used to use it on my boat and used it on the 120 year old redwood siding siding in the areas that were exposed to max sunlight and had not been painted in at least 20 years. 4 years and holding. Mike
Trust in God, but row away from the rocks.
The boards above it look like they are holding up ok.
What is the large gap above the lower board?
My guess is that water is getting behind the failing board. Water wicking into the back of that board will will move toward the warmer front side and litterally lift the paint off as it tries to dry.
You may well solve the surface problem with some special product, but I think you still have a wet board there, just waiting to rot from the back side.
Dave
re the Smith's - wonderful product, horrible fumes. Exert caution! My SS, who suffers from multiple chemical sensitivity, had to go to a motel when I used it in the basement...
Problem is, nothing else penetrates as well!
Agreed, very serious chemicals. Mike
Trust in God, but row away from the rocks.
The wood is fir. The rafters are sealed all sides. The extra trim strip under the flashing is actually caulked; just looks like a big gap due to the shadow from the sun.
Whoever mentioned about the "once it starts checking ain't gonna stop" has the right idea. I will try the penetrating epoxy sealer first cause I'm a chicken about messing with the roof (don't want to tempt fate).
Thanks to everyone for your great input - this is an awesome community!
because of resins, fir is a hard wood to paint and keep it painted.
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Edited 1/14/2008 10:10 pm ET by Piffin
fir isn't good at holding paint. It's because of the large difference between the early and late wood. The large difference makes every growth ring an area where the wood swells and shrinks at different rates. You want a wood that has close consistent grain.
that theory is consistant with the strip type failure that shows in the photo.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
My two cents is you got a roof leak. Not a big one, but one. That build up of shingles tells me something failed before and it was resolved by recovering. And now, something else has crept into the picture and continues into the old point of failure.
I say you need a new roof. And when you got the roof open, seal the top of that rafter - where it really is not sealed as suggested. But at that point, the aztec should also be used.
Brand new roof (arch shingles), new sheathing, new flashing. Same behavior with the old and new roofs. Same behavior with oil-based and latex primer, with brown and red paint. It is south facing and was trashed when we moved in...
A great pity - the 300-year-old house needs a lot of that sort of thing, & so far, I have not been able to find a substitute that penetrates as well. I've gone to the polyester products, but really don't find them as good.
Part of the problem IMO, is that red is a hot colour. You may have still had a bit of moiisture in the wood firsst time when you painted, then it baked reall hot in the sun on red which dried and srhrank wood fibres to open the cracks
Welcome to the
Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime.
where ...
Excellence is its own reward!
i think the failure lies in using oil based primer. i'd switch to an exterior latex primer. the BM topcoat choice is fine.
Expert since 10 am.
Before you use the fiiler seal it with something that penetrates into the wood fibers. Oil based primer should do it.
The problem is that the filler is failing to stick to the wood. When ever I paint exterior surfaces, I seal it first, before anything else.
I also believe the back and ends need to be sealed also. When you seal the whole piece of wood it is encapsulated. I like saying that. Encapsulated ;^ ) There is moisture under the paint lifting it off.
I was going to say the same thing about sealing the back side and the ends. My guess is that moisture is working it's way to the surface somehow, and from the back side is a likely culprit.Of course, if you take the board off to seal the back side, replacing it with Hardiplank starts to sound like a good idea.
The lower board looks .... well... different. How did it sand? Easy? Damage easy while scraping? I'm thinking it may be cedar, or some other exceptionally 'oily' wood. I'm not sure if the primers you used were shellac based, but if they were, they should have kept the sap in.
I'm also, like everyone else here, puzzled by the construction. It just doesn't seem to make any sense .... and may have created the problem. Heaven alone knows what's nesting within that gap. I'd want to consider a complete redesign of this job.
In my experience, once a piece of exterior wood begins checking like this, you can patch it all you want and you'll just be chasing your tail. The cracks will just open up again because the wood will continue to move around the cracks, whereas the patching medium will not.
Cover it up as another poster says, or bite the bullet and replace it with Azek and be done with it forever.
Mike Hennessy
Pittsburgh, PA
My first thought is what kind of filler did you use? Interior/exterior? sorry, no insult intended, It's just sometimes the simplest mistake is the correct one.
Secondly it would be my guess that the pics you show are of the side of the house that gets full sun the better part of the day. I bet the other side of the house is fine. Consider a different colour. A lighter colour. It won't hold the heat and expand and contract all the time. That will cause paint to let go a a surface.
Dave
No problem asking about the patch/filler. I always check to see if the computer is plugged in first when troubleshooting - easy to miss sometines :-)
The patch is interior/exterior, per the local hardware guru the one his customers have been having the best luck with outside - the one most able to flex.
You are right about the max southern exposure. Old paint was dark brown so just as much an issue. The northern exposure was just as trashed, but it was inaccessable for years and the paint was literally hanging in ribbons. So far it is holding up much better. We'll see...