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Exterior Wood Painting Procedures Necessary To Obtain a 12 to 15 Year Paint Job

Removing Paint
Often, there are many coats of paint on the wood exterior of a house or building. Too many layers of paint can create paint failure from the incompatibility of these different paints. Generally, if there are three or less complete paint jobs on the wood exterior, you can scrape all of the unstable paint of the house using hand scrapers with carbide blades. If there are three or more complete paint jobs on the structure, it is best to remove all the paint. This can be accomplished utilizing a tool called the Paint Shaver. What used to take 4 to 6 workers 6 to 8 weeks to accomplish this task can now be done with 2 workers in 5 to 7 days. This method usually costs 2% to 7% more than traditional hand scraping and power washing that is common throughout America. The paint shaver takes the paint off to the bare wood, puts the paint into a hose that is attached to a HEPA vacuum. This avoids lead paint issues. When hand scraping it is critical to wear a properly fitted double cartridge respirator rated for lead paint. The ground should always be tarped and cleaned off at the end of every day.

Hand Washing
All bare wood should be hand washed with TSP and water. Use 1/4 cup of TSP for every gallon of water and scrub the siding. This should then be rinsed with a hose without a spray nozzle.

Wood Repair
Repair any rotted & cracked siding and trim with like material and architectural epoxies.

Moisture
Before any primer, paint or caulking is applied, the siding and trim you must test the wood to be sure the moisture content does not exceed 15%. The only way to determine this is with a moisture meter. All house painters should have one of these meters. Painting wood above 15% moisture can knock 5 to 10 years off the life of the paint job. Power washing is an automatic prescription for paint failure. The high pressure drives moisture deep into the wood and it can take as long as 6 months to dry down to 15% moisture.

Priming
All primer should be oil based alkyd primer. Latex primer does not bite into the wood and condition it properly for caulk and topcoats. This should be applied by brush, not spray.

Caulking
Use an acrylic/latex caulk with silicon. Imagine your house under Niagara Falls. Caulk all areas the cascading water can penetrate, but do not caulk where it cannot.

Top Coats
Use the highest quality acrylic latex topcoats you can afford. With paint you get what you pay for. Painting contractors have accounts with paint stores and often want to sell you paint for $12-$15 a gallon. This is no bargain as the paint is always inferior as it has a low solids content. $25 to $40 a gallon is the correct range. Apply 2 coats with brush only. Spraying puts the paint on 10 times thinner than brushing. Creating the thickest mil coating possible is what adds to longevity of paint surfaces. Check Consumer Reports Magazine for the highest rated paints and use them!

Paint Maintenance
A paint job must be maintained on a yearly basis. Look around your house to see if any paint is failing. Paint failure, on a properly painted house, can be caused by things such as exhaust fans not sealed properly, leaky gutters or roof problems. Correct the moisture problems first, then scrape, prime and paint the failed areas. It's sort of like skin cancer; if you have a weird spot on your face and you don't get it taken care of it can turn into malignant melanoma cancer and kill you. If you get it checked out and have it removed, you'll be OK. It's no different with a paint job.