Exterior cedar siding paint is peeling.

[jimAKAblue]

I've heard a rumor that it's hard to make paint stick to damaged cedar siding. My son just picked up a foreclosure and the paint is coming off on the garage. The siding itself is the old style, clear western red cedar.

Any suggestions or information are welcome. The house is in MI, subject to cold and full sun.

[Happy Home]

Primer should be applied at 50 deg min for 24 hrs. Maybe the sun will help during the day.

Ideally an exterior alkyd primer with 1 - 2 coats of premium latex would be the way to go. However since its cold the 24 hrs it takes for ext alkyd primer to dry and do its thing won't work.

A job like that I'd be hesitant to use even the best latex primer because it doesn't grip in like oil. Imo after proper prep I'd lock it up with Cover Stain Oil Primer
http://www.rustoleum.com/CBGProduct.asp?pid=222
Dries in about 1 - 2 hrs when cold followed by 1 - 2 coats of latex finish.

Addl - the TDS says can be applied at min 40 deg.

[calvert]

Jim..., Judging from the picture, the wood seems to be mixed grain with a lot of peeling grain. Flat grain not really the best for paint retention. A really good job would probably include sanding to fresh wood, using an epoxy sealer to help consolidate the fibers and bond the primer and then high quality alkyd primer and acrylic finish coats as pointed out by Steve.

West System thinned out and applied in a few coats would provide the epoxy part of the equation but there are others as well.

Most people don't want to go through the extra expense and time to do the job well, they are more content to paint every few years and bitch about it.

[jimAKAblue]

Jim..., Judging from the picture, the wood seems to be mixed grain with a lot of peeling grain. Flat grain not really the best for paint retention. A really good job would probably include sanding to fresh wood, using an epoxy sealer to help consolidate the fibers and bond the primer and then high quality alkyd primer and acrylic finish coats as pointed out by Steve.

West System thinned out and applied in a few coats would provide the epoxy part of the equation but there are others as well.

Most people don't want to go through the extra expense and time to do the job well, they are more content to paint every few years and bitch about it.

I'm a little confused: what does "Flat grain not really the best for paint retention." mean?
If I sand, wouldn't all the grain be flat?

[calvert]

[PDF]
Finishing of Wood - Forest Products Laboratory
http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/fp...chapter_16.pdf

This may be useful to those who have never seen it before. It will help to develop an understanding of some of the factors involved in choosing wood for paint retention and procedures to be followed to give a fighting chance for a semi-durable paint job. I have not gone through the updated version word for word so I don't know if they reference epoxy but that information can be found elsewhere online.

[m beezo]

Calvert, I have not read the stuff you posted yet but I did read one several years ago. One of the things I remember was using a water proofing type sealer as a first coat to seal the wood. Been a while but I thought there was something about maybe even something like Thomposons Water seal for the first coat to seal the wood.

Does that ring a bell with anyone?

[Dick Seibert]

Or maybe somebody put insulation in the wall.

[jimAKAblue]

Or maybe somebody put insulation in the wall.

That's a good read Dick.

The siding in question is installed on a detached garage. It's uninsulated and the siding was installed over 30# felt. I don't think moisture is trapped behind the paint, but it's something I will examine when I visit that house again.

[calvert]

JimAKAblue, I am sure you thought of it but just to double check....could it be the gutters ( if the garage has them ) had a history of being full of leaves and typically over flowed and ran down onto the siding ?

[jimAKAblue]

Theres no gutters. The paint is just old. The house is in a part of town where homeowners don't maintain. I think the paint just got too old and started peeling and the homeowners just let it peel. It does face the West, and it has no shade, so it does get beat up by the sun.

The house is in Hazel Park, a suburb of Detroit.

[S.Joisey]

Lots of old buildings here with cedar claps. When the paint is in poor shape, typical practice is to grind off the old paint to bare wood, oil base primer, and top coat with acrylic.

RRP hasn't arrived here for most painters, so you are lucky to even see tarps on the ground when the paint is ground off.

I did see one building stripped with Peel Away last year, though. Did a good job. Makes you do a double take to drive past a house covered in paper.

I've used Peel Away for windows- it's my preferred method for removing LBP. Of course, I don't paint entire buildings.

http://www.dumondchemicals.com/pro-peel-away-1.html

[jimAKAblue]

I'm just following up with some answers that I promised that I would provide when I saw the siding again.

The lap siding is installed on an unconditioned exterior garage, with no insulation. Their is a paper underlayment. It has a shiny foil surface facing inward and it is a white papery surface facing outward. So, it does have a vapor barrier that could trap moisture, but I don't understand where any moisture could be coming from.