Wood siding has changed over the years, making what was already a “harder than it sounds” process truly miserable.
The problem begins with the expectation prior to starting a project. There are four main factors to consider when restoring wood surfaces. The first is the look that everyone wants to look great when finished. The second is to preserve or extend the life of the wood. Third is the durability or useful life of the coating. Then there is the fourth factor, and the most important, what will the future maintenance be and how easy will it be to maintain it in the next few years? It is impossible to have a product that is number one in every factor. When you look for durability, you lose ease of future maintenance. When you opt for a product that is easy to maintain in the future, you will often be sacrificing the longevity of the coating.
Consider this scenario; First year light clean and natural sealer, next time light clean and it doesn’t look bad but choose a tinted sealer or slightly tinted stain, next time it comes out there are a lot of blemishes so choose a semi-transparent or solid stain. Then in today’s market some people are using thick textured veneers which companies claim will restore gray or old wood. Now there’s a peeling mess that nothing over the counter at the paint or hardware store won’t remove. Sounds familiar?
Of course, it does for many. There are two main reasons why coatings fail today. One is the coatings themselves and the industry approach. The second is the prep work that is done before applying a coating.
Let’s address coatings and industry focus. The major manufacturers that everyone is familiar with focus on the durability and longevity of the coating. They feel that these are the selling points to the consumer. One major problem with this is that you may be happy with the appearance and longevity for a few years, but as it starts to peel and NOT wear away, you realize that a detailed process of stripping and possibly sanding is necessary before re-refinishing. apply layer. This process is usually laborious, exhausting and expensive. With newer products on the market from Behr, Olympic, Rust-Oleum, and others, it can actually be cheaper to replace the wood than it is to remove the siding. There is no stripper for these types of coatings and with the rough texture and ceramic microspheres in the coatings, they will break up sandpaper in no time. Remember, these products are not made to come off immediately and if they peel off in a few months, you have a major problem. On an old deck that is about to expire, it could mean the end of the road. Without going into the lawsuits that have arisen regarding these coatings, you can do a search on the internet, the biggest misconception is that these coatings form a film and are rigid. If you are putting a more permanent, rigid type of siding on top of wood that is constantly moving as it expands and contracts, what are the expectations? The more durable they make them, the more difficult they are to remove but the easier they are to “pop” and “peel” from the surface of the wood, leaving the consumer with a headache. It is best to look for products that wear out, making cleaning and refinishing easier, even if it is more frequent.
Next we need to discuss the preparation of wood surfaces prior to coating. First of all, it must be recognized that the better the preparation, the better the end result. Poor preparation is magnified in the end result once a coating has been applied. We start with a platform that is gray or worn from exposure and the sun. To correctly restore the wooden surfaces we must remove the layer of grayed wood. These wood fibers are not attached to the “good” wood below. In fact, you can scrape off the gray fibers with your fingertip or a light tool. To remove this layer of gray wood, a very light amount of pressure or sanding is used to expose the good wood. Now the coating you apply will last longer and wear evenly. In today’s market you will find many people who call themselves “professionals” or “experts” and insist on “gentle washing” wood surfaces to clean. Some of these contractors will tell you that they stain when finished or that it is “ready to stain” when finished. This process can actually damage the wood. Many of the mild washers use a stronger chemical than the industry standard, usually bleach. If the chemicals are not rinsed thoroughly from the wood and left on the wood when finished, it can cause the coating to fail quickly and dry out the wood prematurely throughout its life. In this process they are simply “bleaching” the wood to make it look like new, but as mentioned above they have not removed any loose gray wood fibers, they are simply bleaching and re-coating afterwards or leaving them to be re-coated for you. In either case, the end result will fail because the siding has become attached to the loose wood fibers that will flake out of the wood sooner rather than later, leaving it with a stained appearance.
These are the two main reasons why coatings fail today, leaving the consumer faced with a decision as to what is best for their wood surfaces. While there is no such thing as a perfect product, we must take into account all of the above information. We need to make sure that the preparation is done correctly and that the contractor, or whoever is doing the work, understands what the proper industry standards are and that they will meet their expectations. He doesn’t want someone to make him look good today and get a check and in a few months, he’s faced with buyer’s remorse for his decision. Then we must consider that if the wood is constantly moving and receives a lot of traffic and wear, it would make sense to find a product that also “moves” with the wood and wears. This makes future maintenance a light cleaning and recoating and keeps the price down. If manufacturers don’t accept the simple fact that they are frustrating the wood deck consumer into making the decision to switch to composite decking (which has its own problems), they will lose a large portion of their end users. There are many great products out there, many of which you need to research online and are not sold in paint and hardware stores. The research can be overwhelming, but look for the ease of future maintenance over longevity for fewer headaches down the road.
