Cedar shingle siding - painting tips?

[Unknown]

I am preparing to paint my house within the next few weeks. I have considered using Sherwin Williams Duration paint, but my fiancee has a 20% discount available at HD, so it's
much more cost effective for me to go that route. The siding was originally stained, and has not been stained or painted since it was installed more than a decade ago (long
before the house was in my possession).

Am I better off going with latex- or oil-based paint? Also, should I prime the siding before painting it? Any advice would be greatly appreciated - I have done painting work
before, but this is my first exterior project.

--
--------------------------------- --- -- -
Posted with NewsLeecher v3.5 Beta 7
Web @ http://www.newsleecher.com/?usenet
------------------- ----- ---- -- -

[Ken]

n...@spam.com wrote:
> I am preparing to paint my house within the next few weeks. I have considered using Sherwin Williams Duration paint, but my fiancee has a 20% discount available at HD, so it's
> much more cost effective for me to go that route. The siding was originally stained, and has not been stained or painted since it was installed more than a decade ago (long
> before the house was in my possession).
>
> Am I better off going with latex- or oil-based paint? Also, should I prime the siding before painting it? Any advice would be greatly appreciated - I have done painting work
> before, but this is my first exterior project.
>

You're better off going with stain, like what was originally applied.
Stain doesn't blister and peel off like paint will. You just wash the
siding (NOT a pressure washer!), allow to dry for a few days, and then
apply the stain. If the siding is painted, you need to preceed that
procedure with days of scraping and sanding the blistering paint.

If for some reason you insist on using paint, prime first with a
linseed oil based primer (also know as "slow-drying" or "long oil"
primer), and then topcoat with two coats of latex paint. Oil-based
paint does not flex like latex does, so in exterior applications it
fails sooner than latex will. Plus I'm not even sure you can buy
oil-based exterior paint any more due to VOC content rules. One
exception is that you may want to use oil based paint on wood windows
to reduce blocking (painted window parts sticking to each other, even
after the paint is dry.)

And if you go to but the paint, IMO you shouldn't consider the cost at
all. $20/gal for cheap paint vs. $30/gal for good paint is not worth
worrying about. When the cheap paint fails and you spend a week on a
ladder scraping and sanding, you will regret the relatively small
amount of money you save. I value my time more than the small amount
of money saved by buying cheap materials for most home repair projects
I work on, including paint. If the choice for paint is between
Sherwin-Williams and HD, I wouldn't even consider HD (probably Behr you
are talking about?) Also consider Benjamin Moore paint. I'm sure
others will chime in with their recommendations.

Ken

[Tony Hwang]

Hi,
Paint cedar? No. Choice stains, see thru or solid.

[hal...@aol.com]

STAIN ONLY, once you paint it will pewel and crack constantly:(

You will be painting every other year:(

[Unknown]

I was mainly leaning toward paint in order to cover up cosmetic blemishes on the siding (as most of you have already guessed). From what I
understand the siding was installed in the early 90's, and has never been re-stained since then, so there is a decent amount of greying on
all sides, most promimently in the areas that have received the most sunlight.

At this point I am leaning toward a solid color stain rather than paint - the discoloration is widespread enough that it seems like it would
be a massive undertaking to attempt to brighten the wood. Are there any significant advantages/disadvantages to semi-transparent vs. solid
color stains on cedar siding? I realize solid color stain has more of a chance to peel, but is this something I would have to address on a
frequent basis such as every 3-4 years? If so I might be inclined to try and find a shade of semi-transparent stain that would blend somewhat
uniformly with the unevenly weathered siding.

Also, I want to thank everyone for their advice thus far!

[Norminn]

n...@spam.com wrote:

I have never done stain on siding or had cedar siding, but from the many
paint tips I've read there is always special attention needed for
weathered wood. I checked out Ben Moore's website quickly, and they
have good information for all of their products. Quick look at their
products showed two solid stains, which were latex, and several oil
based, which had more variety. Their alkyd semi-transparent stain tech
info is here, in pdf format:
http://benjaminmoore.com/tds/1033/TDS328.pdf

Other stains:
http://benjaminmoore.com/wrapper_pg3.asp?L=prod&K=xprods&N=prodext&groupid=7&productid=260#article

Cheap does not equal economical, and paint is the last thing I would put
on it. Spending $160 that is wasted is not economy when $200 might buy
a quality product (you knew that already :o)

Cedar shingles have lots of ways for moisture to get in and make paint
peel. I wouldn't shop for paint at HD. Whatever you choose, prep makes
all the difference in the world - pay attention to mildew, temp, weather.

You don't say how large an area you are working with. I would read up
on replacing shingles, too. Must be a few that need replacement?

[Gary Dyrkacz]

I would suggest this route also. initially, I sued semi-transparent
stain, but I seemed to be re-staining too often. I switched to a sold
stain, and now the re-staining are much further apart.

Gary Dyrkacz
REMOVETHISBEFOR...@comcast.net
Radio Control Aircraft/Paintball Physics/Paintball for 40+
http://home.comcast.net/~dyrgcmn/