Replies

1. 
   alias | May 05, 2003 01:57am | #1

   the rank and file over in breaktime would be another place to check on this one....

2. 
   max41254 | May 05, 2003 03:39am | #2

   Wnd,

   saw yer missive, and my paint is peeling and cracking and raising general hell. I am presently doing all the exterior trim, which seems to be the most weather-affected. I have scraped to bare wood; prime coated with Duron Bond & Seal; and two finish coats with a good exterior semi-gloss.

   A ton of work,(it's a two story colonial), but so far looks good and is holding up quite well. It has been a long term project. The last painters did'nt prep well, and the results sucked.  Needles to say, it's all in the prep work, and I don't see how you can avoid the scut work and achieve a long lasting finish any other way.

   I apologize for being verbose..

   good luck with your house!!

                                             casey..

    

    

3. 
   Mackwood | May 05, 2003 03:55am | #3

   Wndncr,

   First see if the paint is lead based.  It probably is.  Assuming it is lead based, you can attack two ways.  Strip it or grind it. 

   The "strip" option is chemical.  Sherwin Williams (among others) has the products to strip the old paint but from your description, it will take at least a couple applications to remove the old stuff.  You put the stripper on then peel off the old paint (in theory) then dispose of the crud as hazmat.

   The "grind" option is mechanical.  You can sand (using vacuum attachments to get the dust) then dispose of the bagged up dust as hazmat.  There are a couple of mfg's making a paint stripper that is basically a grinder.  The good ones are a couple hundred bucks or so and have carbide cutters.  They are adjustable to the type of siding and will grind the old stuff off very effectively.  I also imagine that these little jems can be rented. 

   IMO, this is the way to go if you have a large area.

   Be sure to read up on protecting yourself and others from lead based paint.  Be careful to use the correct respirator and cartridge.  Wear gloves and be sure to wash your hands before eating, drinking or smoking.  Contact your state department of Labor and Industries or OSHA for lead paint precautions.  Lots of technical stuff, but a bit of caution and common sense go a long ways.

   Enjoy your project, I'm sure it will turn out great!

   Mack

4. 
   RW | May 05, 2003 04:25am | #4

   No easy solutions. Getting the paint off is the challenge. A power washer on clabboards will take paint off in some areas and wood off in others. Different densities of the wood even will react differently, and you'll end up with ridged clabboards. If you have any significant splits or damage, now your putting pressurized water through there and into the walls. I'm not in favor of that. Sandblaster would accomplish essentially the same. Perhaps the safest way to remove it is to spend your summer with a heat gun in one hand and a putty knife in the other. Not fun.

   The paint grinders work fairly well, but dust collection doesn't. There's no means to effectively grab the dust flying off and the disks will do about a square of surface before they're trashed. Those also will remove a good layer of wood, chewing off nail heads and such as you go. The disks also have a tendency to corn if there's any latex in there, which pretty much ruins your ability to grind with the disk anymore.

   This is where you can roll your eyes and ask if theres any more bad news. "But wait, now how much would you pay?" well, there is. If the clabboards are cedar, and on an older house, they likely are, something you want to check into is ventilation. A lot of these houses had a double whammy of a problem. No soffit vents, which makes it harder for moisture to leave, trapping it in the wall, and the clabboards weren't back primed, which allows them to take the wall moisture in the back side and wick to the surface where they pop the paint loose. Not as much of an issue 40 years ago; lead paint had great bonding qualities. The best paint on the market today, painted on that kind of house, will fall off in three years.

   If you fit that profile, you honestly have limited satisfactory solutions. You can put vinyl siding over it. This will mess up your reveals and you'll have a vinyl house, but it's cheaper than other options and people go for that over quality all the time. You can rip it all off and reside, having a contractor install vents and pump in wall insulation if needed while they're at it. But if you do need the insulation, you can't have knob & tube for your electrical. Then put a thin layer of pinkboard down, tyvek the thing, and reside with a different material. Cement board is popular, and seems to be the prevailing trend for maintenance free. You can order it pre colored from the factory, at which point it has a 50 year warranty. But you can paint it too if you want.

   The products that you paint on and peel off to remove paint work only so so for what you're trying to do, and they don't get great coverage. Youd spend a small fortune in chemicals just at the attempt.

   "The child is grown / The dream is gone / And I have become / Comfortably numb "      lyrics by Roger Waters

1. 
   woodctr | May 05, 2003 05:45am | #5

   Thank for all your advice.  The walls are not clapboard per se, but wood siding of some kind, not cedar.  The house was built with real wood walls inside and out.  The inside has been sheetrocked over, except for a long hallway, which still shows the 8" wall boards.  The attic has insulation, so I assume the walls do too.  It was just painted less than 5 years ago, however, they simply scrapped the  loose paint and painted over.  However, it did not last very long.  I would like to find an easly method rather than have this drag out out over the summer.  I'll keep all options open.  Thanks again.

1. 
   Mackwood | May 06, 2003 04:35am | #6

   Wndncr,

   Quickest and easiest way is to use your check-book but-----

   Best of luck on whatever you decide!

   Mack

1. 
   greenebelly | May 06, 2003 04:48am | #7

          It will take a weekend but here goes. Depending on how much paint is there, use a pressure washer but don't use the terminater tip. HAHA! Use a powerful fan tip.  Go buy the paint remover in 1 gallon jugs. There is a hose that you put off of the pressure washer into a jug of whatever ya want to come out the end in the water. In this case you want paint remover. Spray the house trim with terminator tip and back off aways and hit the siding. Once what ever came off is .....change to the power fan tip and plug in the paint off juice and give it a soaking. (now go mow your yard or go look at wood tools in some way over priced-your-wife-would-never-buy-into-that-idea) After lunch repeat, (not the tool dreaming), and more if not all paint will come off.

                                  Good luck

5. 
   mrles | May 06, 2003 08:08am | #8

   I have a mixture I have used for many years to clean houses prior to painting and I have been well pleased with the results. I have shared this with a few professional painters and they have used this as a standard to clean houses. A friend had bought the paint and hired 2 fellows to help paint his house after they washed his house down with this formula he put the paint in the garage for a few years. He had mildew, mold, and dirt, it didn't need painting.

    1 quart of bleach, 1 oz. detergent (Tide, etc) 3 oz. tri-sodium-phosphate (TSP use the real stuff) 3 quarts warm water. Mop or spray on, move around with a broom (no need to scrub) a little, let set 5 minutes rinse off. There is no need to power spray. You will remove a lot of loose paint this way cutting down on your scraping. It also etches the good paint making for a good bond. The bleach kills the mold and mildew, the TSP is a strong cleaner and etches the paint.

   I have never had any negative results with shrubbery or flowers using this.

   Gods Peace

   les

6. 
   jc21 | May 06, 2003 05:20pm | #9

   I woun't use a pressure washer to strip paint; there's a good chance you will damage the wood. Ditto the comments on lead paint. Check your local rules and regs. Cabot's has a line of paint strippers that work pretty well. http://www.cabotstain.com/shared_frames.cfm?area=towoca&cfid=427356&cftoken=19648586 For hand scraping, Bahco (used to be Sandvik) has a line of carbide scrapers that work much better than the old steel scrapers. http://www.bahco.com/us/pdf/bahco/section15.pdf If you  have large areas to strip, Metabo's paint shaver might be the way to go. http://www.metabo.com/com/english/produkte/katalog/paint_remover/  Whatever you do, don't skimp on the the prep. I've used a formula similar to les' and it's a good one.

   
   

   ---

   Edited 5/6/2003 10:22:39 AM ET by jc

1. 
   Ruth | May 07, 2003 05:43pm | #10

   There's a lead-paint article on the Fine Homebuilding Web site:

   Lead-Paint Safety, at Home and on the Job Ruth DobsevageTaunton New Media