Monday, January 9, 2012

Protecting Wood Sheds

By Bill Johnson


It's essential that you shield your brand-new wood sided shed with stain or paint as quickly as possible once you've constructed it, or once you had it installed using a shed company. The 3 most commonly seen kinds of wood siding for sheds are pine, cedar, and Texture 111.

So many people are under the impression that cedar siding, no matter whether tongue & groove boards or clapboards, doesn't have to be protected. This is certainly hardly true! While cedar is far more rot-tolerant than pine or Texture 111, and is going to endure somewhat longer if allowed to remain unprotected, it's still wood and will definitely degrade soon enough. Cedar is typically used when insects for example carpenter ants or termites are present or likely, as it does have a natural repellent throughout the wood the bugs will stay away from.

The alternative two kinds of siding: pine and Texture 111, will rot very fast if left unstained or unpainted. These forms of siding are normally kiln dried from the lumber mill but, if allowed to remain unprotected, the wood will start to turn a dull grey color because the dry wood soaks up moisture into the pours. Inevitably, the moisture will continue to work its way deep inside the boards, turn them a black color, and will rot them from the internally. Areas of your shed most at risk of this challenge are areas that are very near the earth, since rain falling via the sky or running off the roof will splash up in the ground and really soak the wood. This is really typically substantially more of a problem around the sides on the shed that do not receive much sunshine because it takes much longer for it to dry.

So, exactly what is the best way to protect your shed? You will find basically two trains of thought in this area. A veteran "house painter" will likely inform you to get a premium quality primer, and apply at least 1 coat, and possible two, especially on the knots. Then apply a coat of a premium quality exterior paint. In general, with paint, you get what you pay for. It's always definitely worth a few extra dollars per gallon of paint to get a better quality product. There is one major downside of paint, however. At some point it's going to start to peel and flake off and will definitely demand considerable sanding and scraping to ready it for another coat of primer and/or paint.

An additional option might be advice you will probably get from an experienced "wood worker", which probably would be a good quality stain. The key distinction between paint and stain would be the fact paint simply coats the surface of the wood, which can be an easy way to preserve it. However, stain actually takes up into the pores on the wood, also providing good protection. The main benefits of making use of a stain is the fact that there exists very little preparation required, for example priming, and simply because the stain ages, it'll not peel or flake like paint. It may begin to take on a dull or chalky appearance however when that happens, you just need to just wash the shed and apply another coat of stain...no sanding or scraping required. And, since 1 gallon of stain will cover about the same as two gallons of primer & paint you would certainly have to get, there should be a considerable cost savings in the process.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment