I really need to paint these areas this year, the wood is bare in some places. I seem to remember a product called ranch paint which lets the wood breath and the paint does not flake or crack. Could you advise me on the best product to use? I dont want to use undercoat and gloss paint as I dont want to be climbing ladders on a very high house every other year. Thanks
Paint fails up there because, understandably, nobody ever prepares the timber. Then they use the thickest one coat paint they can find so they don't have to get back up the ladder. If the wood is bare in places, chances are the rest isn't bonded too well either. Often you can scrape this off easily with a chisel, but it's really a two handed job.... If you can get back to bare wood, I'd give it an initial coat of "liquid" gloss for maximum adhesion, followed by undercoat for colour build, and a final thin coat of gloss for the finish. Up there that should give you 10 years because the guttering gives some protection against UV. I'd forget the ranch paint scam. Oil based paints have a pretty remarkable record for wood protection and I have seen "microporous" paint fail more times than I care to remember.
"stuart noble" record for wood protection and I have seen "microporous" paint fail more
So have I. Right at this moment we're having aluminium guttering fitted (partly diy so relevant!) and the 'old' wooden guttering is sodden. It was painted, against my feelings, with ranch paint. It was about five years old. It replaced wooden guttering which was over thirty years old but maintained with oil based paints and was in better condition than this latest when it was removed.
Mary
Ranch paint on wooden guttering, hmmmm... was it untreated softwood too?
cheers, Pete.
Hi,
If the bare wood is untreated you should give it a few good coats of wood preserver. If most of the wood is already painted then you might as well stick with exterior gloss paint. Ranch paint is often a cheapo paint, you can get Sadolin in white which will be more durable. See
We tried a microporous paint when it seemed to be promoted about 15 yrs ago - rather than using fairly cheap "International Ranch Paint" we went for an expensive version: Sandtex Microporous, white gloss (well, more a sheen than a gloss really). Covered easily (water-based), gums up your brushes something rotten; it lost its whiteness after a year, then started losing adhesion in thin strips leaving the wood unprotected. Trying to sand it off though was a real b**ger, it didn't respond to hotair stripping either, just had to use sandpaper & elbow grease. It wasn't cheap and we felt ripped off. We never used it again, went back to 'proper' paint. In fact if you could get paint with lead in it we'd use that - always lasted for yonks.
If you really can't face this awkward/dangerous painting job what about getting a painter in? or an estimate for a replacing them with upvc?
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