Painting Pressure Treated Wood

[Kelly Jones]

Hi all.

Time to paint the shop again. I constructed the stairs and hand rails about

8 years ago out of pressure treated wood AKA "sunwood", so not the hard core PT stuff, but a lightly treated wood specially designed for this type of application (outside, non-ground contact).

I waited about 6 months prior to painting and applied an oil based primer followed by a laytex top coat.

About 4 years ago I reapplied the oil based primer since about half the paint peeled off. I am ready to paint the whole shop again but as you might guess the stairs are in pretty bad shape. The rest of the shop still looks good, but the stairs are about 50% bare wood now (after scraping).

Any ideas what I'm doing wrong here? What paints and primer should I use in this application. Any thoughts will be appreciated.

thanks

[ransley]

Use solid color stain, but remove the old paint

[Phisherman]

I agree, use stain. It penetrates the wood and won't peel. I like Cabots Decking stain, comes in several colors. A good job means proper preparation, removing any loose dried paint. Yeah, Cabot stinks for a few days after application, but good stuff.