greetings, i just completed a small retaing wall constructed of pressure treated wood and now my wife decided the greenish color is not what she wants so can this type of wood be painted? is there a type of paint for this purpose? thanks, cj
depending onthe type of PT it is, you need to wait for it to finish drying. If its pre-dried, you can paint it right away. If it isn't (and it probably isn't), you need to wait 6-8 weeks for it to dry. Once the moisture content is below about 18%, you can paint it. Any decent paint store can recomend what will be best for your weather conditions. in general, I seem to recall that we used plain old exterior house paint, but that was a long time ago, and I know that the chemicals in PT have changed. Any "deck" product (stain and sealers mostly) should work fine, as they are pretty much engineered for PT....
--JD
DONT PAINT! IT WILL JUST PEEL!
STAIN ONLY!!!! STAIN ONLY!!]
transparent stain once the wood ages a bit, if yoiu do nothing it will gradually turn grey.
one day you will see guys in moon suits removing pt woood and the soil around it nationwide... its the next asbestos....
if you stain it you can easily just brush on more stain whenever you want, mno peeling paint to deal with.
PT wood expands contracts a lot, thats why it cracks a lot. paint is a poor choice for anything PT
In addition to - or as an aside to - jd's comments: I'd save any scraps and use them as test strips. My personal preferance would be a stain rather than a paint - if one is available. I should think a stain would weather more gracefully than a paint film. TB
A friends deck was painted 10 years ago, he died and i am trying to help the family fix up the deck.
the paint has peeled and failed in some areas others its like new.....
23 by 30 deck is too big to strip, i am at a loss.....
I paint a lot of pressure treated wood. The "secret" is to remove the layer of crud deposited on the surface by the pressure treatment process. I use a hand planer (DeWalt 680K, in my case) to take off about 1/32nd of an inch or so. I set the planer for 1/64th, then take 2 or 3 passes - it's pretty obvious when I've taken enough off. A belt sander with 50 grit paper will get the job done, too, but nowhere near as fast as the planer. (I hope it's a REALLY small retaining wall - and don't use a planer near those nail heads! :(
Another problem - the green stuff (copper azole) is going to bleed through just about any paint you use. (at least it will with latex based paints, not sure about oil-based) It won't be a problem with dark green or blue paint but will be very obvious with light colors.
Good luck, Charlie Mulks
Sure hope you used gravel and pipes for drainage behind it and anchors so it doesn't fail in a few years. Even with good drainage, paint is a big mistake since it will peel from moisture. Stain will work though.
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