Is flexible exterior paint worth the extra cost?

[Clive Page]

Our house has 3 windows facing roughly south. All of them have paint flaking off the exterior window ledges although the window frames are otherwise sound. I remember painting all of them only 3 years ago, so they haven't lasted as long as I had hoped. The problem is clearly that wooden window ledges expand and contract and even crack in the Sun, made worse by our recent heatwave.

I see that one can get "flexible" paint, e.g. Johnstone's "flexible gloss" and others similar such as Ronseal "10 year external wood paint". They are obviously more expensive but might be worth it to avoid the effort of repainting every couple of years. Does anyone have experience of these - are they worth the money for timber surfaces in full sunlight?

[Tricky Dicky]

If the wood is cracked then the problem is with the wood and no amount of f lexible paint is going to solve the problem. You might try to fill it with an epoxy filler whilst the cracks are at their widest this might produce a good enough surface for the paint to bond to. Alternatively cut away the po or quality wood and splice in a better quality piece.

Richard

[Brian Gaff]

Well, I'm not convinced I had some window sills done witha so called flexible gloss and they are still cracking up, Mind you it was black paint and hence probably got hot. I'm thinking maybe there is more to it than just expansion though. Brian

[tabbypurr]

all alkyd gloss is flexible. That's primarily why it's used on exterior wood.

NT

[Andrew]

You need to ask 'Fred, from 2012' what sort of paint to use :-)

[Brian Reay]

I used to use 'Ranch Paint' with great success. It is 'micro porous' (or claimed to be), either way it seems to work.

(We don't have painted exterior woodwork now, otherwise I'd still use it.)