Our house was built about 10 years ago, and pressure treated wood was used for the hand rails. At some point prior to when we bought the house 7 years ago some one painted the rails. They appear to not have prepared the wood as three years ago we had it painted because it was pealing and it is pealing again.
We want to repaint, but realize we need to prep the wood properly this time.
My plan is to scrap and burn all of the old paint. Let it dry, and paint with a primer and then a good paint.
Is there something that I am missing or is there a better way of handling the situation.
I asked because it depends on how picky you are, and how much time you have . And how much you want to do.
If you have square balusters, then you can scrape and sand. But it isn't a s easy as it seems to get a really good finish. Since the balusters are at tached, you might have to crawl all the way around each baluster to remove the paint, then sand smooth. Give one of the the 5' sections a run and see if you are interested in refinishing (which in this case is the right thin g to do) the peeling paint and sanding the remaining paint smooth. Multipl y it by how much remains and you will have your time.
Do't shortchange the time. Go ahead and put a coat of a good exterior prim er (go to Sherwin Williams or Benjamin Moore for the good stuff) and then t riple that to get one coat of primer, then two coats of finish.
Ideally, you could disconnect the handrails some way and take then down to refinish on a table or sawhorses. Personally, I would even think of adding some kind of trim piece to fur out the posts if I needed to so I could cut off the handrails and finish while standing up, not on my hands and knees.
My next consideration would be to replace the balusters. This might be my first depending on how much peeling there is. I know it seems counter intu itive, but think about this: if you buy new, treated balusters (square) to replace the existing, you will be using one baluster per every 5 1/2" to gi ve a 4" opening,so the five foot section would need about 11 balusters. So for $11, you don't do more than scuff sand and can paint immediately and y our finished product will look clean and smooth, not like you painted a bad substrate.
Plus, you can put a coat of primer and one coat of paint on the balusters i n a gang painting by laying the out everywhere and rolling them out with a
4" roller, coating two three sides at a time. Install them, then put one m ore coat of paint on the railing. Again, if it were me, I would put all th e paint on them, then install, and only putty the nail holes and then paint them.
Take out all the time, effort and frustration (along with the mess of sandi ng in place), the sandpaper, etc., buying the balusters would be something I would look at strongly.
If I wasn't that concerned with appearance, I would power wash to remove as much paint as I could. Then scrape, sand, and prime with a good exterior primer, then paint with two coats of good quality OIL based paint.
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