Painting the House

on older wood - I would seal it - but I'm not a professional painter or a carpenter.

When we had our home painted 10 years ago, they power washed it, sanded some more (we are all wood!) and then sealed and put a primer coat on. Do I think it made the wood or the paint last longer? I don't know. The paint still looks good and the wood is still holding up.

Sorry - doesn't sound like I'm helping much, huh? I would research it and find out what other experts say.

If you don't get any helpful answers please feel free to PM me this evening and I will ask my husband. His family is carpenters whether by hobby or trade. They know their wood, I don't.

I painted my door without sealing it but it is only 18 year old wood. Still no project I have ever seen or heard of him doing did he seal the wood. He has never painted wood but stained it so maybe it makes a difference.

Another possibility is he was nicely trying to make you think you were in over your head so you would call him. Okay or maybe the sealant he spoke of was expensive enough to make materials sound close to his bid and you would call him.

okey-dokey, just checked with my Mom. She owns an historic home, & lives in a nationally-recognized historic village. She is also a member of Illinois Historic Preservation.

Her home was painted with Sherwin Williams Duration. It's been a few years now, & there are newer products on the market.

Her home was not sealed. Her stand on this is that the wood needs to be able to "wick away" the moisture. She feels strongly that sealing leads to mold issues. Hope this helps!

I don't know how much help this is but we are currently painting our house and I am having them refinish and seal my very heavy front door made of wood/windows. The reason is we have southern exposure the wood on my front door and windows are just chipping/warping away. The sun/heat has done a real number on our wood since it faces the sun most of the day. We decided to seal it. Good luck!

We lived in a craftsman style bungalow that we worked at stripping down to the wood. You could see the linseed oil (or whatever they used in the 20s) that they used to seal the wood before priming and painting way back then.

I think paint technologies have greatly improved, but get some advice from your local paint store experts. I find the people at Sherwin Williams to be very knowledgeable and easy to talk to about projects! My guess is a good primer and 2 coats of paint will last as long as sealing the wood first!

In one word....YES!!!! We bought our house 36 yrs ago and that first year we spent the whole summer scrapping and sanding our smooth cedar siding. We applied a primer to the raw wood and 36 yrs later we still have beautiful siding. Yes, we have painted every 10 yrs because I wanted a color change but the wood under the paint is in EXCELLENT condition because we sealed it before we painted with a GOOD quality paint.

If you google house painting you will see that it is recommended that you use a primer first. It was very nice of the painter to give you this advice and the names of primer and paint he uses.

JMO,
Nee