Best Way to Strip Paint From House Exerior

To penetrate and remove the 10 layers of paint on the siding and trim at the Winchester project, painting contractor Jim Clark (shown here) and his crew used a newly developed, non-caustic stripper that breaks the bond betwixt paint and wood. Before choosing their approach, they considered several methods, detailed in the following slides.

Photo by Keller & Keller

From a distance, the house in Winchester, Mass., site of the 2002 This Onetime House Boob tube projection, was a picture of yellowish siding and white trim. Closer inspection revealed a craggy clapboard mural of cracks, fries, and flakes where 10 coats of paint, applied during the 80-twelvemonth life of the firm, were failing by degrees.

"The clapboards are cypress, I think—a total 10 inches wide and vii/eight inches thick at the barrel," said TOH full general contractor Tom Silva. "Beautiful woods in great condition, except that it won't agree whatsoever more paint."

Painting contractor Jim Clark concurred: "Nosotros could feather out the failed areas with scrapers and sandpaper before priming and acme coating, merely a year later on we finish, the flaking and chipping could start again. So all the paint has to go. That means a lot of work, but when we're finished, we'll have a babe-smooth surface that will hold dainty, even coats of paint for a long time to come."

Lead Paint in Homes

Stripping paint from any business firm built before 1978 raises the question of lead. Given the number of coats on the Winchester business firm, Clark had no incertitude about the presence of the heavy metallic. In the past, scraping pb paint required hiring a licensed—and costly—abatement contractor to remove and dispose of the lead-laced paint.

Merely that inverse in Massachusetts in 2001, according to Jim Roberts, an environmental analyst with the state's Department of Ecology Protection: "Massachusetts adopted federal Environmental Protection Agency guidelines that reclassify atomic number 82 paint balance from a residence equally household waste. The idea is that if it is easier for homeowners to dispose of atomic number 82, they will be more likely to remove it from their homes."

For Clark and crew, it meant that they could do the work—if they took the mandated prophylactic precautions—and that all the paint they removed from the firm could just exist bagged up and chucked into the trash.

Grinding
(power sanding deejay or clapboard sander)
Pros: Fast, efficient, leaves no residuum on surface; relatively inexpensive (no chemicals to buy).
Cons: Only works on not patterned siding like clapboards. In inexperienced hands, can scar wood. Noisy; creates airborne dust that's a lead business organization and requires a HEPA-filter mask. Some states require vacuum connectedness.

Photograph by Keller and Keller

Paint Stripping Methods

In that location are three bones methods for stripping paint—grinding, applying heat, and using chemicals. All of them are hard work because the same binders that crusade paint to attach make information technology difficult to remove. Clark and his crew considered using several different methods on the Winchester siding before making a final option. As the epitome slides in this commodity reveal, all these approaches have advantages and disadvantages. Only every paint-stripping task is a little different, and past feel, along with some empirical testing, helped Clark make up one's mind what would work best for the Winchester house.

Grinder Paint Removal

For instance, grinding—using ability sanding disks or clapboard sanders—is very efficient on siding that'due south in good shape, merely it generates atomic number 82-laden dust. Although the tools tin be fitted with a vacuum hose, the last matter Clark wanted, in a cheek-to-jowl neighborhood similar Winchester, was to release any atomic number 82-contaminated dust. "The work was scheduled for loftier summertime," says Clark, "when everyone has their windows wide open. On summit of the grit, at that place'southward the constant loud scouring noise the tools make."

Heat Pigment Remover & Chemical Strippers

Heat and chemical strippers were also given a try. The large downside of nearly estrus methods is the risk of fire. "Whatever stripping contractor tin tell you a story he'south heard of a house burning down," says Clark. "A crew finishes at the cease of the day, there's an ember nether a dry clapboard...side by side morning time, ashes."

Chemicals are less straightforward because of the different types. The old standard, methylene chloride, is effective but very nasty stuff. Also on the market are some "environmentally friendly" strippers, some of which work better than others. "It's unfortunate," Clark says, "but it seems that the least caustic chemicals are the slowest, and some of the orange-based products I've tried don't actually work well."

Burning
(heat plate or heat gun)
Pros: Relatively fast, thorough, and inexpensive (no chemicals to buy).
Cons: Can release some atomic number 82 forth with fume, so a respirator is recommended. Biggest danger, though, is fire (oftentimes delayed when an ember under a clapboard ignites).

Photo by Keller & Keller

Final Choice: RemovAll Chemical Stripper

Ultimately, the product that won the day at Winchester was a water-based chemical stripper called RemovAll. It doesn't try to dissolve the paint equally other chemic strippers practise just instead breaks the bond between pigment and substrate.

Clark adds, "The best thing almost the product, as far as my crew and I are concerned, is that it's nontoxic. No gloves, HEPA filter masks or respirators, no rubber spectacles. Spray information technology on in the late afternoon, let information technology sit overnight, and by morning the paint comes off in sort of rubbery sheets. We scraped information technology off easily with long-handled, iii-inch-wide putty knives."

Well-nigh areas of the building took 2 coats of the stripper—not surprising because the multiple layers of pigment. The price of the RemovAll—most twice that of methylene chloride —was, Clark feels, outweighed past its ecology benefits.

As luck would have it, when the firm was iii-quarters finished, Clark was shown a revolutionary tool that may change his mind near how he strips paint from here on. It uses infrared rays to estrus up the substrate behind the paint, totally loosening its bond to forest or metal.

Silent Paint Remover

"The Silent Paint Remover" heats to a maximum temperature of only 500°F—well below wood'south immolation bespeak. "Concur information technology over an surface area for xx to 30 seconds, requite information technology a quick scrape, and all the paint layers come off down to the bare wood. It's lightning fast," said Clark. "We'll use it on the front of the firm and the garage."

As with all stripping methods that involve scraping downwardly to blank wood, some sanding is necessary earlier the showtime coat of primer goes on. "Scrapers have a tendency to brighten the wood, making it likewise smooth and shiny to take paint," says Clark. "We e'er hit all the surfaces with a random-orbit sander and fourscore-grit paper to get proficient tooth for that first coat of primer."

Infrared heat
Pros: Very fast (nigh 20-thirty seconds exposure); low operating temperature won't ignite wood; removes all pigment with one laissez passer. Requires no mask, gloves, or goggles; cheap to operate (no chemicals to buy).
Cons: Non yet widely available; $395 initial toll.

Photo by Keller & Keller

How to Choose Exterior Paint Colors for Your House

While the outside pigment was stripped, homeowners Kim Whittemore and Bruce Leasure searched for new, historically accurate colors for their Colonial Revival dwelling. Kim consulted a book past Roger Moss called Paint in America: The Colors of Celebrated American Buildings (Preservation Press, 1994; Amazon). Information technology's arranged by house periods, with each department showing advisable colors for an era. "Information technology's like one of those 'idiot's guides' to any," she says. "I flipped to Colonial Revival, and there were lots of interesting choices."

Bruce and Kim narrowed the range to four color families: dejection, grays, taupes, and greens. Armed with preliminary picks, they hit the streets of their neighborhood. "We didn't want to match, and we didn't want to disharmonism with, any of the houses effectually usa," Kim says.

TOH master carpenter Norm Abram had this to offer: "Once a pigment is on the building, it looks several shades lighter and brighter than what's on the postage-stamp-size chip you get at the paint store." The all-time fashion to gauge true colors is to invest in quarts of the shades you're considering, paint part of the building with each, then stand back and look.

Later on a trip to the local pigment store, Kim painted test swatches of seven colors for clapboards and five for trim. "Information technology came downwards to a final selection betwixt stone grayness for the body with foam-colored trim, or a dark-green-gray with dark, bottle-dark-green trim," she says.

Jim Clark helped with the last decision, painting a section of clapboard and window and shutter with each combination. "In the end, we chose the dark-green-grayness for the clapboards, cream for the trim, and dark greenish for the shutters," says Kim. "It was a lot of piece of work, but y'all know, it took us a while to detect the right house. Why wouldn't it take at least as long to find the right colors?"

Pare-Away
(available in different formulas, depending on paint type)
Pros: More often than not quick to apply and nonflammable. Tin exist sprayed or brushed on. Virtually dissolved pigment adheres to proprietary paper, which is peeled off.
Cons: Mixed results, frequently requiring second application; newspaper is extra hassle.

Photo by Keller & Keller

Where to Find Information technology

Paint contractor

Jim Clark

Clark Painting

Sudsbury, MA

978-443-5091

Paint strippers

RemovAll

Napier Environmental Technologies

Delta, BC, Canada

800-663-9274

Skin Away Pigment Removal Systems

Dumond Chemicals Inc.

New York, NY

212-869-6350

Massachusetts DEP guidance for residential lead disposal

"Getting the Atomic number 82 Out" fact sheet

Infrared paint stripper

Silent Paint Remover

IMG/Viking Sales

Pittsford, NY

585-383-0740

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Source: https://www.thisoldhouse.com/winchester-house/21014958/how-to-strip-years-of-paint-off-a-house

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