Most often, while I am attending a painting estimate on an exterior for a home owner, I find rotted wood.  There are a couple of contributing factors as to why this is the case.  Some include too much time elapsing between paint jobs on the home, the previous paint job was poorly completed or the preparatory work from the previous painter was insufficient.

One of the greatest strengths of GreenWay Painting is our ability to replace most types of rotted wood.  If we are replacing wood with wood, we prime all sides of the wood before installation, we completely caulk and putty the appropriate joints and finally we use a product called Stampede [from Sherwin Williams] or NP1 [from Porter Paints] to caulk the wood to the adjoining concrete or brick.  These durable, oil-based caulks ensure that not one drop of water penetrates behind the wood again.  Another scenario involves replacing wood with plastic.  In this case, we caulk and putty the appropriate joints and use the Stampede or NP1 if necessary.  The benefit of plastic is that it can give the appearance of wood and once it’s painted, it never rots!

If you are concerned about possibility of rotted wood on your home, you can check for it yourself.  Here’s how: Look at the bottom of all your exterior door frames, window sills [if they are wood], and soffits.   If the wood is soft, if you can push your finger through it or if the structure is missing some wood and it looks deformed, chances are you have a rotted wood problem.

The Rotted Wood Factor