Do You Need To Paint Pressure Treated Wood

The short reply is yes, you can stain or paint pressure treated woods, but it has some important restrictions you demand to know first. This is not similar painting regular lumber, so yous should know beforehand that it will require some additional steps.

If you paint pressure treated wood with the wrong materials or more than importantly too presently you lot will have a peeling paint disaster under the best circumstances.

So, let'southward get into the specifics of how to paint pressure treated wood the right style.

Make Certain It's Dry

First on this list is allowing the woods to completely dry out. Touching it will let you know if information technology'southward dry plenty for the h2o exam, which involves spilling some water over the wood's surface. If the h2o beads up on the surface, the wood hasn't yet dried and you still need to await.

Many factors tin influence how quickly or slowly treated wood dries. Putting it in a warm, sunny spot will help just may also cause unwanted warp. As well, keeping lumber in dark and damp conditions can impede the process. You tin can generally count on force per unit area treated forest to dry out naturally within a couple months, but sometimes, the process can take longer in cool damp locations.

To be absolutely certain you can use a moisture meter to check the wet content of the woods. You should expect until you get a reading below about 14%.

Outset With Washing

Yous might take already guessed that working with treated wood requires some patience. Once information technology does laissez passer your h2o test, you're set to move forrard. But don't booty out your painter's whites and paintbrush but nevertheless, you must make clean the wood first.

Soapy h2o and a strong brush will eliminate clay and crud that accumulate on the surface. They also remove chemicals and then the primer and paint can properly adhere. I recommend against a strong pressure washer because it can tear up the wood and force water deep into thee wood fibers slowing downwardly drying fifty-fifty more.

When clean, the wood needs to dry…once more (I know!). This may, as before, take several weeks because you're adding more liquid on top of the chemicals already applied. The wood is set when it absorbs the water you drop during your test.

Special Note

If you're working on a project with a borderline, such as a backyard deck, y'all may want to go for force per unit area treated forest that'due south been kiln-dried. This significantly reduces your work time by eliminating the demand for lengthy drying.

Prime Before You lot Paint

If you were paying attention earlier, yous might have noted nosotros said prime andpaint. Unfinished wood needs to be primed before y'all utilize paint or stain. Thanks to the high content of solids, primer creates the smooth surface necessary for the paint to hands glide. It also forms a protective barrier; woods ordinarily soak up lots of paint, which can hateful more piece of work – and more than expense – that tin can otherwise be saved.

Your primer should match the paint you want to use: latex needs a stain-block latex or oil-based primer, while oil-based paint needs a stain-blocking oil-based primer.

Proceed in mind that primed wood is flexible plenty for either option. For aid in choosing the best primer check out this earlier post.

Time to Paint

With the primer dry, you can finally apply paint to your projection. It'due south best to plan on ii coats of the best quality paint yous can afford. And don't forget to let the paint thoroughly cure between coats. Re-coating as well soon can crusade adhesion problems.

If you lot are painting a deck it may exist worthwhile to await into using a deck stain rather than a paint. Fifty-fifty if you desire the appearance of a painted deck there are opaque stains that perform better on horizontal surfaces.

What Is Pressure Treated Wood?

Only in case you're wondering, I wanted to requite a brief rundown hither. Pressure-treating protects the wood against rot and fungus growth. The lumber is submerged into a drum of chemicals, where high pressure is practical to ensure the chemicals deeply penetrate. Cheque out this post to aid you choose the right kind of pressure level treated wood for more info.

Benefits of forest treated in this fashion include:

Increased durability
Insect resistance
Rot resistance

For your adjacent projection, opting for pressure level treated forest won't hinder your creative possibilities. This lumber tin can, with a few extra steps and fourth dimension, be painted just as non-treated wood. The do good is that it arrives to y'all already protected from things similar rot and fungus.

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I dear old houses, working with my easily, and pedagogy others the excitment of doing it yourself! Everything is teachable if y'all only give it the chance.