Monday, September 19, 2011

Side Work


Or better, siding work.
I've taken most of the summer to work on smaller projects inside the house, but now that Fall is here, it's time to get back to big projects.  And yes, I will put up interior pictures one of these days.

The siding on our house is in really bad shape.  Some of it is rotted, some of it is original, some is replacement MDO.  The biggest issue, besides the rot, is that a lot of the siding was hacked up by the former owners, who retrofit small AC units, originally designed as window units, and made them built in by simply cutting a hole in the wall.

On Friday, I took delivery of 40 sheets of Breckenridge siding from Jeff Nichols and on Sunday I began the process of priming the boards.  Jeff sells both MDO (think plywood with a wood grain facing) or MDO (think fiberboard and glued plywood.)  I chose the Breckenridge because it's the closest of the two to real wood.  The cost is just under $100/sheet for a 4x9 sheet, so a little over $4k just in materials.  Add to that primer, nails/screws, and you get the idea of why contractors charge around $400/sheet installed.

My first challenge was to decide on latex vs oil primer.  This being California, it's not that easy to find oil-based paint, but Home Depot and Ace sell a Zinsser product called Cover Stain.  I thought it would be good to have some oil in the siding, since it's going to soak right into the wood.  I bought a 5 gal pail and a 3/4" nap roller, and set to work.

About 5 minutes in, I called my buddy Hunter:
"Hey - this siding.  How do you get primer in the grooves?  Don't tell me you have to brush them."
"Yes, we brushed and rolled."

Arg.  I didn't like that answer, so later that day, I went looking for a coarser nap roller.  Found one at Ace, 1 1/4" or something ridiculous like that (HD has one too).  It works, but you still have to push really hard on the roller, which makes the sleeve come off the end of the roller, so it's a bit of an Abbott and Costello routine.  I later found a better roller at HD made by Wooster which has a clip on the end preventing the sleeve from rolling off ever 30 seconds.

Oh, the oil based primer.  It stinks to high heaven.  It's not as bad as working with BIN or Kilz, but it's still pretty strong.  I used the entire 5 gal pail on the 10 sheets, so I'm going to switch to Zinsser 123 for the next 10 sheets, and see how they compare.

Midweek update: switched to 123 for the second batch, seems to work just as well and smells far better.
Priming these flat is definitely the way to go.