Best Way to Remove Peeling Paint From House

To penetrate and remove the 10 layers of pigment on the siding and trim at the Winchester project, painting contractor Jim Clark (shown here) and his crew used a newly developed, not-caustic stripper that breaks the bond between paint and wood. Before choosing their approach, they considered several methods, detailed in the following slides.

Photograph by Keller & Keller

From a distance, the firm in Winchester, Mass., site of the 2002 This Erstwhile House Boob tube project, was a picture of yellow siding and white trim. Closer inspection revealed a craggy clapboard landscape of cracks, chips, and flakes where 10 coats of pigment, applied during the 80-year life of the firm, were failing by degrees.

"The clapboards are cypress, I call up—a full 10 inches broad and 7/8 inches thick at the butt," said TOH general contractor Tom Silva. "Beautiful forest in great condition, except that it won't hold any more paint."

Painting contractor Jim Clark concurred: "We could feather out the failed areas with scrapers and sandpaper before priming and superlative coating, merely a year after we finish, the flaking and chipping could commencement again. So all the pigment has to go. That means a lot of work, but when we're finished, nosotros'll accept a baby-shine surface that will hold nice, even coats of paint for a long futurity."

Lead Paint in Homes

Stripping paint from any house congenital before 1978 raises the question of atomic number 82. Given the number of coats on the Winchester house, Clark had no doubt virtually the presence of the heavy metal. In the by, scraping atomic number 82 pigment required hiring a licensed—and costly—abatement contractor to remove and dispose of the lead-laced paint.

But that changed in Massachusetts in 2001, according to Jim Roberts, an ecology annotator with the country's Department of Ecology Protection: "Massachusetts adopted federal Environmental Protection Bureau guidelines that reclassify lead paint residuum from a residence as household waste. The idea is that if it is easier for homeowners to dispose of lead, they will be more probable to remove information technology from their homes."

For Clark and coiffure, information technology meant that they could do the work—if they took the mandated safety precautions—and that all the paint they removed from the house could merely exist bagged up and chucked into the trash.

Grinding
(power sanding disk or clapboard sander)
Pros: Fast, efficient, leaves no residue on surface; relatively inexpensive (no chemicals to purchase).
Cons: Only works on non patterned siding like clapboards. In inexperienced hands, tin scar forest. Noisy; creates airborne dust that'southward a pb concern and requires a HEPA-filter mask. Some states require vacuum connection.

Photo by Keller and Keller

Pigment Stripping Methods

There are three basic methods for stripping paint—grinding, applying heat, and using chemicals. All of them are hard work because the same binders that cause pigment to adhere brand information technology hard to remove. Clark and his crew considered using several different methods on the Winchester siding before making a final option. As the paradigm slides in this commodity reveal, all these approaches have advantages and disadvantages. Merely every pigment-stripping job is a little different, and by experience, forth with some empirical testing, helped Clark decide what would work all-time for the Winchester house.

Grinder Paint Removal

For instance, grinding—using power sanding disks or clapboard sanders—is very efficient on siding that's in skilful shape, but information technology generates lead-laden dust. Although the tools tin be fitted with a vacuum hose, the last thing Clark wanted, in a cheek-to-jowl neighborhood like Winchester, was to release whatsoever atomic number 82-contaminated dust. "The piece of work was scheduled for high summer," says Clark, "when anybody has their windows broad open. On top of the dust, there'southward the constant loud scouring racket the tools brand."

Heat Paint Remover & Chemical Strippers

Heat and chemical strippers were besides given a try. The big downside of near heat methods is the risk of fire. "Any stripping contractor can tell you a story he's heard of a firm burning downwardly," says Clark. "A coiffure finishes at the finish of the day, there's an ember under a dry clapboard...next morning, ashes."

Chemicals are less straightforward because of the different types. The former standard, methylene chloride, is constructive but very nasty stuff. As well on the market place are some "environmentally friendly" strippers, some of which work meliorate than others. "Information technology'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 really work well."

Called-for
(estrus plate or oestrus gun)
Pros: Relatively fast, thorough, and inexpensive (no chemicals to buy).
Cons: Can release some lead along with smoke, then a respirator is recommended. Biggest danger, though, is fire (often delayed when an ember under a clapboard ignites).

Photo by Keller & Keller

Terminal Choice: RemovAll Chemical Stripper

Ultimately, the production that won the day at Winchester was a water-based chemic stripper called RemovAll. It doesn't attempt to dissolve the paint as other chemical strippers exercise but instead breaks the bail betwixt paint and substrate.

Clark adds, "The all-time thing about the product, as far as my crew and I are concerned, is that information technology's nontoxic. No gloves, HEPA filter masks or respirators, no safety spectacles. Spray it on in the late afternoon, let it sit overnight, and by morn the paint comes off in sort of rubbery sheets. Nosotros scraped information technology off hands with long-handled, iii-inch-broad putty knives."

Most areas of the edifice took two coats of the stripper—not surprising considering the multiple layers of paint. The toll of the RemovAll—virtually twice that of methylene chloride —was, Clark feels, outweighed by its environmental benefits.

Equally luck would have it, when the house was three-quarters finished, Clark was shown a revolutionary tool that may modify his mind about how he strips paint from here on. Information technology uses infrared rays to heat upward the substrate behind the paint, totally loosening its bond to wood or metal.

Silent Paint Remover

"The Silent Paint Remover" heats to a maximum temperature of simply 500°F—well below forest'due south immolation indicate. "Hold it over an area for xx to thirty seconds, give information technology a quick scrape, and all the paint layers come off downward to the bare forest. It'southward lightning fast," said Clark. "Nosotros'll utilise it on the front of the firm and the garage."

As with all stripping methods that involve scraping down to blank wood, some sanding is necessary earlier the kickoff glaze of primer goes on. "Scrapers accept a trend to burnish the woods, making it likewise shine and shiny to take paint," says Clark. "Nosotros always striking all the surfaces with a random-orbit sander and eighty-grit paper to get practiced tooth for that first glaze of primer."

Infrared heat
Pros: Very fast (almost 20-30 seconds exposure); low operating temperature won't ignite wood; removes all paint with i pass. Requires no mask, gloves, or goggles; cheap to operate (no chemicals to buy).
Cons: Not nevertheless widely available; $395 initial cost.

Photo by Keller & Keller

How to Cull Outside Paint Colors for Your Firm

While the exterior paint was stripped, homeowners Kim Whittemore and Bruce Leasure searched for new, historically accurate colors for their Colonial Revival home. Kim consulted a volume by Roger Moss called Pigment in America: The Colors of Celebrated American Buildings (Preservation Press, 1994; Amazon). It's arranged past house periods, with each department showing appropriate colors for an era. "It'southward like i of those 'idiot's guides' to whatever," she says. "I flipped to Colonial Revival, and in that location were lots of interesting choices."

Bruce and Kim narrowed the range to four color families: blues, 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, whatsoever of the houses around u.s.a.," Kim says.

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

Afterward a trip to the local paint store, Kim painted test swatches of seven colors for clapboards and five for trim. "Information technology came downwards to a final pick between stone gray for the torso with foam-colored trim, or a greenish-grayness with nighttime, bottle-dark-green trim," she says.

Jim Clark helped with the final decision, painting a section of clapboard and window and shutter with each combination. "In the end, we chose the green-grayness for the clapboards, foam for the trim, and dark light-green for the shutters," says Kim. "It was a lot of work, simply you know, it took us a while to discover the right house. Why wouldn't it take at least as long to find the correct colors?"

Peel-Away
(available in different formulas, depending on paint type)
Pros: More often than not quick to use and nonflammable. Tin can be sprayed or brushed on. Most dissolved paint adheres to proprietary paper, which is peeled off.
Cons: Mixed results, often requiring 2d awarding; paper is extra hassle.

Photo by Keller & Keller

Where to Find It

Paint contractor

Jim Clark

Clark Painting

Sudsbury, MA

978-443-5091

Paint strippers

RemovAll

Napier Environmental Technologies

Delta, BC, Canada

800-663-9274

Peel Away Paint 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

woodsonsgived.blogspot.com

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

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