How To Repair Split Wood House Exterior

Guide or Instruction

Repairing Wood Siding on Your Historic Edifice

Repairing Wood Siding on Your Historic Edifice | Wisconsin Historical Lodge

If your historic house or building has forest siding, you are probable to find small cracks and splits in the wood. Yous should repair these cracks and splits when you find them to prevent pelting water from seeping into the areas behind the siding boards. Rain water that seeps into these spaces tin can cause more extensive impairment and forest rot.

Evaluate the Damage

Your first step to repair damaged wood siding is to evaluate the extent of the damage. Brand a point each spring to closely inspect your exterior forest siding for cracks and splits in the wood. Horizontally laid clapboard siding, driblet siding and wood shingles will occasionally split or crack along the wood grain lines. This can besides happen to vertically laid lath and batten siding. Your approach to repairs will depend on the size of each crevice or carve up:

For cracks and splits with less than a one/16-inch gap, follow the instructions below to fill in the gaps.
For boards or shingles with splits wider than 1/16 inch, you lot'll need to supplant the damaged piece of wood. Run across the "Learn More" section below for more than information.

Choose an Appropriate Repair Cloth

You can repair woods siding cracks and splits with less than a ane/16-inch gap by filling in the gaps with an appropriate woods filler. Many dissimilar wood fillers are commercially bachelor, but you should never use a filler that cures difficult to repair small cracks or splits. Never use architectural epoxies, auto torso fillers or any interior-form fillers on cracked or split up siding. Epoxies work well for rotted wood or forest with larger holes, only not for cracked or divide forest siding. As the forest siding contracts and expands from moisture requite-and-take, the hardened filler will pop out.

Flexible caulk is the best product to apply on croaky or dissever siding, only not but any caulk will work. Although standard acrylic latex caulk is very flexible, information technology is too shiny to use every bit a filler for wood grain splits. Nearly wood siding has some texture to it, and the most common siding pigment is apartment, with little to no gloss.

The best caulk to use is a water-based caulk designed for use in wet surface area tile installations. These caulks come in a broad multifariousness of colors and are applied like whatever other caulk. Water-based tile caulks are flexible, sticky and available in either a sanded or unsanded diverseness. You should utilise the unsanded variety, because a sanded caulk really contains sand, which gives the caulk too much texture.

Get together Your Tools and Supplies

To repair cracked or separate wood siding, yous'll need the post-obit tools and supplies:

100 grit sandpaper
Alkyd oil based primer
Small-scale artist'due south brush
Blue or green painter'southward record
H2o-based tile caulk
Caulking gun
Putty knife

Source: Bob Yapp

When the caulk has cured (about 24 hours), remove the painter's tape, prime the caulk with alkyd oil and utilize two topcoats of paint to friction match the painted siding.