Sheds, Fences & Exterior Treatments

I have a shed which is roughly 6m x 3 m and it’s in need of painting or treatment. I have done my fences in Ronseal forest green treatment and it is a lovely colour and brill, however when I’ve come to do the shed the paint soaks straight into the wood and in order to colour is and to notice the treatment on the wood I’m going to have to do around 5 coats.

Is there a paint out there which is going to not soak in or need 5 coats? cause with all due respect I can’t afford that much paint from them, is a paint better than a treatment? Or does it need something under the treatment first to stop it soaking in?

Please help, I’ve inherited a garden which was horrendous when I arrived and now this is the last bit to do as it’s such a big building it’s such an eyesore. If you can’t help can you point me to someone who can. Thank you so much, Ana

It sounds like the shed has been left untreated for years and, as a consequence, the timber has completely dried out?

As you have found, using a conventional wood stain treatment, the wood will just soak-up everything you throw at it.

Since you already have a finish colour in mind it’s likely you’ll fare better using an opaque finish with a higher solid content such as Cuprinol Garden Shades or Dulux Trade Quick Dry Opaque.

There are no exact colour matches to the Forest Green colour you wanted but there are a few options that are close.

If you are set on the colour and want to match your existing fence panels then Cuprinol do an alternative product called Ducks Back in the same shade, (I’m assuming you were using FenceLife before) with a higher pigment content. It’s not as good as the two alternatives above but a decent half-way solution.

Since you have already applied more than one coating to the wood you won’t need to use a primer.

We are having a log cabin built shortly but we are confused regarding the painting process. We had decided on Sadolin superdec opaque water based paint. However we have been advised that you should not use water based paint if you are using a knotting solution.

What would be the best solution as we do not want to leave the knots untreated. Any advice would be appreciated. Patrick

I haven’t used it but Ronseal Knot Block Wood Primer and Undercoat maybe a solution?

We have just had a single skin brick shed built and would like to paint the inside white to make it less of a black hole. I was going to go straight in with a smooth masonry paint but have found a tin of unopened stabilising solution in the garage and wondered if any sort of priming would be advisable for this application. Any advice and suggestions would be much appreciated, thank you. Kelly

Stabilising Solution, when to use it and when to not…

We have new timber shed and applied clear knotting to all the knots before applying Cuprinol external timber preservative in dark brown. Unfortunately the knotting is now grinning through very badly.

The preservative is water repellent- what, if anything, can we do to hide the knotting stains?

We are thinking the only solution would be to repaint the whole thing with something with more coverage. What would you recommend? Cora

Firstly, if the treatment you used was water based this could have an adverse reaction to the knotting. However, if the surface remains sound (other than the knotting showing through) you should be OK. It is more likely that the preservative has been absorbed into the wood, as it should, but not where you’ve applied the knotting.

As you suggest, the only way to cover up this error is with an opaque finish. There are various products on the market and I suggest you try a few tester pots rather than recommending a particular option which (because I am not armed with all the facts) may not work.

One tip I can give you is that if you get some of the previous colour staining through you’ll need to switch from a water to a solvent-based finish, or visa versa.

I am doing a canopy made of iroko. I painted the new wood with wood preserver and once dry I started to apply a white stain. I do not like the way the white stain is coming over the golden coloured iroko and thinking of painting with oil based paint. However I read that iroko, since full of natural oil requires some treatment first before it can take such paint. Reuben

I have no experience of painting iroko timber, to pretend I did would’t be doing you a service. Generally speaking though, timbers with a high resin content do cause problems with discoloration of subsequent coatings and this can be mitigated against with aluminium wood primer.

This isn’t a magic fix though since such primers are not moisture vapour permeable or very flexible and require frequent maintenance to keep in good order. In other words, you may need to repaint every couple of years or even less depending on how exposed this canopy is going to be.

You can stop the oak staining through with an oil or spirit-based primer. The problem you may encounter then is moisture seeping through and causing the paint to bubble and flake off.

No simple solution I’m afraid.

I have had some new garden benches built and they require to be treated/painted., I don’t think the wood is pre treated. Can I use dulux weather shield exterior paint for this or should I use like a decking paint? Josephine

It really depends what kind of finish you want? If it’s a traditional glossy finish, a Weathershield paint system may be ideal.

If you just want a solid colour finish without hiding the grain of the wood then an opaque wood stain such as Cuprinol Garden Shades would be better.