Make sure to Prime Clapboard Siding before Installing

Priming Wood Clapboards Extends their Life and Ensures a Longer Lasting Paint Job

By Mark J. Donovan

When installing clapboards on your home, or even making a clapboard repair patch, make sure to prime all sides of the clapboards before installing them. This includes the cut ends and the top and bottom edges of the clapboards. Yes, priming all the clapboard siding surfaces will increase the amount of time it takes to install the clapboards, but it will pay off in spades down the road. You’ll save a lot of money and time in the future by following this small but important tip.

By priming all six sides of the siding clapboard you’ll provide a moisture barrier to all sides of the wood.

Consequently, you will be protecting the clapboard wood from moisture penetration, and as a result, extending the life of the clapboards. It is important to note that even the non-exposed back surfaces of the clapboards can absorb moisture and humidity. So just priming the exposed and cut-end surfaces is not good enough.

Once moisture or humidity gets absorbed into the un-primed wood surfaces it will effectively rot the wood from the inside out over time. It will also cause the primer and paint on the exterior exposed surfaces of the clapboard to peel away in a relatively short period of time. As a result, you’ll need to scrape and repaint the clapboards. And because the moisture will still have a conduit into the un-primed backside of the clapboards you’ll have to repeat the scraping and painting on a regular basis.

So save yourself a hefty amount of time and money down the road by spending the extra time up front priming all sides of your to-be-installed wood clapboards.

Patching Wood Siding Ebook – If you require detailed instructions and pictures for patching wood siding see HomeAdditionPlus.com’s Patching Wood Siding Ebook. This Ebook provides very detailed instructions, along with pictures for each key step in the process of patching wood siding.

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