How to Strip Years of Paint Off a House

By: Jefferson Kolle, This Old House magazine (Page 4 of 5)

Photo: Keller & Keller

To penetrate and remove the 10 layers of paint on the siding and trim at the Winchester project, painting contractor Jim Clark (shown here) and his crew used a newly developed, non-caustic stripper that breaks the bond between paint and wood. Before choosing their approach, they considered several methods, detailed in the following slides.

Photo: Keller and Keller

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

Photo: Keller & Keller

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

Photo: Keller & Keller

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

Photo: Keller & Keller

Peel-Away
(available in different formulas, depending on paint type)
Pros: Generally quick to apply and nonflammable. Can be sprayed or brushed on. Most dissolved paint adheres to proprietary paper, which is peeled off.
Cons: Mixed results, often requiring second application; paper is extra hassle.

Photo: Keller & Keller

Methylene chloride-based chemical strippers
Pros: Very powerful and effective chemical. Sprayable or available as nonsagging gel that adheres to vertical surfaces.
Cons: Toxic—must be used with chemical-resistant gloves, respirator, and goggles. Requires ventilation indoors, and some formulations are flammable. Has also been classified by the EPA as a potential cause of cancer in humans.

Photo: Keller & Keller

RemovAll
Pros: Nontoxic-requires no gloves, mask, or goggles. Can be sprayed or brushed on and adheres well.
Cons: Slow-acting (one-hour minimum; best left on overnight); twice as expensive as methylene chloride.

Photo: Keller & Keller

RemovAll, developed in Canada to strip the finishes from jet planes, is sprayed onto the clapboards by crew foreman Volmar Oleivera. Painting contractor Jim Clark says, "If you're stripping your own house, buy an inexpensive airless sprayer from a home center. After you've sprayed all the stripper and removed all the paint, just clean the machine with water and you can use it again to paint the house."

Photo: Keller & Keller

Following the EPA's new guidelines, Massachusetts has reclassified residential lead-paint residue as household trash, which can be discarded with the rest of the rubbish. In the past, a licensed abatement contractor had to be called in. Check with your state's Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to see if similar laws apply in your area.

Photo: Keller & Keller

Homeowner Kim Whittemore shows the color candidates to TOH general contractor Tom Silva. Rather than relying on small paint color chips, buy small cans of colors being considered and paint swatches on the siding.

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How to Choose Exterior Paint Schemes

In this how-to video, This Old House host Kevin O'Connor uses computer software to help homeowners choose the perfect exterior paint colors

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Picking the New Palette

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 book by Roger Moss called Paint in America: The Colors of Historic American Buildings (Preservation Press, 1994). It's arranged by house periods, with each section showing appropriate colors for an era. "It's like one of those 'idiot's guides' to whatever," she says. "I flipped to Colonial Revival, and there 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 clash with, any of the houses around us," 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 get at the paint store." The best way to gauge true colors is to invest in quarts of the shades you're considering, paint part of the building with each, then stand back and look.

After a trip to the local paint store, Kim painted test swatches of seven colors for clapboards and five for trim. "It came down to a final choice between stone gray for the body with cream-colored trim, or a greenish-gray with dark, bottle-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-gray for the clapboards, cream for the trim, and dark green for the shutters," says Kim. "It was a lot of work, but you know, it took us a while to find the right house. Why wouldn't it take at least as long to find the right colors?"