Peeling Paint On Redwood Siding: What To Do?

I've seen it happen at countless houses, and now it's happened to me... my paint is peeling (again).  I have a Minneapolis home that was built in 1939 with redwood siding, and I can't get the paint to stay on.  I've tried almost everything and nothing has worked so far.  The photo below shows what my siding looks like today.



I'm not a paint expert, but I think I've figured out why my paint keeps peeling.

I first painted my house during the summer of 2004, and the paint began to crack the very next year.  By 2007 it was peeling so much that I had to re-paint.  I had a good friend help me with the project, and we felt like we pulled out all the stops and spared no expense to make sure the paint wouldn't peel again.  This project consumed a huge portion of our summer - we spent so much time working on my house that summer that the 'Google Streets' view of my house even caught us in action.



Here's what we did during the summer of 2007:

• Scraped with carbide paint scrapers.  We scraped the existing paint all the way down to the wood in many areas.
• Sanded a good portion of the siding, especially at the front.
• Washed the siding with Trisodium Phosphate (TSP).
• Tested the siding in many areas with a moisture meter to verify that the wood was bone-dry before proceeding.
•  Primed the siding with Peel Bond, an expensive primer that has the consistency of runny glue.  This stuff was supposed to be the greatest primer ever... maybe it is, but it still wasn't enough.
• Painted with Hirschfield's Platinum Exterior paint.  My friend assured me that it's top-of-the-line stuff.

So here I am, not even three years later, and the paint is cracking and peeling all over again.  It's worst at the east side, but it's still peeling everywhere else.  Some rooms in my house have vapor barriers on the inside walls and some don't, but it doesn't make a bit of difference to the paint.  It peels off the same.  Both the original paint is peeling, and the new paint as well.


So what now?


My suspicion is that with so many layers of paint, the house walls have basically become 'sealed'.  Instead of the siding being able to 'breath', where moisture can escape between the laps of the siding, the laps have been completely sealed shut with layer after layer of paint.  In the areas where there is still a gap between the layers of siding, the paint still looks perfect - not even a hint of a crack or a flake.



I've been told that the fix for this is to install siding shims - small wedges that would ensure a small air gap at every lap.  I would need to install these every sixteen inches at every piece of siding.  This should fix the peeling paint, but it might also allow bugs to use my siding as their home.

Bad times.

If you're having problems similar to mine, check for an air space between the laps of siding.  Let me know what you find.


Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections - Email - Minneapolis Home Inspector

    

Four Common Water Heater Installation Defects

Gas water heaters are a lot like decks, in the sense that most handymen feel qualified to install one.  Thanks to these handymen, I find more installation defects on these two items than just about any other component in the home, and today I'm going to share my list of the most common gas water heater installation defects.

Improper Discharge Pipe

If the water heater were to malfunction and the burner just kept heating the tank, the water heater tank could would eventually rupture, turning the water heater in to a missile.  Mythbusters did a great re-creation of this - click hereto see quick video of it.

To prevent this from happening, a valve is installed on the water heater which is set to go off at 150 psi, or 210 degrees Fahrenheit.  This valve is called the temperature and pressure relief valve.  To prevent this valve from shooting scalding hot water or steam in to someone's face, the Minnesota State Plumbing Code (Section 4715.2210) requires a discharge pipe to be attached to this valve.  A few requirements for this pipe are as follows:

• Must be full sized.  This almost always means it must be a 3/4" pipe.  
• Must terminate within 18" of the floor (6" for the rest of the country - we're special here in Minnesota).
• Must not be threaded or capped at the end.  If it were threaded at the end and the valve started leaking, some dope might screw a cap on the end, thus disabling it.
• In some jurisdictions, such as Minneapolis, only metal is allowed.

This seems like a really easy thing to get right, but experience has told me that it definitely isn't.

Improper Gas Piping

The installation requirements for the gas piping that leads to water heaters is the same as that for just about any other gas appliance, but again, I find the most problems at water heaters.

• There must be an approved gas valve installed within three feet of the water heater.
• There must be a way to disconnect the gas piping to the water heater after the valve.  This could be through the use of an appliance connector or a union.
• There must be a sediment trap installed just before the water heater.

Improper Water Piping

• The water supply pipes must be at least 3/4".
• Only metal pipes are allowed within the first 18" of the tank.
• There must be a shutoff valve installed on the cold water supply pipe that feeds the water heater.  Note:  a common myth among home inspectors is that there should never be a valve on the hot water side... but this is perfectly acceptable.
• Flexible water supply connectors are prohibited in Minnesota.  

Improper Venting

• The vent connector must have three screws at every joint.
• For a single-wall vent, six inches of clearance must be maintained to any combustible surface, such as wood or drywall.  For a double-wall vent (B-vent), the clearance can be reduced down to one inch.  
• The vent must pitch upwards with a minimum slope of 1/4" per foot. This is a minimum requirement - just following this requirement does not mean the water heater will draft properly, but it's a start.
• For a powervent water heater, the manufacturer's installation instructions must be followed: they all use the diagram below for the vent termination location.  

That wraps up my list of the most common installation defects.  This is by no means an all-inclusive list of the requirements for a water heater installation, but it probably covers 95% of the installation defects that I find during home inspections in the Twin Cities.  For Minneapolis Truth In Housing evaluations, any installation that is three years old or less must be completely up to code; failure to follow any of these requirements would require repair.




Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections - Email - Home Inspector Twin Cities

    

Egress Window Requirements - A Quick Quiz

One of the most common questions I get from clients that I do Truth in Housing inspections for is about egress windows - specifically, "What's wrong with my window size?"  If you live in an older home, there's a good chance that none of your windows meet today's egress requirements.  Try this simple quiz below - which of these windows meet today's egress requirements?
A.

B.

C.

D.

E.

To properly answer this question, you would really need more information that just a photo - you would also need to know how tall and wide the window opening is, how high the window is off the floor, and how close the window is to the exterior grade.   For proper egress, windows must open at least 24" high, 20" wide, and have a net openable area of 5.7 square feet.  That's a large window!  This means that if a window only meets the minimum height and width requirements, the net openable area will only be 3.33 square feet (24x20 =  480.  480 / 144 = 3.33).  If a window opens 24" high, it would need to be 34.2" wide to meet the minimum opening requirement.   Besides the opening requirement, the window also needs to be within 44" of the floor.  Below is an excellent diagram that illustrates two different windows that both meet the minimum requirements.

Egress Window Requirements

Quiz Results
The only window that met egress requirements was the last one, F. 

• 'A' had a net openable area less that 5.7 sf.   
• 'B' was too high above the floor, had less than 5.7 sf of net openable area, and was less than 24" high.  
• 'C' was less than 5.7 sf.  
• 'D' was slightly more than 44" above the floor.

Why do some people label only a basement room with a tiny window a 'non-conforming' bedroom, while often none of the windows in the home meet egress?  It's because they don't know better.  Just for the record, there are several more requirements for a window to meet egress, and there are several ways for smaller windows to be 'conforming', but the details get... quite detailed.  Also, today's building code no longer uses the term 'egress window' - they're more broadly categorized as Emergency Escape and Rescue Openings.  As always, please feel free to email me with any specific questions.

RELATED POSTS:
Non-Conforming Bedroom?  How About 'Not A Bedroom'?
Bedrooms Don't Need Closets


Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections - Email - Twin Cities Home Inspector