Painting the Farm and City Home 



627 



are thin enough to be applied easily to 

 rough wood, and they impart color 

 without glossiness and without seri- 

 ously obscuring the rough texture of 

 the surface. A preservative, such as 

 creosote or a pale distillate from creo- 

 sote, is often added to shingle stain. 



Although paint prevents the weath- 

 ering of wood, paint cannot be relied 

 on to prevent decay. Decay comes from 

 the action of fungi on damp wood. 

 Nearly always it starts on unpainted 

 concealed surfaces and it continues 

 usually well within the wood at a dis- 

 tance from the painted surface. Paint, 

 in fact, even hastens decay if water 

 enters the wood at unpainted joints or 

 concealed faces and can only dry out 

 through the painted surfaces. The 

 paint then slows the drying and keeps 

 the wood damp longer. Decay in build- 

 ings is prevented chiefly by taking care 

 that masonry or other rot-resistant ma- 

 terial is used for all contacts with damp 

 ground or other continuing source of 

 moisture and by seeing that all wood- 

 work will either remain dry or dry out 

 promptly after it is exposed to water 

 for a short time. If wood must be used 

 in damp places, it should be the heart- 

 wood only of naturally durable woods 

 or wood that has been thoroughly im- 

 pregnated with wood preservative. 



A PAINTING PROGRAM should be 



planned before a house is finished 

 once it has been decided to build with 

 smooth surfaced woodwork. 



The principal items in a painting 

 program are a suitable kind of paint, 

 a reasonable schedule for repainting, 

 and the proper amount of paint to be 

 applied at each painting. 



The ideal program is one of repair 

 and renewal of coatings before they 

 break up badly enough to require re- 

 placement. Over-all economy comes 

 from anticipating and forestalling seri- 

 ous failures. Too often paint mainte- 

 nance is left entirely unplanned, and 

 each job is done on the spur of the 

 moment, perhaps after the coating has 

 come loose. The cost of repainting is 

 therefore higher and one is prone to 



malign paint as being less predictable 

 in performance than almost anything 

 else about the house. 



The most popular color for homes is 

 white. Most wood homes are small and 

 need the emphasis of white or a light 

 color. For white paint of good quality, 

 properly applied, the reasonable sched- 

 ule of maintenance calls for repainting 

 every 4 or 5 years. On some woods that 

 are more difficult than others to paint 

 well, special care is needed to meet that 

 schedule. 



As I described in Wood Properties 

 and Paint Durability, Miscellaneous 

 Publication No. 629 of the Department 

 of Agriculture, the heavier softwoods, 

 like southern yellow pine and Douglas- 

 fir, need a carefully chosen priming 

 paint the first time the wood is painted. 

 Aluminum house paint is the best prim- 

 ing paint for the purpose. One should 

 be sure, however, that it is aluminum 

 house paint, not aluminum paint for 

 some other purpose. Two coats of white 

 paint, or paint of light color, are then 

 needed over the aluminum paint. If 

 the coating is then maintained by re- 

 painting before it wears away too 

 badly, the aluminum paint need not be 

 used again. Next best to aluminum 

 house paint for priming the heavier 

 softwoods are the modern house-paint 

 primers that contain no zinc oxide and 

 that have the property commonly 

 called "controlled penetration." Most 

 dealers in house paint now sell such 

 primers. 



White is popular although it is less 

 durable than good paints of other col- 

 ors. Paints of colors like cream, light 

 yellow, light gray, buff, and tan, that 

 are light enough to have much the 

 same accentuating effect as white, will 

 last a year or so longer than white paint 

 and thus fit a schedule of repainting 

 every 5 or 6 years. Such light colors, 

 called tints, are made by adding very 

 small proportions (usually less than 5 

 percent by weight) of colored pig- 

 ments to a white paint. The added 

 durability is remarkably great for such 

 a slight difference in composition. 



Still greater durability, one that 



