Dealing with rotting cedar siding

240sx4u

Some may have noticed, I am working on painting my house.

Well after MUCH scraping on the front of the house I have concern about some of the siding and may replace parts of it. Its either that or, use one of the rot products.

What are your guys thoughts here? Some of the rot isn't too bad, but in some spots the end of the board is so soft I can shove a screwdriver through it.

Is any spot that is darkly discolored rot? And if its shallow can I dig it out with a putty knife and fill with rot stopping product and outdoor filler?

Thanks guys, this site rocks.

Evan

Brik

Hmm - The rot will need to be removed. Best is to replace the boards with punky wood. Alternatively - You can cut out as much of the rot that is soft, use a wood hardener on what is left and then fill. You can use bondo for this. It will smooth and sand nicely. If you have a large area just replace the board. Use the bondo with wood hardener in small areas. Talked about this on one of our podcasts.
Check it out here http://www.handyguyspodcast.com/68/episode-11-a-step-up

240sx4u

Thanks Brik, I have measured and called for pricing on new cedar siding. I am going to replace the badly damaged stuff and clean out/fill/epoxy the small spots (spots smaller than a dime, or shallower than 1/16".

Great link to that article.

Evan

1655graff

Brik:

I've kinda discovered your steps through lots of google searches while trying to figure out how to repair the redwood walls of my enclosed patio, but with some questions:

1) What if you've already used "copper green" on the remaining/good wood? Will a wood hardener still work? ...and will Bondo still work?

2) How is Bondo better than Durham?

3) When the boards are near concrete, I also read to use deck waterproofer (oil or waterbased) up the first 12-18 inches, but I can't find out if that's before or after a shellac primer or a stain. Does that make sense? Is the shellac adding anything in either case? Does the stain penetrate the wood after the waterproofer?

4) Finally, i read that between beams/wood and concrete to slide in some flashing and caulk it. Is that overkill?