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Treating your wooden gates

Like all exterior joinery, our wooden gates and garage doors need protecting from the extremes of the British climate, if they are to last for many years. There are many types of treatments available from paints to stains and oils.

If you decide to oil your wooden gates or doors then be aware that you could end up having to regularly apply additional coats of oil every 2-3 months to keep the timber in tip-top condition.

Keep your wooden gates and garage doors in prime condition with microporous paints or stains

Of paints, steer away from ranch or fence paint as these are quite often made solely for rough sawn timber and will not adequately protect smooth planed timber. Gloss paints used to be the most common choice, but the main drawback with these products is that if water does penetrate the paintwork, then it won’t be able to escape; if you’ve ever gone to repaint a window or similar that was previously coated in a gloss paint and found a paint shell on the exterior with rotten timber beneath it, then this is basically moisture that has gained access to the timber and not been able to be released.

Our recommendations are microporous or moisture vapour permeable paints and stains; this basically means the paint or stains will allow the timber to breathe, stopping any moisture from entering the timber, whilst releasing any moisture already present. A good quality microporous paint or stain will also contain a UV (ultra violet) filter, to help protect against damage caused to the timber by sunlight. Amongst the many makes and brands available, our favoured is Sikkens, which we have over thirty years’ experience of using. If used correctly, and according to the manufacturers instructions, you could get up to three years’ usage before having to recoat your wooden gates or garage doors.

Tags: DIY, Joinery, Painting, Woodwork

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 25th, 2009 at 12:27 and is filed under Tips and tricks, Wooden gates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “Treating your wooden gates”

  1. Dan Says:

    July 20th, 2009 at 19:29

    Interesting that you use vapor permeable paints and that it stops moisture from entering the timber.

    I’m more familiar with using first a sealer and then something like a polyurethane topcoat to basically block out moisture and dirt. I’ve never considered allowing the timber to “breathe.”

    http://www.gardenwoodgates.com/category/wood-gate-articles/wooden-gates-applying-a-final-coat/

    I wonder if it’s because of the type of wood you are using? I’m using mahogany.

    Dan

  2. JWC Says:

    July 21st, 2009 at 12:51

    If you’ve totally sealed the timber and moisture does gain access (through a scrape in the coating of sealer), then the moisture has nowhere to go. Using a micro-porous or moisture vapour permable product any moisture that manages to get into the timber will be released.

    We do use Mahogany from time to time and treat it exactly the same way as mentioned in the article above.

  3. Ashley Says:

    September 8th, 2010 at 18:57

    hey, nice blog…really like it and added to bookmarks. keep up with good work

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