In Spring 2012 our painters and decorators at HarriDec Ltd were fortunate enough to be awarded the contract for the exterior painting and decorating of this beautiful property in Chelmsford, Essex.
The couple that occupied the property in Chelmsford with their two children had lived there for three years and had had a lot of work done to the inside of the house in that time. However, aside from the magnificent orangery that had been erected at the rear elevation, little work had been done externally.
The thirty seven striking sash windows and doors that were scattered around the house, quite frankly, had seen better days and we estimated that the exterior joinery hadn’t been painted for around ten years. The existing paint was peeling and a lot of bare timber had been exposed and as a result some areas had visibly become rotten.
Before we arrived to view and assess the painting work the owners had received a quote from a joinery company in Chelmsford to install four replacement sash windows where the rot was most evident. A rather scary figure of £15,000.00! We advised that the windows be stripped in their entirety back to bare wood and our painters and decorators to apply a new micro porous paint system; a micro porous paint system allows the timber to breathe and moisture can evaporate through the paint film rather than blistering or peeling as the timber dries in the sun. We also said we would take a look at the rotten windows to see if we could repair them.
After being selected against two comparative quotes from other Decorators in Essex, our Painters and Decorators began the external works at the beginning of May. The first job at hand was to strip all the joinery back to bare timber to see what we were really dealing with and we set about them with heat guns, power sanders, shaving hooks and sandpaper. Nitro Mors and VOC2010 compliant stripping agents were completely ineffective against the existing paint!
After a few days of cursing and bruised knuckles the doors and windows were completely bare and the extent of the rot became clear; whole sections of windows and sills were decayed and dozens of glazing beads were completely rotted or were missing altogether. We replaced all the rotten beads and then routered out all of the decayed timber on the joinery back to a sound surface. We then rebuilt the damaged joinery using the Repair Care 16 system supplied from Brewers in Chelmsford. This elastic repair compound, formerly known as Window Care, allows the professional painter and decorator to repair exterior joinery at a fraction of the cost of replacement. In all, the remedial works totalled up to under £500.00, a shade cheaper than the £15k quoted for the replacement sash windows! For more info on the Repair Care system please visit our Joinery Repairs page.
Once the remedial and repair work to this property in Chelmsford was complete and the imperfections in the timber made good, it was time to begin priming the bare timber, in this case we used Sadolin Classic; this is an oil based, low build, micro porous woodstain. We added some white colourant to the paint to make it easier to cover with subsequent coats of white paint. The topcoat we selected for the joinery was Sadolin Superdec; this is a highly flexible, micro porous, acrylic hybrid satin finish paint that is virtually bomb proof! Superdec is self-priming but, when using light colours such as white, water stains in the timber can bleed through, however an oil based primer coat such as Sadolin Classic should effectively seal the stains and provide the perfect base for Superdec.
After the primer had been applied our painters and decorators in Chelmsford rubbed everything down again using a fine grade sandpaper and made good to all the gaps, cracks and imperfections on the windows and doors with decorators caulk. We then sealed all the gaps between the glazing and beads using acrylic frame sealant and applied three coats of Superdec to all the exterior joinery.
The impressive double front door was prepared and spot primed. Our Painters and Decorators then applied one primer coat followed by three full coats of Sikkens Rubbol XD gloss, carefully flatting between coats using a very fine wet and dry sandpaper; wet and dry is great for giving a glass like gloss finish and we think the extra work put into using it is definitely worth the great results it provides.
This property in Chelmsford, despite the terrible weather at the time, was completed in just over three weeks.
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