If there is natural wood in one form or another around the exterior of your home, at some point in time you may have wondered, “What is the best way to go about making sure it is protected from moisture damage?”
Perhaps you are one of those folks that is ultra-diligent and uber-protective of your home’s exterior and are always looking for ways to help protect it and make it better.
Or maybe you are one of those folks who really does not think about the exterior of your home, except every 10 years or so when you just happen to randomly think one day, “I should probably be doing something to keep up with the exterior of my home so it does not rot away on me!”
Or you could be anywhere in between these two examples.
Whatever best describes your approach to the exterior, the truth is something probably needs to be done at some point to protect it in some regard.
The exterior of many of our homes is painted or protected with some type of wood toning/pigmented stain.
In many cases though,
folks have a good amount of natural wood exposed.
This natural wood could be in the form of siding or trim or maybe your deck is left in its natural wood state.
In the cases where these types of products are left to “weather”, they are typically “ok” without any type of product applied to them.
In fact, some people NEVER apply any product to these natural wood surfaces and the surfaces actually perform fine over the course of time.
Seldom do these areas (whether they be cedar shingle siding or some type of pressure treated/hardwood decking) truly “rot” out even without any treatment to them.
If this is the case, then why should someone think about applying a water protectant to these types of natural wood surfaces if they would not rot out even if a treatment were not done?
Although these areas may not ever technically completely “rot” out on you, there is a ton of other types of damage and unsightliness that can be avoided if the wood is properly protected.
If the wood is guarded as best as possible against moisture, it will help ward off cracking, splitting, warping, and even help to lessen mildew and mold issues.
With this being said, there are a TON of waterproofing solutions on the market.
I believe they all work in varying degrees.
Over time, we have developed a system that is as solid that one will find for helping to protect wood from the damaging effects of long term on & off moisture exposure.
The first thing we do is clean the wood.
After cleaning it, we apply a product that is called C2 Guard for Wood.
This is a clear solution (that goes on with a milky appearance and dries to an invisible coating) that should be applied with 2 coats, wet-on-damp (basically you chase the 1st coat with a 2nd coat right after it appears that the 1st coat has absorbed into the wood).
This C2 Guard product penetrates deeper into the wood than any other product I have ever come across on the market, it forms a flexible polymer barrier and amazingly becomes part of the wood’s cellular structure itself.
After this has dried,
we apply 1 coat of Wolman Raincoat Acrylic Clear
(which, again, goes on with a milky appearance and dries to an invisible coating), although not penetrating as deep as the C2 Guard, it is the perfect complement to the C2 Guard application as its qualities allow for a repellant to be formed on the surface of the wood, causing a barrier that forces water to “bead up” as it hits the surface.
Both of these products are excellent at aiding in the stunting of mildew and mold growth as well as the overall protection of the wood surfaces they are applied to.
The way the wood appears after it has dried after being washed, is the way the wood will appear after both products are applied.
In fact, if someone does not,
literally, watch us apply the product,
they may not even believe that we had applied the treatment!!
This system can be utilized in the protection of both vertical and horizontal wood surfaces.
Horizontal surfaces may require treatment a little more often as this protection may wear out sooner on areas that are exposed to sitting water, foot traffic, etc.
Whether it is the system I reviewed that we have utilized with tremendous success or an alternative system, it is SUPER important to make sure that any type of natural wood siding or deck surface is secured against water damage in some capacity!
-Tom
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