Restoration of wood on old houses (hardwood floors, how much, roof, engineered)

[Woody009]

Restoration of wood on old houses


Hello. I’m Woody. I have reached that time in my life when it’s important to tell others how I do what I do. I’m a Master Restorer of historic wood buildings. Those Painted Ladies you see, all gilt and gingerbread, some of those are mine. I think all these old houses are works of art, and it is possible to make their beauty visible and to preserve them for the future. Even a simple, classic Craftsman house is worth attention. All exterior wood eventually develops a little rot. If you catch it in time and deal with it properly, the wood then holds paint which protects the underlying wood, and the combination resists further deterioration. I’d like to tell you what I have learned about the new wood restoration technology that has been developed since the early seventies, and how I apply it. Any homeowner can do what I do; it’s not rocket science. It’s just a matter of using products that really work, and following the manufacturer’s instructions.

The first thing to do is to remove old paint, dirt and debris from the surface. Small flakes of paint left in crevices are usually okay. A hot-air-gun-paint-stripper or sanding or scraping is preferable to chemical strippers. Residue of some chemical strippers can be left in the wood, may attack other materials applied later, and can destroy the adhesion of a new coat of paint. There are a couple of chemical strippers that won’t get you in trouble but others may. I might get into that in another post. I’m trying to keep this post to the restoration of wood.

The wood should not be waterlogged, but must be allowed to dry before restoration begins. Now, the Federal government is all in favor of restoration: Preservation Briefs #16 specifically acknowledges the value of substitute materials in preserving the historic fabric.

I’ll tell you something else: Hundred-year-old wood, even half-rotten, restored with a penetrating epoxy product, will give a far longer-lasting, far more durable result than a replacement part made with the low-quality fast-grown wood that you get today. That’s another reason to restore the old wood. Now, here’s how to start this work:

Remove whatever wood is so rotten that it can be removed easily by hand. The wood that remains is the restorable wood. What I mean by “restorable” is wood that can be returned to its original shape and adequate mechanical strength such that it can hold its location on the building, resist wind-forces and accept paint. A wire brush can easily remove the really loose debris, and doing the work by hand allows you to exercise some judgment in what you remove and what you leave.

You would be surprised what is restorable. If it hasn’t turned to powder and developed cross-grain cracks, there’s usually enough of the wood fiber content remaining. The restoration impregnation glues those remaining fibers back together. It is therefore vital that the impregnating resin be flexible. The wood will still want to expand and contract, and if you soak it with some hard-as-a-rock epoxy product, you will have cracking and more failures in the years to come.

You can test this for yourself, if the manufacturer doesn’t give clear information. Get some of those cedar or fir wedge-shaped shims that carpenters use. Treat one, let it cure, then see if the treated one bends about the same as the untreated wood.

This overall restoration uses a very runny impregnating material, and then a paste or gel epoxy filler. The process starts with wood impregnation, and the filler comes later. Some of these materials also make really great primers, to glue the finish paints to the wood. You can easily find the products you need on the Internet, with a few appropriate words put into any of the search engines.

Begin the impregnation process, and follow the manufacturer’s instructions. I cannot say this enough times. There are many products of this type, and the manufacturer’s all say different things about how to use their products. Do whatever they say. If you don’t like the result, then don’t use that one anymore. The ones I like run like water, literally. Those soak the fastest into the old wood, and penetrate fully everywhere.

It is important, with ANY product, to not let the wood get wet with rain or dew during the restoration process. Water can interfere with the cure of all of these materials, and water-saturated wood will not allow good adhesion of the restoration materials. Some of these have solvents designed to dissolve the water in the wood and displace it. This is part of their restoration chemistry. If you put excess water in the wood, you interfere with the engineered performance of the material and then you may see sticky white areas. That’s not good. A few days in the hot sun and it may dry out, cure and turn clear. It may never clear up, and then you will have to remove the mess with lacquer thinner and a stiff bristle brush. Best to plan your work around the weather forecasts, and cover freshly-applied material with plastic drapes at night when the weather is uncertain.

Epoxy restoration products in my experience are water-resistant when fully cured; it is only in the uncured state that they are vulnerable. Some are better than others. Take particularly the solvent-free impregnating liquids, or any of the fillers: Mix up some, let it cure and then put it in a covered jar of water for a month. See if it swells or turns milky-white...that would be a bad sign. No change is a good sign.

If your impregnating material contains solvents, you must allow sufficient time for solvent evaporation before proceeding with the restoration process. For wood that was basically sound and did not absorb much, overnight is usually sufficient. For badly deteriorated wood which absorbed perhaps ten percent or more by volume, at least a few days in 70° F weather should be allowed to pass before applying the filler. If you are using solvent-free products you can go right from the impregnant to the filler. That’s the next step in the wood-restoration process: Replacing the missing portion of wood with an epoxy filler.

It should not be necessary to sand the first cured epoxy surface before applying a second epoxy product. That doesn’t mean everything sticks without sanding: Quite the contrary. That means you should not use products that you need to sand to get adhesion. There are some epoxy products that you have to sand so another application will stick; the manufacturer even says so. Don’t use those. You will always have situations where someone missed some area, and then some part does not stick. Sanding is extra labor, and entirely unnecessary. There are products properly formulated so that sanding is not needed to get things to stick. You can find these kind of products easily on the Internet.

There’s something you need to be careful of: Some products may have a hardener that has a black-diamond “Corrosive” label. Don’t use those, or anything that contains phenol, also known as hydroxybenzene. That is really nasty stuff. You can read the MSDS sheets to see what hazardous ingredients are in these products. Some are fine; just wear gloves and be neat when you work. Getting back to solvents, if the product contains any, those solvents MUST be allowed to evaporate out of the wood before applying the filler. That may take a day or a week or something in between, depending on the weather. Again, follow the manufacturer’s instructions. Now, let’s fill the places where the wood is gone. Have your application tools ready. If you need another spatula, putty-knife, squeegee or piece of 4-mil plastic sheet in the middle of the application process, your gloved hands are sticky with goo and the clock is ticking because you already mixed a batch, that’s not the time to go looking for anything.

Estimate the volume of filler needed to replace the missing wood. If you have not done this before, mix a much smaller amount the first time. Mix thoroughly with a wide putty knife, paint scraper or squeegee. Use a smear-scrape-fold, smear-scrape-fold mixing technique, scraping off the tool occasionally to ensure thorough mixing. No two-part product will cure properly unless it is thoroughly mixed. Once mixing begins, you have some working time. The manufacturer calls this the “pot life”, or “working time” This will be longer in cold weather, shorter in warm weather. Mix only small amounts until you determine the quantity that can be used effectively, without waste, in your particular conditions.

Fill all cracks, holes, depressions as well as missing portions of wood with the mixed filler. For best adhesion a small quantity of the mixed filler should be smeared inside the cracks, against the walls, and against all the surfaces with enough force that the filler actually wets the surface. Then add enough additional filler and smooth it out so that when cured, the epoxy/wood may be sanded back to its original dimensions.

It may be helpful to place a new piece of clear, 4 mil polyethylene film after filler application, and squeegee through the plastic so as to obtain a smooth surface. The plastic film should be left in place; it will release easily when the filler has cured, and protects the fresh filler in case there is unexpected wet weather.

An epoxy filler may be cured enough to be sanded without gumming up the sandpaper, the next day. These products develop a full chemical cure in a few days, typically. When cured, they may be shaped just as wood; by sanding, carving, or tooling with a wood rasp or other similar tools. With a pilot hole drilled, you should be able to run in wood screws.

There you are. After sanding you are ready to paint, with whatever priming/painting procedure you use. That piece of wood is Restored.

Woody

[Cosmic]

Be nice to see some pixs of some of the things you have done.

I can appreciate what you say about the problems in Victorians and historial houses. I always passed the chance to work on most of them for various reasons. The part about the "Modern Wood" is so true. Just can not use it on those type houses. Number of them in my neck of the woods and I have been "Invited to Help" but so far have manage to decline the offers.

Will have to file your post for future reference. Thanks for the time and effort in sharing.

Any real world experience in how long those type repairs last, if there is failures, why do they occur. I suppose it is like most things with those type houses, nothing is fast or cheap.

[Woody009]

Apologies for taking so long to reply: I am not good with pictures and computers, so had to get some help with this.

You ask how long repairs last...I think of it as restoration, but basically we are talking about the same thing. I don't know how long they last.
I have yet to see anything I did, fail, except in a few small places where I must have missed something. I have gone back and looked at the work I did five, ten, fifteen years later, and 98% of the houses are perfect. Once in a while I find a little spot where the paint is peeling, for some reason, I don't know. I let the owner know, and fix it. No charge.

I stand behind my work, and with this modern wood-restoration technology, it's easy to do.





Woody

[World Citizen]

Thank you for sharing from your wealth of experience. Where were you a few years ago when I was undertaking my 1895 beauty? I still miss my old house!

I hope you continue to post....

BTW - Can you give a quick overview about using heat gun strippers? and, maybe which ones works best?

I hate chemicals and I'm glad you recommended staying away from them.

[Historic Bessemer]

It's nice to see that someone else is interested in restoring old homes. Ours is 108 yrs old and in good shape. Although we have bad wood in the front porch room and eves, the rest of the house is in great shape.

Also, the lady who renovated the house in 1996 painted all the old wood trim and mantles white!!!!!!!!!!! I just stripped the mantle in the foyer and will stain it this weekend. I don't know if I will ever have the time to do the same to the trim...........she painted it ALL!

Here are a few pix..............

Foyer mantle before....


After she painted.........



Front porch roof...........




all the previous owners had to do was walk out the upper front door, bend down and scoop the leaves from te gutters...........they didn't and it rotted the roof out!

[World Citizen]

Love your house, too, Historic B.

Mine still had radiators. I looked hard for another house with radiator heat. It really is efficient. I loved my radiators.

Too bad about your trim being painted but it's still the wide, heavy, beautiful original trim that you can't find anywhere else. I wonder if the previous owner stripped the trim or just painted over the shellac? (I'm assuming that it's shellac) I'm getting more and more intrigued by heat guns and other heat methods of stripping.

Old houses have so much more character and charm. The hardwood floors... real wood. When you work on them, you always have something worth the effort in the end!

My house didn't have a fireplace. I love your mantle!

[Historic Bessemer]

Originally Posted by World Citizen

Love your house, too, Historic B.

Mine still had radiators. I looked hard for another house with radiator heat. It really is efficient. I loved my radiators.

Too bad about your trim being painted but it's still the wide, heavy, beautiful original trim that you can't find anywhere else. I wonder if the previous owner stripped the trim or just painted over the shellac? (I'm assuming that it's shellac) I'm getting more and more intrigued by heat guns and other heat methods of stripping.

Old houses have so much more character and charm. The hardwood floors... real wood. When you work on them, you always have something worth the effort in the end!

My house didn't have a fireplace. I love your mantle!

If we uncovered all of them and finished the basement, our home would have 16 fireplaces. Can you imagine how much work the servant had to do in the winter keeping coal in all of them?

[World Citizen]

Wow. I love fireplaces. 16 fireplaces? Never saw that.

Many years ago I worked as a temporary laborer with a group who were restoring a house that had two seperate kitchens (huge) -- a walk in meat cooler with hooks... It had so many bedrooms - I don't remember.

It was an old mansion that was being restored. Amazing house.

[jpoblete77]

Does anyone know what the most common hardwood was used for flooring back in the 50s?

[arrow2fast]

Hi

we have a house in France which has dozens of oak windows from the end of 19 century.
they are not rotten but the sills developed small cracks parallel to the fibers - simply weathered by beating sun and rain.
You very diplomatically do not recommend any particular product and we really cannot experiment on these windows (like trial and error) - they are HUGE and pain in neck to handle.

I tried to research the penetrating low viscosity epoxies etc and everybody has a different opinion..
what product do you recommend for penetration?
what product do you recommend for filling.

We will be using alkyd based (oil) primer and oil industrial paint, both high quality from Sherwin Williams.
but I am stumped on the preparation.
Please share

Joanna in Burgundy