DECKED OUT IN THE COLD
It’s not too late to protect wood
Q What can I use to finish my new wooden deck now? Is it too late for this year?
A Yes, it’s too late for most deckfinishing products, but maybe not all, depending on where you live in Canada.
One of my favourite outdoor wood finishes is Ecowood Treatment, and since this product doesn’t work by solvent evaporation, it doesn’t need good drying weather like most deck finishes do. It’s a water-soluble powder that turns bare wood darker by chemical reaction.
I’ve used it successfully on all kinds of outdoor wood. In your case, choose a dry day that’s above freezing, but other than that this stuff is quite forgiving.
The full darkening effect probably won’t develop until spring, but the end result will be the same. You’ll get a rich, even, weathered kind of grey-brown surface that never needs to be refinished.
Q Can I use electric in-floor heating underneath finished floors that aren’t ceramic or porcelain tiles?
A Some in-floor electric heating cable systems can work well underneath laminates and other thin-profile wood-type flooring,
though not all manufacturers recommend their products for non-ceramic applications.
Before you give up on ceramic tiles though, you should know that they deliver the best performance of all the options laid over in-floor heating. Ceramic tiles conduct heat to your feet much more readily than anything else, and you’ll feel a huge differences the moment you walk on the floors.
Q How can I strip paint faster? I’m removing varnish from baseboards, window trim and door frames in a room of our 130-year-old house. It’s way too slow.
A Stripping paint is never quick when you want to do a good job, and the more curved surfaces there are, the slower the work.
That’s why choosing the right scraping tools can make a difference. You won’t find curved scrapers for rounded surfaces in most hardware stores, but I buy mine from specialty woodworking supply outlets such as Lee Valley Tools.
You’ll also find that the right stripping chemicals make a big difference. Safer strippers these days are made of citrus solvents and soybean extracts, and though they work more slowly than traditional methylene chloride strippers, they do keep working for many hours. They’re also healthier for you. Brush some on, let it sit for hours, then scrape off the softened goo.
When stripping old painted surfaces like yours, protect yourself against lead contamination.
Wear gloves, a respirator and disposable coveralls, and carefully collect the stripped goo and dispose of it as toxic waste.
Q Can I install new fibreglass shingles over old organic shingles? There’s just one layer on my roof now and I don’t want to spend more money than I have to on this house.
A Yes, you can install new shingles over one layer of old ones, regardless of whether the new shingles are fibreglass. The
results won’t last quite as long as stripping back to bare wood and shingling again, but there is a trick to making things work almost as well.
Contrary to what you might imagine, fibreglass shingles look almost exactly like regular organic asphalt shingles and they’re just as flexible.
The difference is the fibreglass mat that the shingles are based on. They hold up better under heat than the paper base of organic shingles.
The trick to a long-lasting overshingling job is to match the width of new shingles that’s exposed to the weather so they have the same exposure as the width of the old shingles. Nestle the new shingles into the contours of the old ones, without spanning the steppedbetween courses of old shingles and you’ll get the longest possible shingle life.