Cleaning Painted Wood Before Repainting

Painting over cracked paint is a bad idea.

Cleaning painted wood before repainting.

In general it s not great idea to use water on your painted wood so dust frequently to keep from having to deep clean more than necessary. Time is of the essence. You can then sand the entire surface to give it a more textured surface that your paint will easily stick to. When the wood is clean and smooth use a latex based primer especially made for exteriors to prepare the surface for a new coat of paint.

Here s how to take on the task. Paint cracking on walls and ceilings happens due to a variety of causes one of the most common being poor preparation of a surface prior to painting. If you have an oil based paint on your wood then i d clean them with tsp if you intend to repaint that wood. There are ways to safely clean your house before painting using a pressure washer including using lower psi pressure washers widening the spray and standing at least two feet back.

This is also a good time to scrape any old flaking paint off and to sand down old paint lines. Before painting apply primer to the old wood surface whether it is indoors or out. You want the absolute best adhesion surface for your paint. Painted wood takes a little extra care to clean but that doesn t mean it s impossible.

It is important to remove any flakes from the surface via sanding or scraping before repainting. Painting season may be waning and you need to paint sooner rather than later. But there is no point whatever in cleaning bare wood with tsp or latex painted wood with tsp. But as long as you don t use water.

If there are creases or hard to reach small places on your wooden surfaces use a small scrub brush or toothbrush to clean it.