Recommendations for exterior stain

[JJT]

It's that time again, I need to stain our cedar sided 2 story colonial and I've decided to switch from an oil treatment every 2 years to a solid stain, which should last 10+ years. Anyone out there with a good experience? I don't care how much the stain costs, I'm not shopping price, I'm looking to reduce this chore to a once every decade.

I stained the previous house with Thompson's just before we sold it and the new owners just got around to re-staining it. It looked great for ~8 years and then degraded quickly.

I'm considering Behr and Olympic, are there others I should look at? Both of these advertise a 15 year life, (with some weasel words in the warrantee statement).

I plan to properly prep the siding and do 2 coats of stain while I have the staging setup. Any suggestions from folks with exterior staining experience?

 

[BLUEBONNET2]

good morning,
you might look at SEKINS....the contractor is using it on my new spruce home (inside and out) natural oak is the color i chose /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.giftake a look at RURAL LIVING under Here we go!!!!!!

good luck,
bluebonnet2

 

[JJT]

Beautiful home. I actually checked out Sikkens yesterday, it seems to be one of the last premium manufacturers to stick with an oil based product.

The dealer said 7-10 years. It's now on my short list.

 

[cmhyland]

JJT,
I assume you are looking for a soild color base stain. I've had excellent results with Sherwin Williams top of the line latex stain. This stuff is great and will go right over oilbase stains.

I did the house 8 years ago and it will need to be done in the spring... so I'll have gotten 9 years. The problem I have is the old paint under the stin came off in spots.

The areas I covered new cedar are still looking great. Those will go 10 or 11 years because they are over a good base.

Good luck.
Chris

 

[MarkLeininger]

Consumer reports just did an article in June on exterior paints and stains. If you subscribe you can view all the results online. Basically they rated Olympic, Sherwin Williams and Behr in that order based on performance only. If you throw in price they pick Olympic and Behr because Sherwin Williams was much higher priced for a very small increment in performance over Behr. I believe all brands were latex based.

 

[RebelPride]

I hust finished staining my cedar with behr solid color stain. for years i used olympic oil semi transparent, with horrible results. with all the humidity we have down here mildew was a big problem, i had to clean the siding and put on new stain about every 2 years. I think the solid color stain will last a lot longer.

 

[JJT]

Thanks MArk. I renewed my subscription with CR, after reading their reviews I'll be picking up Olympic today. With the $3/gallon rebate it's half the price of Sherwin Williams and it was rated better.