My cedar siding is peeling really badly after just a few years. What went wrong and how do I fix it?

Premature peeling on cedar siding is one of the most common exterior painting problems in Metro Vancouver, and it almost always comes down to moisture. Our marine climate pushes moisture into wood from both sides: rain hits the exterior while interior humidity migrates outward through the walls. If the previous painter didn't address moisture management, even the best paint will fail within two to four years.

The most likely culprits are insufficient prep work before the last paint job, lack of a quality primer on bare cedar, painting over damp wood, or poor ventilation behind the siding. Cedar contains natural tannins and oils that can bleed through paint and break the bond if the wood wasn't properly primed with a stain-blocking primer first.

To fix it properly, a painter needs to scrape and sand all loose and peeling areas back to solid wood. Any areas with rot or soft spots should be replaced or consolidated with wood hardener. The bare cedar then needs a high-quality alkyd or shellac-based stain-blocking primer before two coats of 100 percent acrylic latex exterior paint. The acrylic latex is important for Vancouver because it stays flexible and breathes, allowing trapped moisture to escape rather than blistering.

You should also check that your bathroom and kitchen exhaust fans vent to the outside, not into the attic or wall cavities, and that your attic and wall assemblies have adequate vapour barriers as required by the BC Building Code.

Have a painter inspect the siding and identify the root moisture source before committing to a repaint, otherwise you'll be in the same situation in a few years.

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