Rust Showing Through Siding: How to Cover

LESLIE: Brian in Washington, you’ve got The Money Pit. How can we help you today?

BRIAN: Last summer, I repainted the exterior of my house and I used quite a few nails to kind of shore up some different things. I also fixed a window. And after I repainted, I used galvanized nails. But this year, I already have a lot of bleeding of rust from the nails coming through. So I also did some caulking between the pieces of wood and that seems to be peeling out already. So I was just wondering if there was something that I could, you know, go over the heads of the nails with: something quick, something that I didn’t have to redo the whole side of the house.

TOM: When you did the side of the house last summer, did you prime it or did you just put the paint over the old paint?

BRIAN: I put lots of primer.

TOM: Lots of primer?

BRIAN: Yeah.

TOM: What kind of primer? Like a – was it a latex primer? Oil primer? What was it?

BRIAN: Gosh, I don’t know that. I didn’t buy the paint but we put a …

TOM: But you did prime. You primed over those nail heads?

BRIAN: Yes, we did. Yes.

TOM: And it’s coming through. Because, generally – well, you say you used galvanized, so that’s good. Was this cedar siding?

BRIAN: No. It’s just conventional (inaudible at 0:21:08).

TOM: Standard. Well, unfortunately, it seems like the nails – the galvanized coating on the nails – didn’t really stand up very well. But generally, the advice is this: when you finish nailing off that, you need to spot-prime those nail heads. But if you’re telling me you’ve already spot-primed them and the stain’s coming right through, then I’m not really sure that we have any other suggestions for you.

There are differences in the quality of primers. I always recommend an oil-based primer over a latex primer when I have a stain issue to deal with, because it tends to seal it in better. So, that’s the only additional thing you might want to try is to sand those down to the heads and then touch them up with an oil-based primer and paint them again.

BRIAN: Alright. Well, I guess that answered my question.