What causes most sealers to fail?
Most premature finish failures are caused by three problems: • Wood is too wet. Most people including contractors never check the moisture content of the wood. So they let a couple of days go by and slap the stain on. There is no way of knowing how wet the wood is without checking it with a moisture meter. All wood has to be at least at a 15% moisture content or lower. • Improper preparation. All manufactures require wood to be clean, DRY, bare and properly neutralized before applying any type oil- based sealer. • Poor quality sealer. Over the counter stains will not hold up to the harsh elements day after day. On vertical surfaces they will do OK. But on horizontal surfaces they just don’t have the penetrating qualities needed to hold up.
