Looking for help. 3 years ago I painted a house, a repaint latex over latex. Looked great The homeowners loved me and paid me. 6 months later their house began to take on a reddish stain. After agreeing somthing was going on a chemist from the paint manu. came and tested and said that due to excessive nitrogen in the atmosphere for whatever reason, a reaction ocurred. Apparantlly there was a REMEDY !! I washed the house with oxalic acid solution and all looked fine ……. for a few, to several months. Last summer I took another Sunday and washed the house again. Same story. Clean and nice. Last night I received a call again from the folks.
The one part of the job I did not do was to wash the house as the homeowner had done that. At this point the home owners dont any more free acid wash on their home. They fault the paint maker with no evidence but are calling on me for action. I just do not know what is going on and do not to waste good energy time talent money et cet on this mystery. Is it time to call an attorney or what?
Replies
Time to go back to the Manufacturer. Paper trail will help you. Document your time involved and actions, give them the name of the HO to speak with to back up your case. Start with the assumption that they'll be agreeable since their rep was there already and should also have some documentation. If you have to fight, then fight, but experience tells me start with playing nice nice in any dispute, then exhaust all of your non litigious options before taking the time, energy, and $ for court. My last big stink I got nothing out of talking, I got nothing out of mild threats of possible action, out of letters, out of the BBB. The OSHA complaint I filed got someones attention and we came to an agreement before it went into litigation. That was all free, save for the time it took to fill out the forms.
"The child is grown / The dream is gone / And I have become / Comfortably numb " lyrics by Roger Waters
If excessive atmospheric nitrogen is the cause, then you owe the clients nothing. I've personally never heard that one, so I'll label it dubious although I guess it's possible if something nearby(factory?) is emitting the stuff. Nonetheless, that's the diagnosis from the "pro".
Even if it isn't excessive atmospheric nitrogen, it sounds like the cause may well be something that was always beyond your control.
You've been a nice guy to do what you've done so far, but remember the old adage..........Why buy a cow when the milk's so cheap?
And on that note.......I'm sure they're still more than willingly to spend a few minutes on the phone with you in an attempt to get yet another free wash job. If they've already said that they fault the paint manufacturer, then why are they still calling you except that you've been compliant.
I'd tell them that the time has come for the responsible party to shoulder the remedy and that means you're bowing out of the situation. You should have no need of an attorney because you're not responsible for the problem......and they've evidently said as much....and so did the guy from the paint company.
where exactly, on the siding, is reddish stain appearing? What about the nail heads? What part of the country?
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Just to prove that I like a good mystery, I'll assume that we're looking for the source of the nitrogen to put an end to the supposed reaction that's causing this discoloration.
One of the same questions that Barry asked may come into play. Realizing that I may be grasping here............do these folks use one of the lawn care services that sprays liquid fertilizer onto the lawn on a scheduled basis? If that could be the source, I'd suspect that the discoloration should graduate the higher up you go on the siding.
Follow the nitrogen. <g> good thought. I was wondering if this was farm country or something.
Another ? to Thrive...how close is the siding to the ground? How do they water the yard?
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Barry E
Thank you and others for your thoughts. The house is located near a park which may have been fertilized as well as any of the other houses in the seattle neighborhood. The homeowners do dog grooming in their basement and send the animals out back after event... The discoloration only appears on siding, no trim thank you Jesus. The siding is a plywood type product + or -25 yrs. old made to look almost stucco ish. I have only been in business for myself 7 yrs. and worked for others prior but have not before or since seen this stuff. The discoloring is more pronounced higher up but is fairly even. My guts say there was somthing underlying but I dont know and have not been looking for an easy way out. I dont want to give it away but from the homeowners point of view its a bummer...
Thrive,
FWIW.... Now I'm very suspicious of the plywood product. Plywood, like many other composite boards, is known for it's propensity to discolor top coats and the use of stain-killing primers is pretty much standard practice prior to painting. And I've seen situations where the use of these primers will only hold back the discoloration for a limited period of time.
To the best of my knowledge, the source of this discoloration is basically the same as it is for non-archival papers.........the material (adhesives included) contains free acids. The more contained free acids, the bigger the problem. That old plywood product may now be releasing great amounts of free acids as it deteriorates, perhaps to the extent that no primer or sealer (short of a coat of aluminum paint) will be able to resist it's passage for long.
As I recall, the phenomenon of discoloration on old photos and prints due to this cause is known as "foxing".
Knowledge is power, but only if applied in a timely fashion.
Thank you for your analylsis. I'm unsure where this leaves me legallyand ethicly. In my view the homeowner had washed the house and said that we were ready to go and so I painted as agreed. There were no other problems and the job has been scrutinized by several different parties. I guess if the owner had said its okay to rebuild a deck using the old joists and I had the opportunity to see/disvover rot or other problems and had proceeded regardless, I would have failed in due diligence but I feel like I had no such opportunity. Any thoughts?
"In my view the homeowner had washed the house and said that we were
ready to go and so I painted as agreed."
I guess I'd agree with that. Stuff happens and not all is predictable. That's a fact it would seem. And IF (that's a big IF) it is free acids causing the problem........the only sure way to know in advance would be to have taken tests to determine the prescence of it. $$$ This just isn't normally done for the average home paint job. Not around here anyway.
I've got a feeling that even if you had suspected the possible prescence of such a problem and suggested that you first prime the surface with an appropriate sealer, you would have been suspected of wanting to "milk" the job. Since it sounds as if they were into saving a bit on the job by "prepping" themselves, I think it safe to assume that they would have likely declined to pay for the "just in case" priming/sealing.
I feel your pain, so to speak, and admire your willingness to absorb resopnsibility if it is truly yours, but I don't think it is........or would have been when they declined the precautionary priming.
Perhaps the easiest thing to do for everyone involved, under the circumstances, is to let them contimue to think that the paint manufacturer is at fault. They'll simply have to wash the house down when necessary. That isn't cataclysmic in the grand scheme of things. Maybe the excercise will actually benefit their health or provide a job for someone who needs the money. :-)
Knowledge is power, but only if applied in a timely fashion.
Thanks again I reckon its time to walk that lonesome valley of " I've done the best I can " and move on .
I am not buying the free nitrogen contamination, like you said, the trim isn't stained. Also, you might want to ask the homeowners what prompted them to wash the house before you painted. Was there evidence of staining? Same pattern of staining? What product did they use to clean, and how?
This sounds like extractive bleeding, and the "cure" is an alkyd primer/sealer, and topcoat with a latex.
Sleep well, you are just being taken for a ride. Your work is very unlikey to be defective.
Did you see any evidence of the discoloration before you started painting? If not and you painted to industry standards, you would be fine, though I would be leery taking the owners word that the surface is prepped properly.
If what you painted is the stucco-board that is a hardboard or "masonite type" product, you may be looking at wax bleeding. And the cure would be as 1/4mg recommended, top quality primer, with the exception of 2 topcoats instead of one.
But as far as what you have told us, this shouldn't fall on you.
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Barry E
I have never seen the problem in 35 yrs doing it. I do know that its going to take oil paint to fix it and only that. Dont let this be a big problem as it can be fixed with one coat of oil over the house at this point. Thats not enough for a lawyer. Sometimes we have to spend money to defend even though its bogus. I also think you are getting the raw end except you covered it and in some applications thats enough for liability.
Tim Mooney
B.S. ALERT! B.S. ALERT! B.S. ALERT!
Some one needs to do some more research on this. Do you have any written statements from the paint company as to the problem.
As you can see Nitrogen is 78% of the atmosphere. If it was drastically different we would be dead.
Now it might have been a problem with nitrous oxides or there might have been some nitrogen component that had been deposited on the plywood.
BUT NOT ATMOSPHERIC NITROGEN.
You are the home owners might want to contact the Paint Trades association. http://www.paint.org/index.htm
Also do a google on - university reseach programs paint - (or coatings). A number of them have reseach programs and see if you state univerity has one and check with them.
Component Percent/Parts per million (ppm)
Nitrogen (N2) 78.08 percent
Oxygen (O2) 20.95 percent
Argon (A) 0.93 percent
Carbon Dioxide (CO2) 0.03 percent
Neon (Ne) 18.18 ppm
Helium (He) 5.25 ppm
Methane (CH4) 2 ppm
Krypton (Kr) 1.14 ppm
Nitrous oxide (N2O) 0.5 ppm
Hydrogen (H2) 0.5 ppm
Xenon (Xe) 0.087 ppm
Ozone (O3) 0 to 0.07 ppm (variable)
Sulfur dioxide (SO2) 0 to 1 ppm
Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) 0 to 0.02 ppm
Iodine (I2) trace amounts
Sodium chloride trace amounts
Ammonia (NH3) 0 to trace amounts
Carbon monoxide (CO) 0 to trace amounts
Again, this is where posting a pic helps. BTW, we use dry nitrogen to keep resins and the like from reacting with anything in the air. Most mfr's recommend displacing air with it. It's pretty darn inert (compared to everything else in the air). Personally I think you are being jacked around, but...
Jon