How long should we wait before sealing, coating or painting our new redwood fence?
Some sap is now emerging from a couple of boards and posts.
We’ve had fence and paint people tell us to seal it immediately, wait 4 to 6 weeks to seal, and to wait 4 to 6 months to seal.
We’re leaning toward a applying a semi-transparent stain.
5 Responses
emaleariel
25 Feb 2010
Bill P
25 Feb 2010
Wait 4-6 weeks and don’t stain with a semitransparent stain. Redwood already has color.
Paul in San Dieg
25 Feb 2010
Yeah, wait at least a coupla-few weeks. Redwood is pretty wet when you buy it at the lumberyard and, if you seal it right away, it won’t dry out properly.
W. C.
25 Feb 2010
You can do any of the above, however, I would go ahead and do it using a clear, penetrating oil based treatment/sealer like CWF.
If you used redwood for it’s appearance, don’t paint it.
You can use a small, inexpensive garden sprayer to apply the sealer…saves a whole lot of brushing.
Good luck…
Stephen Colbert
25 Feb 2010
I don’t think that you should wait.
I waited about a month to stain my redwood porch/deck. Although redwood is pretty naturally, I wanted a darker, more red/brown color to go with my house paint color. I was told that I could wait longer than that, but remember the bad weather is coming, so you want to have it done before the rains come. I had sap coming out for EVER it seemed like, mostly on the 4×4’s used for bracing, & it will come right out through the stain. I used Behr semi transparent stain, but was not really that happy with it, I have to find out what my neighbor used, it turned out really nicely. But so did mine, lol. Good luck!